Ash Cities
Three months after the Collapse.
The world had changed.
Not in fire, not in blood — but in silence.
Cortex had fallen. Phoenix was a ghost. Every mind once bound by the Chair's influence had been freed. People remembered everything. The betrayals. The rewrites. The lives they never chose.
Some handled it.
Most didn't.
Now, the cities burned not from war — but from grief.
They were called Ash Cities — clusters of survivors and ex-synthetics trying to find meaning in a truth too heavy to carry. Old nations fractured. Corporate regimes split. The balance of power shifted from the elite to the unknown.
And in the middle of it all, Ethan.
Ethan — Somewhere near the Atlantic Wastes
He sat beneath the broken remains of a communication tower, sharpening a blade he never wanted to use again.
The sky overhead was raw static — the aftereffect of the neural wave Lyra had unleashed. Some said the auroras would vanish in time. Others claimed they were signs she was still alive — scattered across the net like a digital ghost.
He hoped for the latter.
Maya appeared behind him, tossing a packet of water at his feet. "Satellite pings from Ash City West. Someone's asking for you — by name."
He looked up, brow tense. "Who?"
She handed him a torn data scroll. One word blinked across the surface:
"Gideon."
Ash City West – The Market of Ruins
The city was built from the skeletons of the old world: bent steel, hacked drones, shattered towers now covered in moss and rebellion.
Everything was trade here — memory chips, old weapon cores, bottled rain.
Ethan walked through the crowds cloaked and silent, but whispers followed him:
"That's him."
"The one who freed the minds."
"Ghost killer."
"God-slayer."
He hated every word of it.
At the back of the market, a boy waited. No older than twelve. His eyes glowed — synthetic. But the fear in them was human.
"You're Ethan."
He nodded.
"He told me to give you this." The boy handed over a small data prism — shimmering like ice.
"Who told you?"
"The man with no face."
Ethan froze.
The data prism opened. A projection flared: blue static… then a voice.
"Hello, Ethan."
"If you're seeing this, it means Cortex wasn't the end."
"It was the beginning."
The voice was unmistakable.
Vance.
The dead man spoke again:
"I've seen what's coming. The minds we freed? They're being hunted. Again. But not by machines. By people who remember too much.
And in the North… something stirs beneath the ice. Something older than Phoenix.
Something worse than control."
The prism flickered, then died.
Maya's voice was a whisper. "He's alive?"
Ethan clenched his fists. "No. But his secrets aren't."
Elsewhere – The Ice Line
Beneath the ruins of an old orbital launch site, deep within glacial caverns untouched for years, a vault hissed open.
Inside: an operating table. A body.
But not human.
Its skin was metallic, veined with glowing lines. Its eyes were open — and watching. A symbol burned on its chest.
L-1
The second version.
It turned its head slowly.
"Directive restored.
Version Zero was corrupted.
Begin reset protocol."