The plaza was unusually crowded.
Novaheim command had requested a midday broadcast, one of their signature morale updates: projected leadership, algorithm-adjusted messaging, visuals calibrated for emotional resonance. Routine.
Sawl stood at the edge of the gathering, blending into the blur of moving uniforms and citizen badges. His eyes scanned the crowd, but his thoughts were elsewhere, still echoing the spiral patterns, the mural, the phrase etched into stone.
They will awaken.
A vibration pulsed beneath his feet.
The projection began.
Above them, the Novaheim insignia unfolded in the air like origami, followed by the Chancellor's perfectly composed face. His voice carried across the plaza, velvet and sharp:
"Together, we ascend. Together, we refine. Order is our harmony, and alignment is our strength."
Then it happened.
The image glitched.
Just for a moment.
The Chancellor's face distorted, briefly replaced by static, and then by a flicker of something else. A pattern. Circular. Fractal. Like the spirals Sawl had traced in the garden. Then it snapped back.
The sound warped too. A voice layered over the speech, only for a breath:
"Do not fear the fracture. The Light is near."
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
The projection stabilized. Officials moved quickly, speaking into comms. The crowd was herded calmly away.
Sawl didn't move.
Someone bumped his shoulder.
He turned, just in time to see a figure disappear into the dispersing crowd. No uniform. No ID. But in his hand now… something cold.
A shard of translucent crystal. Thin. Almost like glass.
Etched into it, a phrase:
"We're not waiting for the shift. We're preparing for it."
He closed his hand around it just as a drone zipped overhead, scanning.
Its red sensor flicked toward him.
Sawl turned quickly, moving into a side corridor.
The back hallway smelled of dust and metal, one of the old transit routes rarely used now. He slipped inside, pressing his back to the cool wall, breath shallow.
The drone passed.
He opened his hand again.
The shard had warmed.
He could still hear the voice, not from the projection, but the one deeper inside. The one that had walked with him in silence. The Helper.
"You are not behind. You are being positioned."
Sawl stepped out into the empty corridor beyond, watching as people returned to their rhythm, unaware of what had just slipped through the seams.
The glitch had happened.
Not loud. Not long.
But enough.
The lie had cracked.
And the shift had already begun.