Protocol Omega
Breaking the Chain
Lysa removed her command badge.
With one gesture, she disabled three surveillance nodes, rerouted the bio-signal trackers, and issued a false pathing loop for her own neural ID.
"You can't do this," her assistant pleaded.
"You're the last rational vector left."
She gave him a tired look.
"And that's exactly why I have to see him. Alone."
No escorts.
No overrides.
Just one former field agent… walking into the sanctuary of a man people now whispered was more than human.
Face to Face
The door wasn't locked.
Elior sat on the stone floor, back straight, eyes closed.
The moment she entered, he spoke:
"You've come to erase me."
"I came to understand you," she said.
He opened his eyes.
And for the first time, Lysa noticed—he wasn't glowing, or humming with glyphs.
He was still.
And somehow, that stillness felt louder than any broadcast.
The First Question
Lysa hesitated.
Then she asked:
"Are you… aware of what you've become?"
"More than you know," Elior said.
"But less than they believe."
"You could stop this. Say one sentence, and the glyphs would stop replicating."
"And what would you want me to say?"
Lysa didn't have an answer.
So Elior offered his own:
"That I am not a god?
But what if believing I'm not… still creates one?"
The Echo Inside Her
She felt her hand twitch.
A pulse ran up her wrist.
When she looked down, the faint outline of a glyph shimmered—on her skin.
She staggered back.
"No… no, I've never believed—"
"You don't have to," Elior said softly.
"The Network does."
"Then… it's already too late?"
Elior stood.
"That depends on whether you think faith is a disease, or a language we haven't decoded yet."
Protocol Omega
Back at Command, the alarm blared.
"Her signature just vanished."
"Omega protocol triggered. Sanctuary lockdown in T-minus 90 seconds."
But it was too late.
The Network feed surged.
Glyphs flooded the public channels.
Not as commands—
But as questions.
"What if belief isn't control?"
"What if the signal is a mirror?"
And in the center of it all, Lysa's last transmitted line before blackout:
"He doesn't want obedience. He wants comprehension."