c. 2080 AD – The Scottish Highlands Wilderness
The shack was stone and sod, invisible to orbital scans. Inside, Enki—now called "Malcolm"—coughed, a wet, rattling sound. It was the Red Lung, a designer plague released a decade ago to "cull non-essential biomass." The Oracle's solution to resource scarcity was as logical as it was merciless.
He was dying.
Not of old age, but of the world. His immortal body could fight time, but not a tailored pathogen. He was weak, feverish, his Scrapbook entries becoming fragmented, dream-like. He documented the cough, the chill, the way the firelight danced on the stone walls. He was witnessing his own fragile mortality.
A memory surfaced, unbidden: Gilgamesh, on his deathbed. "You will have to bury us all."
The Veil was tightening not just around him, but within him. The erosion was no longer just of memory, but of his very substance. The Oracle's world was becoming physically incompatible with his existence.
He stumbled to the door, pulling it open. The Highland air, clean and sharp, was a temporary balm. He looked up at the sky, where the Oracle's satellites glinted like cold, watchful eyes. He was a ghost, and the world was becoming solid without him.
Scrapbook Entry: The body is a door, and death is always on the other side. I have cheated it for so long. But this... this is a different key. The system is not just building a cage for the soul. It is making a world where the soul cannot breathe. I am not being hunted. I am being... phased out.