Thursday began with agreement.

  It didn’t last.

  They were back in the building before the lights had fully warmed.

  Not summoned.

  Not instructed.

  Drawn.

  The kind of morning that followed certainty.

  The Analyst spoke first.

  “We can locate him,” she said.

  No qualifiers.

  No optimism.

  Just fact.

  She brought up the screen.

  Not a map — a timeline.

  Instability markers. Transitional zones. Places where systems were almost able to sustain themselves.

  “Quetzalcoatl doesn’t stay where things work,” she continued.

  “He stays where they’re about to.”

  The Archivist nodded slowly.

  “He intervenes before legitimacy,” he said. “Then removes authorship before gratitude can form.”

  I leaned forward.

  “That’s not retirement,” I said. “That’s abdication as method.”

  The room stilled.

  That word mattered.

  Crisis exhaled sharply.

  “Which means he’s active,” she said. “Present. Uncontained.”

  “Yes,” the Analyst replied. “And traceable.”

  She highlighted a region.

  Unregistered.

  Unfunded.

  Unattributed.

  “Ongoing,” she said.

  Silence followed.

  Then Crisis spoke.

  “Then we go.”

  Ms. A didn’t respond immediately.

  “We do not confront,” she said finally.

  Crisis turned to her.

  “That stopped being an option the moment we confirmed replication.”

  “That’s not our mandate,” Ms. A replied evenly.

  “No,” Crisis said. “But preventing misuse is.”

  The intern raised her hand.

  Hesitated.

  Then lowered it.

  Ms. A noticed anyway.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “Yes,” she said.

  The intern chose her words carefully.

  “I may still be misunderstanding,” she said. “But… isn’t this exactly what he’s supposed to do?”

  No one interrupted.

  “To help people,” she continued.

  “To leave them better than he found them.”

  Crisis frowned.

  “That’s not the question.”

  The intern looked at her.

  “Isn’t it?”

  Ms. A spoke before Crisis could.

  “That depends,” she said, “on whether help creates dependence.”

  The intern shook her head.

  “But he designed it to remove himself,” she said. “He didn’t demand belief. He didn’t stay.”

  The Archivist closed his folder slowly.

  “That’s what makes this dangerous,” he said.

  Crisis leaned forward.

  “Dangerous to whom?” she asked.

  “To us,” the Archivist replied. “To oversight. To accountability.”

  The intern looked confused.

  “But if it works—”

  “That’s the problem,” Crisis said sharply.

  “It works without consent.”

  The room went very quiet.

  I spoke then.

  Not loudly.

  But deliberately.

  “We’re arguing about whether gods should help,” I said.

  “That’s not the real issue.”

  They looked at me.

  “The issue,” I continued, “is whether we get to decide when help becomes governance.”

  Silence.

  Ms. A nodded slowly.

  “That’s exactly it.”

  Crisis shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “The issue is that if we don’t confront him, someone else will copy this without restraint.”

  “That’s fear,” Ms. A replied.

  “That’s responsibility,” Crisis countered.

  The intern looked between them.

  “You’re saying,” she said quietly, “that doing the right thing can still be unacceptable.”

  I met her gaze.

  “I’m saying,” I replied, “that ethics change when scale changes.”

  That landed harder than I expected.

  The Analyst cleared her throat.

  “If I may,” she said.

  “There’s another factor.”

  Everyone turned.

  “The replication attempts,” she said.

  “They don’t fail randomly.”

  She brought up a secondary visualization.

  “They fail when they retain authorship.”

  The Archivist closed his eyes.

  “They want credit,” he murmured.

  “Yes,” the Analyst said. “And control.”

  Crisis straightened.

  “Which means Quetzalcoatl isn’t the threat,” she said.

  “The idea of Quetzalcoatl is.”

  Ms. A looked at her.

  “And confronting him won’t stop that.”

  “No,” Crisis agreed.

  “But not confronting him guarantees we’re reacting instead of leading.”

  The argument didn’t resolve.

  It crystallized.

  Finally, Ms. A spoke.

  “We will observe first,” she said.

  “But we will not hide.”

  Crisis nodded once.

  “That’s all I’m asking.”

  The intern frowned.

  “And if he refuses to be found?”

  I answered before anyone else could.

  “Then,” I said, “we learn whether gods have the right to decide when they’re no longer accountable.”

  No one liked that question.

  Which meant it was the right one.

  The meeting ended without consensus.

  But with direction.

  They would go.

  Not to stop him.

  Not to praise him.

  But because neutrality had expired.

  That night, I stared at the ceiling.

  The ceiling had now seen belief defended, rejected, and reframed — all in the same room.

  I asked it a question.

  What’s the difference between help and rule?

  The ceiling didn’t answer.

  So I did.

  Whether the person helped gets to refuse.

  Sleep came slowly.

  And uneasily.