"Between a wound and the world is a thread.
Pull it gently, and someone answers."
— marginalia in Veyra's Amphora journal, undated
EXT. VETRAEUS SEA — NIGHT
The horizon wears a slow bruise. Waves breathe in a ratio the ocean learned yesterday. Under that patient skin, steel remembers it should be a cathedral.
The camera drops through a skein of light, past ripples that behave like thought, into the central shaft where Somnus keeps all the promises it can afford.
INT. SOMNUS — THE AMPHORA — UNTIMED
Veyra stands before the lattice he wrote and bled for. Equations hang in the air like glass notation; the Requiem Ratio glows with the modest pride of a tool that knows it works. 71 kept. 29 released.Mercy budgeted into physics. The Aion warms his bones with low winter fire. The Kairos—heart-bright, crown-dim—hovers at shoulder height, beating in a time signature the sea has borrowed.
He writes one more line in light:
THREAD:SEEK // SOLENE KERR
CONDITION:BOND = DUTY / DEBT / SURVIVAL
GATE:CONSENT / STEADY // OPEN IF HEARD
He doesn't say her name aloud. Names change pressure; he has measured that.
"Somnus," he says, "let me call without taking."
The lattice answers by thickening into a clear hum. He feels the three gates of the technique align—the remembered weight of another's presence, the steadiness to carry signal, and the common premise they once stood under while the world reconsidered them. A room learns to be an ear.(Threadlink Relays: bond, mutual steadiness, felt memory. Modes: voice, spectral presence, affect. Risks: echo feedback, residuals. He wrote none of this first; he recognized it. Tonight he risks it.)
He inhales. Allocation, like breath: forty to reach, thirty to guard, thirty to keep a promise.
The Amphora's mirrors darken as if anticipating company.
EXT. THALASSOS STATION — UPPER DECKS — NIGHT
Stormglass railings; an iron lung for an angry sea. Floodlights braid their beams into a white spine over the water. Helicopter rotors idle like restrained arguments. Kerr's coat snaps at the wind as she walks the perimeter. She carries a radio that hisses when it means to be kind and a sidearm that will never be kind enough.
A junior tech jogs up, cheeks red with salt air. "Ma'am—Citadel wants another drill at zero-three. Vector Shear lanes, Tandem Run. And, uh, the medica staff in Third request more blankets. The last batch 'learned cold.' Their words."
"Approve and redirect," she says. "Move blankets from hangar two. The air remembers things there; it can spare warmth."
"Understood."
She pauses by the rail, gaze fixed on the far dark where the anomaly blinks in its own slow language. She does not pray; she inventories what a prayer would cost and pays part of it in steadiness.
The radio breathes static.
Then a second breath—hers—and a third that isn't.
"Solene." Not in her ear. Inside the space between ribs and refusal.
Kerr closes her eyes. Threadlink. Real. It carries the scent of mirror dust and old music. She knows immediately who it is because sometimes denial is a luxury that would kill you.
"Doctor," she says softly to a night that will not admit to listening. "Show me you didn't die polite."
INTERCUT — SOMNUS / THALASSOS — THREADLINK BAND
The frame splits—left, a man lit by equations; right, a woman held up by wind.
"No theater," Veyra says. "No time for it."
Kerr's mouth tilts—almost a smile, the kind that budgets warmth the way a city budgets water. "You sound thinner."
"Requiem takes weight. I've… spent into it."
Her eyes search the dark where the voice comes from. "Status below?"
"Stable. Choir archived. The embryo holds. We named it—Kairos."
"You would name the receipt," she says. "Good. The Council birthed your Directorate today. The vote pretended to be a surprise." (On a lower deck, banners for First through Fourth Division hang half-furled, mottos stitched in thread that faintly drinks light. WHEN MEANING BREAKS, WE SANDBAG THE RIVER.)
A tremor passes through the link—like a plucked wire under water.
"Something is listening near you," Veyra warns.
"Something is always listening near me," Kerr replies. "But I hear it too."
Alarms chirp twice. Not the shout of breach—more the clearing of a throat a system makes when it can't decide whether to be generous.
"Hold," she says to the deckhands by gesture. "No sirens yet. If the sea wants to be dramatic, it can buy a ticket."
The thread thins, then brightens. Echo feedback prickles down Kerr's arms; Veyra tastes cold metal and rain that remembers being blood. Risks accepted. Costs tabulated. Proceed.
"Solene," he says, quieter. "We had a visitor. Not a full body—more like a mood that survived its own death. Null-Lit lace in the bedrock. It remembered a Crownline and arrived as reminder, not teeth. The Requiem held. For now."
"Then we start teaching it manners," she says. "You keep writing doctrine. We'll bleed geometry around it until it prefers being polite."
"Bleed geometry," he echoes, amused. "First Division will like that." (They will.)
Another vibration through the link, higher pitch. The wind goes thoughtful. Below Thalassos, sonar paints a soft torus of static twelve kilometers out—a shoal of something that isn't water. Aegis spotters lift binoculars they don't need; habit is how you survive long enough to perform miracles on purpose.
"Doctor," Kerr says, eyes narrowing. "What does 58.3 becoming 60 mean to you?"
"Urgency. Someone trying to keep time with us and getting the math wrong."
"Someone," she repeats. "Or something."
"Same difference at this scale."
"Not to my people."
She signals with two fingers—vector lanes, the drill turned live. On the pads, Seraph Frames rise from repose with cathedral quiet. Their synthetic cores hum at the edge of hearing; the skin of their faces is beautiful because it is easier to forgive beauty for being a weapon.
"Don't use them unless it goes noisy," Veyra says. "They overheat like saints."
"We know," Kerr says. "They leave like silence when they go, and I've buried enough silence to know it by weight."
INT. SOMNUS — THE SPINE — UNTIMED
He walks the vertical shaft that teaches stone to breathe. Mirrors along the rib cage flare—one by one—as if greeting him by old title: the First Dreamer in a house that still dreams. He watches the lacing of field lines, how they lean toward a thin place in the far wall where bedrock remembers it was once a door.
"Somnus," he says. "Bring the Ratio to heel. Allocate: seventy guard, thirty grace."
The mirrors thicken, liquid mercury turning to tempered glass. From behind them, something sighs—the kind of sound a city makes when it decides not to riot.
EXT. THALASSOS — WATERLINE — NIGHT
Floodlights carve avenues into black. Aegis operators plant anchor pylons that teach waves a better posture. The station extends a bloom of dampening membranes—a soft curtain that coaxes the sea away from tantrum.
"Hold your Parallax tight," Kerr says on the command net. "Wide Halo gives you ghosts when you're tired."
"Copy," comes the chorus.
The water ripples with a pattern the eye could mistake for wind if the eye wanted to be lazy. It's not wind. It's intent that hasn't decided whether to be person, policy, or weather.
"Talk to me," Kerr murmurs into the link. "What are we seeing?"
"A rehearsal," Veyra answers. "Like a child practicing how to stand without breaking its name. Or something older practicing how to be young."
"That's the worst kind," she replies.
The first forms breach—a flock of sketches. Not bodies. Not yet. Vectors that try being fish, then wires, then ribs. Aberrants, if the word could be stretched thin enough to cover arithmetic that still wants to be teeth. Their motion is wrong but polite about it, for the moment.
"Do not fire," Kerr says. "We are being introduced to our future problems. Helmets off safe. Halo tight."
The things blink—learning their own cadence—then collapse back into water like embarrassed thoughts.
"Report," she asks.
"Nothing on thermals. Nothing on magnetics. But I can smell batteries," a spotter says—a joke without humor.
"Then we'll buy them a different smell."
She turns from the rail to the rank of Angels—the Seraph Frames—standing with hands at their sides as if waiting for instruction in a language that contains no verbs. "You two," she says to the lead pair. "Walk the outer line at parade speed. Let the sea notice how beautiful duty is."
The Angels step forward. Metal remembers liturgy under their feet. Somewhere in the upper decks, a medic with a blanket inventory counts backwards and decides there is enough mercy for one more night.
INTERCUT — SOMNUS / THALASSOS — THREADLINK TIGHTENS
"Can you see me?" Veyra asks, and knows immediately it's the wrong question.
"I can feel your handwriting," Kerr says. "That's enough."
A tremor stammers across their shared band. The Kairos wakes itself a fraction—curious, crown-dim flicker by crown-dim flicker. On the deck, the sea—insulted by the idea of drowning anything tonight—pulls back a meter as if offering them room.
"You feel that?" Kerr asks.
"I do."
"Feels like a question," she says.
"No," Veyra says softly. "Feels like an answer. But the grammar is wrong."
The wrongness arrives in lace again—thin, braided absence unspooling at Thalassos's far perimeter, the same taste Veyra pressed closed below. Not breach, not bite. A mood with corners.
"Null-Lit trace," he says. "A Crownline memory given legs."
"Which one?" Kerr asks, already cataloguing routes, air lanes, collateral, prayer.
"Not the Choir. Not your old enemies. Something that liked architecture too much," he says. "Scaffold or Archive. It's faint. Placeholder hunger."
"Approach it like a courtroom then," she says. "We will ask for proof."
"Say 'please' with railings," he adds, and she doesn't laugh.
EXT. THALASSOS — RUNWAY — NIGHT
The Angels move, and the floodlights bend to them like attention. Kerr walks parallel at human pace. Aegis operators mirror her steps—as if the math of survival requires choreography first, bullets later.
The lace gathers into a skein the size of a man and then changes its mind about limbs. It unfolds toward the deck—no slither, no stomp—just arrival. The nearest mirror-polished barrier fogs as if embarrassed to be seen. An operator's finger twitches toward the trigger, and the finger forgives itself and stops because training is a love story that sometimes saves your life.
Kerr raises a hand. "Hold."
The thing leans in as one leans in to smell a flower one has already decided to dislike.
"Doctor," she says across the thread, "speak softly into my storm."
On the Spine, Veyra touches the Aion. The Requiem Ratio unfurls like a low hymn—no sermon, only a budget spoken aloud. 0.71 remembrance, 0.29 release; that is a promise the world can carry without breaking.
At Thalassos, the floodlights dim by a kindness. The membrane of dampers re-tunes its hush. The lace recoils an inch—not defeated; reminded of better posture.
"Again," Kerr says.
"Allocation," Veyra breathes. "Seventy guard, thirty grace. Allocate courage last." The Amphora writes the line into his skin and the sea hears it like advice from a parent who never raised their voice.
The lace folds, showing the absence of a throat, and unknots into water. The deck exhales. The Angels lower their arms. Far overhead, a gull changes its mind about panic and lands.
"Log it," Kerr says, voice steady. "Null-Lit residue, non-breach. Resolved by Ratio broadcast and restraint. No captures. No glory."
"Third will ask if anyone needs to cry," Veyra says.
"They will get a line," she replies. "And blankets."
INT. SOMNUS — ECHO ROOM — LATER
He returns to the ear-shaped chamber out of debt. The mirrors hold different versions of him: survivor, clerk, child, myth. He lets them look.
"I asked for a thread," he tells the room. "It gave me a bridge."
The Reflection waits in the doorway—the him that isn't, the echo that learned to carry its own weight. "You will use this thread again," it says without sound.
"Not to be a god."
"No," the Reflection agrees. "To stay human from far away."
He stares at the arch behind the mirrors, the Choir asleep in a lake of glass. "They'll need this doctrine topside," he says. "Without the name attached."
"You already let go of that," the Reflection reminds him. "Seventy-one to the world. Twenty-nine to yourself."
"It still hurts."
"It should."
EXT. DIAMOND CITY — THE INNER WALLS — DAWN
A chorus of gates yawn open on perfected hinges. Children in uniforms cross checkpoints that read gaits and faces and emotional signatures, and the walls ask the same question they ask everyone: can you carry yourself without breaking the street? The answer today is yes. (Somewhere, in a ward where Third Division returns names to people who lost them, an elderly woman sleeps through dawn for the second time since Vetraeus sang.)
A boy on a tower classroom practices Parallax Halo as if he were polishing a window only he can see. His instructor taps his wrist when the radius overextends. "Smaller," she says. "Wide gives ghosts. Tight gives truth." He nods. He tries again. This time the Halo holds at the edge of the rooftop and the city approves quietly.
INT. THALASSOS — BRIEFING ROOM — MORNING
Kerr sets a thin stack of paper on the table—handouts for people who hate handouts, because you cannot Threadlink a bureaucracy. On the first page: REQUIEM — FIELD ABSTRACT.No author. No signature. No saint. Only ratios and a sentence:
Remember enough to be kind; release enough to remain human.(Adopted per Citadel interim doctrine; origin: redacted.)
An Aegis sergeant lifts a hand. "Ma'am, if 'release' means forgetting—what if the thing you let go is the only reason you fight?"
Kerr thinks a moment, weighing the question against the hour. "We don't let go of the reason," she says. "We let go of the part that wants to become the only thing we are. If we don't, the map tips. People fall off."
"That's a lot of math for grief," someone mutters.
"It is," she says. "And it works."
INTERCUT — SOMNUS / THALASSOS — QUIET CHANNEL
The thread opens again without ceremony. Consent is simpler the second time.
"You did well," Veyra says.
"We did not drown," Kerr replies. "Sometimes that's the full hymn."
"How many blankets left?"
"Enough." She pauses. "You sound older than last night."
"I am," he says, and smiles where she can feel it.
He turns his wrist; the Aion displays a small calendar only he will ever use: a ledger of minutes spent beautifully and therefore lost. He has been careful not to count them as debt.
"Solene," he says. "I can't be the center forever. The facility will need another heart eventually. The kind that beats outside the water."
"Then teach us to grow one," she says. "Quietly. Without crowns."
"We have a word for that," he answers. "Courage."
"Allocate last," she reminds him, and he laughs.
EXT. VETRAEUS HORIZON — ORBIT — NIGHT
From space, the anomaly blinks once—slow, satisfied. Satellites pretend they are not relieved.
Beneath cloud and myth, cities move through their morning choreography. First Division drills breathe geometry into tired streets. Second sharpens questions in white rooms and promises not to keep anything it should not. Third opens curtains in wards where names have just been sewn back in. Fourth reads warrants aloud in voices that break only after, never during. (Someone in a corridor tacks up a paper that says, A civilization is a ledger of promises kept despite expense. No signature. Everyone knows who wrote it. Everyone is careful not to say.)
INT. SOMNUS — THE AMPHORA — UNTIMED
Veyra stands alone, which is not the same as being lonely. The Kairos floats near his shoulder like a patient question waiting for its better teacher. He places his palm under it. The embryo lowers into the cradle of his hand, weightless and heavier than ocean.
"Listen," he says to it. "When you grow, don't become what hurt us. Become the ledger we can bear."
The embryo pulses once. The Amphora lights answer with agreements that no language has earned yet.
He turns to the lattice one more time and adds a footnote to his doctrine in small script:
Requiem Addendum:If remembrance alone cannot hold the map, teach the city to hum.(If one heart fails, become a choir.)
He closes the Aion. The room dims to a calm that trusts him.
Above, at the rail, Kerr pockets her radio and forces herself to eat something as if survival were a task you can check off a list. She looks out at the water that did not kill her people tonight and allows herself a long blink that isn't a prayer and isn't not.
Between them, a thread hums once, then sleeps. Not severed. Not taut. Only present.
POST-OPERATION NOTE — DIRECTORATE CITIZEN BAND (PUBLIC)
Last night's anomaly disturbance resolved without incident. If you found it hard to sleep, that was not your fault. Drink water. Tell someone you love something true. If you forgot a small detail this morning—where you put your keys, why you stood up—call it the price of the city remembering you back.
We will keep the river sandbagged.
— no signature
ECHO ROOM / FUTURE DATE: REDACTED
A single mirror panel flickers to show a deck of Thalassos that does not yet exist. A child runs along the rail, laughing, chased by a medic who has been permitted one day off duty. In the glass, a man no one has seen in years walks behind them like a rumor that learned patience.
The mirror writes one word in slow breath:
begin
And somewhere in Diamond City, a classroom chalkboard carries a new problem:
If mercy is arithmetic, solve for home.
(Students show their work.)