CHAPTER 32 – The Chant of Liberation
Week 3.
The pattern had held for two weeks. Olivia's appearances at his desk, Chris's measured days by her presence, the careful dance of cultivation building towards something he couldn't name. But patterns attracted attention, and attention brought investigators.
The Bears had been chasing false leads for days—Olivia's charity operations in the exile blocks feeding them rumours that looped into themselves, couriers who vanished into new names, crates that held nothing but plumbing fixtures. But even the best misdirection had limits. Eventually they'd pivot back to Oversight, back to the Republic's bloodstream for ideas, back to where the pattern had begun.
Which was why the protest needed to erupt today.
By midmorning, Sector 8B held the taste of metal, the kind that rides the air before a storm. Bear investigators moved the aisles in pairs, iron-grey jackets brushing chair backs as drawers yielded to their requisition slips. Serpent agents followed a half-beat behind with softer voices and sharper questions, patient enough to wait for the answer after the answer. Screens mirrored, files vanished into brown envelopes, and names slipped quietly onto lists.
Oversight was not a sleepy ledger hall but the Republic's bloodstream for ideas. New patents were stamped alive here, licences traced across districts and pulled back again, royalty streams tested against what factories built and what terminals ran. If anything had brushed the IP Vault and bent a rule, its echo would arrive in 8B as a trail that forked where no trail should or as totals that matched but refused to agree on time.
Chris kept his hands on the keys and his gaze steady, counting breaths whilst shadows passed across his screen. A licensing branch refused to reconcile with reported deployment; he chased it across districts, willing it to look ordinary. His shoulders locked each time a Bear's boots paused too close.
A palm landed on his shoulder. Frederick Nguyen leant in with the weary patience of a man who had weathered a dozen sweeps. "It's that time of the year," he said, voice low. "They rattle Oversight, make sure no one's pocketing favours or smoothing ledgers. Happens every cycle."
Chris nodded because nodding kept his face forward. The reassurance slipped through him. He told himself the Bears would start with veterans, the ones who'd had years to dig into the system. Yet every time a coat brushed past, he braced, because it was always easier to pluck the newest name from the list and leave no ripple behind.
He typed until the numbers blurred, the smell of toner heavy in the air, the thought circling like a hawk: if they came for him, the system would not even cough.
The city broke open at noon.
What began as a cluster of rejects in the exile blocks grew like a bruise, stitched together by rough cloth banners painted in strokes so heavy the letters looked cut from wood: CCX. The chant began ragged, then found its rhythm, rising through three streets until it rolled like a drumline.
"The end of slavery has come! CCX will liberate us!"
It leapt block to block, drawing latecomers and sympathisers until the sound itself seemed to pull bodies into the march. By the time the crowd pressed into the city's economic artery, shutters clattered down one after another, merchants cursing as they dragged carts back, parents folding children into doorways.
"210 years of Israelite slavery has ended—no more!"
"A new beginning is upon us!"
A cart toppled, smoke curled, gas hissed across the heat. The city's immune system answered.
Public Safety arrived with shields locked edge to edge, black helmets catching the sun, batons riding the seams of their thighs. The wall advanced as one, boots pounding in rhythm with the chant.
Peter Vang's voice tore out of a loudspeaker with the bluntness of a thrown brick. "Back on the walkway! Keep moving forward!"
The wall surged, shields driving into shoulders and backs. The front ranks staggered, pressed inward, forced down the boulevard. Mitch Vang worked the right flank, quick and merciless, shoving spill-overs back into the column. "Back off! In line! Move!"
William Fang anchored the left, barking to his squad where panic usually split a march. "Close the flank! Drive them down and away from the shops!" His men obeyed without looking, rhythm drilled into their bones.
The chant only swelled, made stronger by the pressure.
"The end of slavery has come! CCX will liberate us!"
"210 years of Israelite slavery has ended!"
"A new beginning is upon us!"
Shouts clashed with commands—"Move!" "Stay in the road!" "Back, back, back!"—until the artery became a metronome of noise and boots. Trains on the ring kept running. Warehouses shouted pallet counts over forklifts. The march was not dissolved, only caged; the city could afford the roar as long as it stayed inside the rails.
At the edge of the flow, a woman in a plain scarf measured angles as if the street were a board and every piece already marked.
Olivia had laid the groundwork over the past two weeks. Week 1: the charity operations—clinic tents appearing in exile blocks, food lines forming where hunger ran deepest, small stipends slipped into hands alongside suggestions about where grievances might be voiced. Week 2: the whispers—routes traced, rally points identified, banners distributed with paint still wet. Not orders. Never orders. Just gentle guidance towards a direction the rejects already wanted to move.
By Week 3, when the Bears' investigation finally reached Oversight despite her misdirection, the protest was ready to erupt on cue.
A whisper here, a route there, just enough tinder for the spark. Now the march carried itself, and no line led back to her House. Bears and Serpents were dragged from Oversight to the streets, their reports filling with restraint protocols instead of audit findings. That was the space she needed. That was where Chris would show his seams.
The protest raged into evening. Even as Chris left work, chants still rolled from the boulevard, louder now under the glare of cameras. Local reporters leant into the smoke; international crews filmed from the safety of corners. He glanced once at the banners not far from Oversight, shivered, and turned away, striding back towards his dormitory.
The bakery on the corner still breathed warmth through its shutters, onions sweet in the air. A hand touched his shoulder.
He spun too quickly, still wound tight from the day's terror, and nearly knocked the touch away before recognising—
"Easy," a voice said, low and steady.
Olivia. She fell into step beside him instead of blocking his path, letting silence draw out until his breath slowed.
"You didn't have to turn so hard," she said, a soft sob stitched into her tone, half mock, half complaint. "I thought you promised you'd always be there for me."
The words stung because they came wrapped in laughter and sadness both. Chris stared, dazed, wanting to answer and terrified of what the answer would cost. His silence stretched. Finally, he gave a single nod, weak as surrender.
Olivia tilted her head, scarf shifting on her cheek, eyes narrowing as if testing how far to press. She let the quiet run until his shoulders sagged, then reached and brushed her fingers down his sleeve. "Chris," she said gently, "whatever you're carrying—don't treat it like a sentence. Fear makes the walls look closer than they are."
The chant echoed faintly from the avenue—CCX has liberated us!—and the sound twisted in his chest. He wanted to tell her then. To spill everything. But the words froze. He could not say I caused it. He could not even manage I didn't. All that remained was the ache of wanting her to believe in him, to stay standing with her hand steady against his arm.
"You look like a man trying to run in every direction at once," Olivia said, voice softer now. "Stop running. Worry about now. Tomorrow will come with the sun, and you'll face it then."
He nodded again, smaller this time, but she caught it. She smiled—not wide, but sharp enough to cut through his panic—and withdrew her hand. "I'll see you at your desk. Don't make me look for you."
It was a line tossed lightly, yet it anchored like a hook in his chest. Relief surged, so sharp it frightened him.
She turned to leave, stepping towards the protest-filled streets, and suddenly the thought of her disappearing into that chaos—of not knowing if she'd return tomorrow, if the Bears would catch her in their sweep, if something in the violence would swallow her before he could see her again—was unbearable.
Worse than the Bears hunting him. Worse than discovery. Worse than everything.
Chris stepped forward without thinking and wrapped his arms around her from behind. She froze in surprise.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, voice ragged. "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay."
He broke from her before she could answer, striding fast into the night. Olivia stood still beneath the bakery's glow, dazed for a moment, then let a small smile curl her lips. She was more certain than ever: the anomaly that had shaken the Yang twins' simulation began with him. The only question left was how deep it ran.