The ghost of the burning city pursued Adrian's waking mind. The scent of smoke had penetrated his very clothing, a phantom stain of defeat. He sat in the Valparaíso safe house, the sounds of the port a distant rumble against the ringing scream in his head. He was conducting simulations on the laptop, not cities but supply chains for generic antibiotics, guerrilla nets to spread Mirza's Sparrow nanites. He was planning smaller, darker, deeper.
Then, the System spoke.
It did not flicker or glitch. It did not appear in his eye in the form of letters. The world simply. fell apart.
One moment he was looking at the screen of the computer, and the next he was floating in an empty expanse of pure black. It was not the shining, sparkling infinity of the Conclave's System Space. This was a darkne
