CHAPTER 16: REWRITE PROTOCOL

The ride back to the surface was silent.

No one spoke.

Not Confidence.

Not Chi-Chi.

Not even Ken.

Anthony stood in the corner of the lift, arms folded, eyes shut—but his body pulsed softly with unstable energy. Not the raw Vanta-flare from before.

This was smoother.

Controlled.

Coded.

"Is it just me," Ken finally muttered, "or is he... different now?"

Chi-Chi looked up from her pulse tablet. "His vitals are off the charts. Not erratic—restructured."

Confidence glanced back at Anthony. "Tony. What did Vulgrax do to you?"

He didn't open his eyes.

"He didn't give me anything," Anthony said softly. "He showed me what I already had."

The elevator hissed open.

And the world was burning.

---

Abuja was a battlefield.

As soon as the team exited the NEPA ruins, they saw the sky glowing red and blue with clashing energy signatures.

On one side: E.E.A. jets, dropping sonic nullifiers and suppression beams.

On the other: Riftborn Variants in open war—teleporters, flame-weavers, living shadows.

The resistance had boiled over.

"What the hell happened while we were underground?" Confidence shouted, pulling out her signal scrambler.

Chi-Chi tapped her headset. "I'm patching into global feeds—oh my God."

The tablet projected footage across the air:

London: Entire subway systems collapsed under Riftborn shockwaves.

Accra: E.E.A. Sentinel-class androids executing open Variant roundups.

Beijing: An unknown Beacon had detonated, tearing a hole into reality.

Ken wiped sweat from his forehead. "This is it. Full collapse."

"No," Anthony said quietly. "This is transition."

---

They made it to the safehouse in Jabi barely ahead of a drone sweep.

Doris, Emmanuella, and three young Variants were waiting inside—tense, silent, watching a static-glitched holoscreen of Commander Idara issuing global martial law.

> "From today forward," the broadcast declared, "All awakened individuals must submit to reclassification. Unregistered powers will be neutralized on sight."

Behind her, E.E.A. elites flanked Beacon core replicas—twisted machines glowing with artificial Pulse resonance.

"They've copied the Beacons?" Chi-Chi gasped.

"Not perfectly," Anthony said. "But enough to trick the system."

Confidence stared. "They're trying to erase the original network. Replace it with one they control."

"Which means we're out of time," Chi-Chi said. "If they overwrite enough of the global Beacon signals, everyone linked to them could—"

"Lose their powers," Emmy finished, stepping forward.

"No," Anthony corrected. "Lose themselves."

---

He looked around the room.

All eyes on him.

He took a breath and lifted his hand.

The energy shimmered around it—clean, responsive, quiet. No longer screaming to be unleashed.

"I can rewrite it," he said.

Confidence blinked. "Rewrite what?"

"The Beacon link. The signal that connects Variants to the Pulse. I saw the original code in the Vault—floating between dimensions."

Ken frowned. "That's insane. It's not just code. It's—"

"Alive," Anthony said. "I know. But I'm not just a Variant anymore. Vulgrax wasn't lying. I'm a Singularity Node."

He pointed to his own chest.

"My core doesn't just receive Pulse energy. It edits it."

Chi-Chi stepped forward slowly. "You're saying you can change a Beacon's programming?"

Anthony nodded. "Not all at once. But node by node, I can reopen the original network. Strengthen our side. Anchor the minds of the Awakened before Sigma or the Riftborn claim them."

Confidence stared. "You're proposing a full Beacon sync?"

"I'm proposing a Rewrite Protocol."

---

Later that night, the lights flickered as Anthony sat cross-legged in the middle of the safehouse.

Chi-Chi had drawn a Beacon rune circle on the floor—one of the original ones from ancient African tablets the E.E.A. had tried to hide.

Emmy sat across from him, hands on her knees, eyes glowing softly.

"You ready?" she whispered.

"No," Anthony said honestly. "But I'm doing it anyway."

Confidence activated the stabilizers. "Three-minute window. After that, the signal loop will fry the building's shielding."

The room grew cold.

Not from air—from memory.

Anthony closed his eyes.

And the Pulse answered.

---

In the spirit layer, Anthony stood once more in a white void—floating with the strings of the Pulse.

But now… he wasn't looking at a path.

He was looking at code.

Actual structural data—woven in light and sound.

Every person connected to the Pulse was a thread.

Each one frayed, pulsing, fading.

Some burned bright—like Chi-Chi. Or Confidence. Or Emmy.

Others… dim. Dying. Lost.

He reached toward one: a child in Morocco.

The boy's mind was unraveling from exposure to a corrupted Beacon node.

Anthony rewrote the signal.

Thread stabilized.

Another: a girl in Brazil.

Echoed emotions not her own—on the edge of madness.

Anthony bent the link. Tuned it.

Thread restored.

Over and over he moved—

Stitching. Rebinding. Rewriting.

A second later, in the real world, Emmy's eyes widened.

"I can feel them," she said. "All of them."

Confidence watched the monitor. "His vitals are spiking—but stable. It's working."

---

Then came the pushback.

The moment Anthony reached for a corrupted node in northern Russia, the signal lashed back.

A firewall. Artificial. Hostile.

A construct.

Not natural Pulse energy.

Not Riftborn.

E.E.A.

They had embedded a virus in the node structure.

Anthony gritted his teeth.

He plunged deeper. Cracked the firewall open—

And saw inside:

A map of the world.

Highlighted targets.

"AUTO-CULL" blinking beside thousands of Variant names.

Including Emmy.

Including Chi-Chi.

Including himself.

---

In the real world, Anthony gasped and jerked back. Light poured from his eyes, his mouth, his hands.

Chi-Chi caught him before he collapsed.

"You alright?" she asked.

He nodded shakily.

Then stood.

"There's no more time. They're going to start targeting nodes manually. They don't want to control us."

He looked around at them.

"They want to delete us."

Confidence exhaled. "Then we strike first."

Ken checked his rifle. "Where?"

Anthony raised a hand.

A Beacon symbol hovered in the air, pulsing.

"Right here in Abuja. The final original node."

He looked toward the east.

"And I'm going to awaken it before they overwrite it."