The purge had started.
Code walls flickered like dying embers, whole data logs screaming silently as they were swallowed by cascading deletion strings. And yet, very deep within Vault Sector B7, Contrario looked deep into it from where he stood frozen. Not in fear but revelation.
A display had powered on, it was old, glass-screen tech, grainy and dust-worn, barely running.
But it ran and it showed him everything.
The video feed stuttered to life.
It was a small room, the laboratory was white. Clean, but clinical. An array of avatars hovered in cryo-like tubes, five lined up in a semi-circle, each one with a nameplate blinking green beneath it.
Above them was a label etched into metal….
MULTI-THREAD AVATAR PROGRAM
PROJECT: HORIZON-FIVE
A voice played over the feed, dry and official.
"Subject is eligible for five simultaneous avatars, each linked to core emotional partitions. Rage, joy, logic, instinct and mercy."
