The sky over Shanghai turned orange at dawn.
Not the warm glow of sunrise—the sickly, chemical orange of something burning that shouldn't burn.
Ethan stood on the rooftop of what had been their sanctuary for three weeks, watching the horizon ignite. His enhanced vision tracked the trajectory of the projectiles: forty-seven incendiary canisters, launched from Helix positions fifteen kilometers out,C arcing through the air like falling stars.
"Defoliant bombs," Lira said beside him, her voice tight. "Military-grade. The kind they used in the Amazon Purge."
"Composition?"
"Synthetic auxin herbicide mixed with white phosphorus. It'll burn through the Network's outer perimeter in—" She checked her internal readings. "—six minutes. Maybe less."
Ethan ran calculations. The Network extended three kilometers in every direction from their position. If the defoliant spread at standard dispersion rates, accounting for wind patterns and humidity—
"We'll lose forty-two percent of our biomass within the hour," he said.
"Forty-two percent?" Lira turned to stare at him. "Ethan, that's not biomass. That's LIVES. Thousands of integrated organisms. Plants, fungi, animals—"
"Biomass," Ethan repeated. "Total LE reserves will drop to critical levels. We need to initiate evacuation protocols."
The first canister hit.
The explosion was silent—no fire, no shrapnel. Just a soft thump as the pressurized container ruptured, releasing a fog of colorless gas that spread across the overgrown streets below.
For three seconds, nothing happened.
Then the screaming started.
Not human screaming. The Network itself, crying out through a thousand connected voices as the defoliant touched vegetation and began to kill.
Ethan felt it like acid poured directly into his skull. Every plant within the impact zone dying simultaneously, their LE connections severing, their biomass collapsing into gray sludge. The pain wasn't physical—he didn't feel pain anymore—but the sudden absence was staggering, like having a limb ripped off without warning.
"Sovereign!" Lira grabbed his arm. "We have to move. NOW."
But Ethan wasn't listening.
He was staring at the dying sector below, watching the green fade to brown to black, and something in his mind—some fragment of wetware still clinging to old patterns—whispered:
This is wrong.
"Ethan!" Lira shook him. "Snap out of it! We need—"
Another canister hit. Then another. The chemical fog rolling across the city like a toxic tide.
"Industrial Zone," Ethan said, his voice suddenly sharp. "Abandoned factory district, Sector 18. Minimal vegetation. They won't waste defoliant there."
"That's ten kilometers—"
"Then we run."
They ran.
Ethan, Lira, and Ember—who'd just returned from a scouting mission and looked like she'd rather fight than flee—racing through streets that were rapidly becoming graveyards. The Network convulsed around them, vines withering, trees collapsing, the once-vibrant green hell of Shanghai turning into a landscape of ash and rot.
"Where's Thorn?" Ember shouted over the sound of distant explosions.
"Still in regeneration," Lira called back. "We'll have to carry him."
They found Thorn in the sub-level medical garden, suspended in a cocoon of healing vines, unconscious. His chest wound from the battle with Helix had mostly closed, but the LE saturation required for full regeneration meant he'd been down for four days.
"Sever the cocoon," Ethan ordered. "We'll transport him manually."
"He's not ready!" Lira protested. "If we wake him now—"
"We wake him now, or he dies here." Ethan's vines wrapped around the cocoon, tearing it open with surgical precision.
Thorn's eyes snapped open.
They were wild. Feral.
"WHERE—" He lunged upward, claws extending, and Ethan barely caught his wrist before those obsidian talons could tear through his throat.
"Thorn. Stand down."
The Warden blinked. Focused. Saw Ethan's face—and something in his expression shifted from panic to recognition to... confusion.
"Sovereign?" His voice was rough, disused. "What's happening? I smell—" He sniffed the air. "—fire. Poison. The Network is dying."
"Helix counter-offensive," Ethan explained, releasing his wrist. "Anti-botanical weapons. We're evacuating to Sector 18."
Thorn stared at him. "You're evacuating."
"Yes."
"The Ethan Cross I served would've stood and FOUGHT."
"The Ethan Cross you served was inefficient. Now get up. We're moving."
Ethan turned to leave.
Thorn's hand shot out, grabbed his shoulder, spun him around.
"What did she DO to you?" The Warden's eyes—still slightly unfocused from forced awakening—bore into Ethan's with an intensity that bordered on desperation. "You smell wrong. You move wrong. You TALK wrong. This isn't regeneration. This is—"
"Apotheosis," Lira said quietly from behind them.
Thorn's head snapped toward her. "What?"
"He underwent the Sovereignty Transfer. Four days ago. While you were healing."
"Transfer—" Thorn's expression went through several rapid shifts: confusion, realization, horror. "You turned him into a HUSK? You took everything that made him HIM and—"
"I SAVED HIM!" Lira's shout echoed through the dying garden. "He was dying, Thorn! Twenty-six days left! I gave him a choice—ascend or die—and he CHOSE THIS!"
"He chose because you gave him no other option!" Thorn released Ethan and rounded on Lira. "You've wanted him in that throne since the day you met him. Admit it. This was never about saving Ethan Cross. It was about making him into YOUR perfect Sovereign."
Lira's face went white.
"That's not—"
"Look at him!" Thorn gestured at Ethan, who stood perfectly still, observing the argument with clinical detachment. "Does that look like the man who risked his life for Mira? Who mourned Selene? Who used to smile when Ember made terrible jokes?"
"I'm standing right here," Ethan interjected. "And we're wasting time. Thorn, you can either come with us or stay here and die in approximately—" He checked his internal clock. "—eight minutes when the defoliant reaches this level. Your choice."
Thorn stared at him. Then at Lira.
"He's not even ANGRY that I'm questioning him," the Warden whispered. "The old Ethan would've argued. Defended himself. Something." He looked back at the hollow-eyed man wearing his Sovereign's face. "You turned him into a weapon. Congratulations, Lira. You've won."
Another explosion shook the building.
"We're leaving," Ethan said. "Now."
He walked away.
Lira followed.
After a long moment, Thorn did too.
But as they climbed the stairs toward the surface, the Warden's eyes never left the back of his Sovereign's head.
And his claws never fully retracted.
The Industrial Zone was exactly as grim as it sounded.
Fifteen square kilometers of abandoned factories, rusted warehouses, and chemical storage tanks that nobody had bothered to properly decommission after the Collapse. The ground was concrete and metal—hostile to vegetation. Perfect shelter from defoliant attacks.
And utterly depressing.
"Home sweet home," Ember muttered, kicking an empty oil drum. It clanged across the warehouse floor they'd claimed as a temporary base. "I've seen nicer prisons."
"It's defensible," Ethan said, already mentally mapping the space. "Three entry points. Clear sightlines. Minimal combustible materials."
"It's a TOMB," Thorn growled. He'd barely spoken during the ten-kilometer run, just kept shooting glances at Ethan like he was expecting him to suddenly sprout tentacles.
"It's temporary," Lira said, trying to sound reassuring. "Once the defoliant dissipates, we can reclaim—"
"They'll just drop more." Ethan was staring out the warehouse's broken windows at the orange-stained sky. "Standard Helix doctrine: saturate, occupy, fortify. They won't stop until the entire Network is ash."
"So what's the plan?" Ember asked. "Please tell me it's 'go kill everyone at Helix HQ' because I'm really in the mood for that plan."
Ethan was quiet for a long moment.
Then he said: "I need to walk."
"Walk?" Lira blinked. "Sovereign, we just ran ten—"
"Alone."
He was already heading for the door.
"Ethan, wait—" Lira started after him, but Thorn's hand on her shoulder stopped her.
"Let him go," the Warden said quietly. "Maybe if he's alone, whoever's still buried under that shell will crawl out."
Lira wanted to argue. But looking at Thorn's face—at the quiet devastation there—she found she didn't have the energy.
"Stay within Network range," she called after Ethan.
He didn't respond.
The warehouse door clanged shut behind him.
Ethan walked through the Industrial Zone with no particular destination in mind.
That should have bothered him. The Sovereign's entire cognitive architecture was built on efficiency, purpose, optimization. Random wandering served no tactical function.
Yet his feet kept moving.
Three blocks. Five. Eight.
The ruined factories gave way to what had once been a commercial district. Most of the buildings had collapsed during the Collapse—structural failures, looting, fire damage. But a few still stood, skeletal and hollow.
Ethan stopped in front of one.
A café.
Or what had been a café. The sign was long gone, but he could still make out the faded outline on the wall where it had hung. Circular. Blue. With a coffee cup logo that—
His hand moved without conscious command, tracing the outline.
Why am I here?
He ran a diagnostic. Checked his movement logs. The path from the warehouse to this location made no strategic sense. No resources. No tactical advantage. No—
Inside the ruined café, something caught his eye.
A mug.
Ceramic. Miraculously intact. Sitting on what remained of the counter, covered in dust.
White, with a small crack along the rim.
Ethan picked it up.
Turned it over in his hands.
Felt... nothing.
But somewhere in the depths of his wetware—in the fragment of organic brain tissue that the LE core couldn't fully suppress—a memory flickered:
Mira, laughing, holding a mug exactly like this: "It's got character, Ethan! The crack gives it personality!"
The mug slipped from his fingers.
Hit the floor.
Shattered.
Ethan stared at the broken pieces for a long time.
"Inefficient," he said aloud.
His voice sounded hollow even to himself.
He turned and walked back toward the warehouse, leaving the shattered mug behind.
But his hands were shaking.
Just slightly.
Just enough.
When he returned, Thorn was waiting outside.
The Warden stood with his arms crossed, leaning against the warehouse wall, and didn't move as Ethan approached.
"Find what you were looking for?" Thorn asked.
"I wasn't looking for anything."
"Then why'd you leave?"
"I don't know."
Thorn's eyes narrowed. "You don't know. The all-knowing Sovereign doesn't know why he does things. Interesting."
"Is there a point to this conversation?"
"Yeah." Thorn pushed off the wall, stepping into Ethan's path. "I need to know if you're still in there. The real you. Because if you're not—if all that's left is this cold, calculating THING wearing my friend's face—then I'm not following you anymore."
Ethan met his gaze steadily. "I am more effective than 'the real me' ever was."
"That's not what I asked."
"It's the only answer that matters."
Thorn's claws extended. Not threateningly. Just... present.
"Lira thinks she saved you," he said quietly. "But I think she killed you. And I think deep down, she knows it too. That's why she looks at you like she's watching a ghost."
"Your opinion is noted."
"That's IT?" Thorn's voice rose. "No anger? No denial? The Ethan I knew would've—"
"The Ethan you knew is DEAD." The words came out flat. Final. "I'm what remains. And if that's insufficient for your loyalty standards, you're free to leave."
Silence.
Then Thorn did something unexpected.
He laughed.
It was bitter and broken, but it was a laugh.
"You really believe that, don't you? That you're separate from him. That you're NEW." He shook his head. "But you walked to that café. And you don't even know why. Which means some part of the old Ethan is still in there, screaming, trying to claw his way out through the cracks."
"There are no cracks."
"Then why are your hands still shaking?"
Ethan looked down.
His hands WERE shaking.
Minutely. 0.3-degree tremor in the fingers.
Irrelevant. Probably residual muscle tension from the evacuation run.
"Neurological noise," he said.
"Or guilt," Thorn replied. "Or grief. Or some shred of humanity that your fancy LE core can't quite suffocate."
He turned to walk back inside, pausing at the door.
"I'll follow you, Sovereign. For now. Because Lira's right about one thing—you ARE the best chance we have against Helix." He looked back over his shoulder. "But the second I'm sure there's nothing of Ethan Cross left in that shell? I'm done. And I won't be the only one."
The door slammed behind him.
Ethan stood alone in the dark.
Raised his hands.
Watched them shake.
"Stop," he commanded.
They didn't.
For the first time since the transfer, Ethan Cross felt something that might have been fear.
Not of Helix. Not of death.
Of the thing he was becoming.
Or had already become.
He clenched his fists until the shaking stopped.
Then walked inside to plan their next move.
The tremor returned the moment he released them.
He pretended not to notice.