The debrief room quieted for a beat. Li Wei rubbed his thumb along the edge of the table once, thinking.
“I’ll forward the node data to Karmic Oversight,” he said after a beat. “They’ll take a bureaucratic month to tell me nothing useful.”
“We don’t have a month,” Chewie said.
“Correct,” Li Wei agreed. “We have… what, less than twenty days left on this Extended Dormancy vacation package before the Council sets off to produce an Interim Guardian.”
His gaze slid to Eathan.
“You said before,” he said mildly, “that when they finally locate Bai Hu, you intend to be on that team.”
Eathan’s throat worked. He didn’t deny it.
“I owe him,” he said quietly. “And I’m… tied into whatever shape he comes back in.”
“And someone,” Li Wei said, “has been feeding you hints about where that shape might be.”
He held up a hand before Eathan could play dumb.
“I’m not stupid,” he said. “I don’t know which unwise piece of immortal it is. I don’t care right now. What I care about is this: when that door opens, you are going to sprint. I can’t stop you from wanting to. I can make sure you don’t run alone.”
He tapped the table twice, firm.
“Forget the main HQ debrief,” he said. “Brook will handle the paperwork circus. You two—” he jabbed at Eathan and Chewie “—are off for the rest of the day. No patrols, no secret side quests. Go home. Eat. Sleep. Journal. Do something boring.”
Chewie blinked slowly. “Is this a trap?”
“It becomes a trap if you argue.”
He stepped back from the table, and the two rose automatically. Eathan reached the door before Chewie. He had a hand on the handle when Li Wei’s voice cut in again.
“Eathan.”
Eathan looked back.
Li Wei had his cigarette between his fingers now, unlit, gaze softer and more tired than it ever looked in front of a holo.
“Whatever door you decide to open,” he said, “just remember you have people backing you.”
He paused, then added, with that dry half?twist of humour that made all his scoldings weirdly bearable:
“Taeril White was never the only one in your corner.”
Something stuttered in Eathan’s chest.
For a second he saw the veranda from the Nightmare—two cups, a god in loose sleeves, a beast with constellations in its antlers—and layered over it, the cramped Area 003 Debrief Room with a captain in shirtsleeves and under?eye circles.
He found a smile somewhere.
“...Thanks, Captain,” he said.
“Don’t make me regret it,” Li Wei replied.
***
COZMART always felt smaller at night.
Eathan sat behind the counter, legs kicked up on the shelf where Taeril used to rest his boots.
His wristpad buzzed with group chat notifications. He thumbed the screen open.
[GROUP CHAT — E.L.S.E]
[DREAMERA]: em is gonna riot
cafe’s new manager won’t give her old spot back lmao
A picture came through: Emily in an apron at a different coffee shop, mid?rant, hair in a bun, expression halfway between offended and murderous.
[LUKETAM]: HAHAHAHA
HAHAHA
HA
bro she’s typing like she’s gonna storm the place
[EMILY]: I will.
Eathan tell them this is oppression
Eathan stared at the photo a second longer than necessary. The corners of his mouth tugged up. He hit the like on Sera’s image and typed:
[EATHAN-LIN]: you’ll survive
consider this character development
[LUKETAM]: sending this screenshot to future you when you get demoted from “milk restocker” at cosmart
[DREAMERA]: it’s coZmart, luke
also he’s basically assistant manager now
Eathan shook his head, then closed the chat before his face did anything overly sentimental.
Mundane life was still happening.
People were still fighting about coffee shifts and exam schedules and broken vending machines. Somewhere in that sprawl, he was going to choose to walk away again.
He exhaled and flicked his interface.
[SYSTEM] – IDENTITY LOG
A familiar pane slid open. The entries marched down in neat, dated lines—no longer the rambling paragraphs of his early days. Months of habit had turned the process into its own muscle. He tapped for a new entry.
[IDENTITY LOG – ENTRY #281]
Dormancy Protocol Day 346 - 21:51
Prompt: What do you counts as “you”?
– Location: Area 003 – COZMART (Queens shift)
– Incident: Queens Cemetery rift – Yin She “Shadow Coil”
– Skills used: Calamity Radar (Deep-Scan), Node Imprint (multi?node), Auspice Ignition (lite), Soul Anchor, Major Reconstitution
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
– [Humanity]: 45% → 38% → 33% → 40%
– Anchor selected: Entry #134, #200, #12
Notes:
– Snake spirit using death?adjacent node + hypno?band charm, where the charm tried to push self?harm impulses into agents.
– Node Imprint worked as intended; lamppost node made a good safe circle, but it didn't prevent agents from throwing up. (Note to self: wash boots again tomorrow)
– Ignition felt different from Commander’s Nightmare. Less flood, more… nudge. Still not comfortable letting the tide in.
– Soul Anchor helped thanks to the second-hand embarrassment from the chosen memory entry.
– Casualties reduced by 90% from predicted aftermaths. That should count for something.
Questions:
– Final anchor colour on [Calamity Radar] wasn’t in the normal palette. [Ledger Tap] agrees.
– White Tiger core drift + karmic anomalies + cemetery bleed (???). Could these be possibly related?
Today’s definition of “me”:
– Still the one writing this. That has to mean something.
He hit save.
[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION:
Habit Reinforced: Daily Identity Log (current streak: 281)
[Humanity] has increased by 1%! (40% → 41%)
A small chime followed, warming the back of his mind.
Eathan’s brain was still buzzing. The mild headache and cottony fatigue that came from using [Soul Anchor] and [Auspice Ignition] in the same 24?hour window—but it was bearable.
The shop was mostly dark. Only the counter lamp was on, pooling yellow over his notebook, the barcode scanner, the jar of pens no one but Taeril White ever used.
On the couch against the back wall, Chewie was half asleep, a gigantic horse encyclopedia draped over her face like a blanket. One foot poked out of the end of the couch, sock half off. In sleep, she looked less like a warlord and more like the kid she technically was.
Eathan slid off the stool, meaning to prod her toward the back room.
“Chewie,” he said. “You’ll get a crick sleeping like that. Back room has an actual bed.”
She made a noise somewhere between “mmph” and “die.”
He huffed, stepping closer—
Then his wristpad pinged. It wasn’t the usual [SYSTEM] tone, nor was it RealmNet’s standard chirp.
It was hybrid sound—half notification, half… static—rippled through his bones.
The next second, his world tilted.
The counter, the couch, the horse book all pixelated at the edges. Code?lines flared across his vision, weaving themselves into an envelope that snapped shut around his awareness.
Eathan’s body stayed where it was, hand half?extended toward Chewie, but his mind had dropped somewhere else.
“…”
The chamber this time was smaller.
The last time he was yanked into this space by the anonymous ghost code, the room had felt roomy, walls made of rivers of code and dim lantern?light. Now, everything was tighter. Compression lines squeezed the margins; parts of the walls glitched, patched over with censor blocks that looked like ugly green tape.
And the ghost was worse for wear.
They hovered in the middle of the room, a tiny figure stitched from punctuation and error icons, their outline fuzzier than before. Every few seconds, parts of them stuttered out of existence and popped back in shifted slightly sideways.
[???]: it’s been awhile!
[???]: oh? you look… less breakable now
[???]: that’s a relief and also terrifying
Eathan found himself answering out loud, though the sound went nowhere.
“You’re… a god,” he said. “Right?”
[???]: (?Д`) please don’t say that where the firewalls can hear
[???]: but i guess u can put it like that
[???]: hi again
Bits of their text blurred behind pixelated bars as if someone unseen was live?censoring.
[???]: sry for the rough pull… surveillance pressure is extra rough this time of year
[???]: had to splice directly through your [SYSTEM] side?channel
“Last time you said you were tracking his core,” Eathan said. His heart had already picked up speed. “Bai Hu. That it was drifting in the Realm of the Passing. Has that changed?”
The ghost paused.
[???]: that’s why i’m here
When they spoke again, their text came slower, heavier.
[???]: it stopped. the core
The bottom dropped out of Eathan’s stomach.
“Stopped… how,” he asked carefully. “As in… broke?”
[???]: if it had shattered you’d know
[???]: everyone would
[???]: heaven’s karmic alarms would be full air raid
At that, Eathan released a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.
A rough diagram then blinked into existence between them—a sphere representing the White Tiger’s core, threaded through with countless thin lines of code. The sphere drifted through a stylized river, then caught on a jagged point and stuck, its movement stuttering.
[???]: think… like a lantern caught on a low bridge
[???]: it’s in rop, hooked to something nasty
[???]: lots of turbulence
[???]: lots of watchers
“Watchers?” Eathan echoed.
A line of text fuzzed into censor blocks as soon as it appeared.
[???]: can’t say specifics
[???]: [██████] have eyes everywhere near that node now
[???]: but they can’t seize it outright yet, too much karmic interference
The diagram zoomed out.
Other shapes flickered at the edge of the map—pieces representing entities Eathan didn’t recognize. Some bore stylized horns, some feathers, some were just anonymous grey blocks with question marks.
Eathan swallowed. “If they can’t reach it, how am I supposed to?”
The ghost’s outline jittered; they threw up tiny pixel hands.
[???]: first: you keep doing what you’re doing
[???]: you’ve grown enough you might survive this now
[???]: might
[???]: please notice the “might” and be adequately concerned
“...Encouraging."
[???]: ? i don’t do encouragement i do risk estimates
[???]: and your survival percentage is finally above “lol no”
The emoticon flicked their hand. A string of garbled coordinates and phrases scrolled past—half letters, half encoded glyphs. Parts of it blacked over in real time as censorship clamped down, but enough remained to form a crooked trail.
[???]: can’t give you a straight pin, but this will get you near
[???]: your [SYSTEM] can interpolate the rest when you’re close
Eathan stepped closer to the floating string, instinctively reaching toward it. It pulsed once, then sank into his HUD like a file being accepted.
He felt HeavenOS twitch, adjusting—new menu entries hiding under his peripheral vision. A ghostly label whispered into existence at the back of his mind:
[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION:
New Coordinates Received! Pending Manual Override…
“He’s going to kill me,” he said absently.
[???]: which “he”
[???]: you know what nvm there are too many options
The ghost leaned in, or tried to; half their head glitched.
[???]: when you open the path
[???]: i’ll know, and i’ll jam surveillance once
[???]: one shot, no rewinds
[???]: after that they’ll know i touched the threads
“So I have to be right the first time,” Eathan said.
[???]: wow you do listen
[???]: yes because time is… not on your side
[???]: dormancy clock ticks both ways, u see, and if they classify him as “irrecoverable” before you move
[???]: seat 001 might be reassigned
[???]: and then getting him out of rop is…
[???]: …
[???]: haha
[???]: nope
Text shook, losing coherence for a second.
[???]: you’re tied to him more than you know
[???]: if they decide he’s better broken, they’ll decide the same for anything attached
Eathan’s hands curled at his sides.
“I’m not going to let them,” he said. His voice sounded steadier than he felt.
The ghost looked at him for a long moment—if a ball of panicked punctuation could look. Static crept inward from the edges of the chamber.
[???]: try not to die, okay?
[???]: because if you do
[???]: i will be so
[???]: so
[???]: unimpressed
Suddenly, warning symbols flared bright red along the ceiling. The room jolted as if struck. Code?walls buckled; half the ghost’s body smeared into a censor bar.
[???]: ok time’s almost up
[???]: you know what to do now
[???]: right?
The last line came slower.
[???]: you open the door
***
Eathan blinked.
COZMART snapped into focus around him—the humming fridge, the ticking clock, the dust motes in the counter lamp beam. His hand was still half?extended toward Chewie.
Chewie, for her part, was half off the couch, horse encyclopedia on the floor, a bookmark pressed flat against his collarbone.
“Why,” she demanded, “were you just staring like that? That’s creepy as—”
He caught her wrist, fingers surprisingly steady.
The buzzing in his skull hadn’t gone away. New coordinates throbbed at the edge of his awareness, lining up with something behind his ribs.
“I know where he is.”
Chewie’s eyes widened.
The clock on the wall ticked once.
COZMART’s lights flickered, just a little, as if the world had leaned closer to listen.