The house had learned new rhythms.
After Lucia moved in, silence stopped being empty. It waited. Footsteps echoed differently. Even the walls felt attentive, as if something had shifted from observation to participation.
Sylence noticed it first in the mornings—
the way the Gift reacted.
Not violently. Not actively.
Cautiously.
The object—now divided, zeroed, adjusted across projected timelines—rested in its containment field like a thought refusing to finish itself. Griffin's lab had called it a success. Three functional echoes: future, vintage, ancient. Each stable. Each obedient.
Too obedient.
Sylence stood alone in the underground chamber, watching data scroll past without touching it. Andrew's voice lingered in his head from the night before.
"You ever think philosophy exists to slow people down?" Andrew had asked casually, staring at the ceiling.
"Like… if humans moved at the speed of their thoughts, we'd burn everything."
Sylence had answered without thinking.
"Or maybe it exists to stop us from realizing we already have."
Lucia had looked up then. Not spoken.
But listened.
Now, standing before the Gift, Sylence felt that same sensation again—
being listened to.
He activated the interface.
The screens responded immediately, but something was wrong. Not an error. A hesitation. As if the system was waiting for confirmation from somewhere that wasn't there.
"Proceed," Sylence said aloud.
The system complied.
A second later, a pressure formed behind his eyes.
Not pain.
Presence.
The world dimmed—not visually, but conceptually. The room remained intact, yet meaning felt thinner, stretched like fabric pulled too far.
And then—
He was not alone.
Not in the room.
In himself.
You are early, a voice said.
Sylence didn't turn. He didn't need to.
"I was invited," he replied. "Twice, actually. Once by Endangers. Once by you."
Silence.
Then the voice returned—closer now.
Invitations imply choice.
"Then why does this feel like recognition?"
Another pause. Longer.
When the voice spoke again, it sounded… different. Less measured. Less rehearsed.
Because you are holding what was never meant to be held by one frame.
The Gift pulsed faintly.
Sylence finally spoke the thought he'd been circling for days.
"You're not the Septet."
Sylence noticed something that didn't sit right.
Schyper never spoke like a man defending a belief.
He spoke like someone remembering an argument.
Sometimes his tone shifted mid-sentence—
not emotionally, but structurally.
As if the conclusion had been reached long ago, and he was only retracing the steps for Sylence's benefit.
Once, when Sylence challenged him—asked whether the Septet could ever truly agree—
Schyper paused.
Not to think.
To listen.
His gaze unfocused for a fraction of a second, eyes drifting as though waiting for a response that never came.
Then he smiled.
"Consensus," Schyper said softly, "is rarely about agreement. It's about… tolerable coexistence."
Sylence felt a chill.
That answer hadn't sounded personal.
It sounded procedural.
Later, alone, Sylence replayed the conversation in his mind and realized something unsettling:
Schyper never said I believe.
He always said we concluded, it was decided, it was permitted.
As if the decision had once been his—
and then wasn't.
And somewhere deep inside, a quiet, irrational thought surfaced:
Schyper didn't feel like a follower of the Septet.
He felt like a voice that had once been outvoted.
A soft sound followed. Not laughter.
Something like concession.
No, the voice admitted. I am what remains when unanimity fails.
The pressure intensified, and suddenly Sylence wasn't standing anymore.
He was remembering.
Not his memories.
Someone else's restraint.
Images layered over one another—votes without words, arguments without sound. Seven perspectives folding in on themselves, reality trembling under indecision.
One voice pushing forward relentlessly.
One voice always countered.
Delay.
Preservation.
Continuation.
They named me many things, the voice said. But you may call me Schyper.
Sylence exhaled slowly. "A fragment."
A necessity, Schyper corrected. When erasure was proposed… someone had to object.
The Gift reacted sharply this time. Not resistance. Alignment.
Sylence felt it then—clearer than ever.
Schyper wasn't imprisoned.
He was excluded.
"And the others?" Sylence asked. "They can't act fully because you're… missing."
Because I am unresolved.
The room stabilized. Meaning returned, heavy and deliberate.
They call me obstruction, Schyper continued. I call myself continuity.
Sylence's hands clenched.
"And the Gift?"
A tether, Schyper said quietly. A way for me to remain adjacent to consensus. Close enough to influence. Too distant to dominate.
A realization settled in—slow, horrifying, elegant.
"The Septet doesn't lack power," Sylence said.
"It lacks permission."
Schyper did not deny it.
That is why you matter.
The screens flickered. The timelines adjusted—not randomly, but anticipatorily.
You stand between states, Schyper said. Human enough to doubt. Capable enough to act.
Sylence felt the pull then—not command, not coercion.
Invitation.
"What do you want from me?" he asked.
A pause.
Then honesty.
I want time.
The word echoed.
Not infinite. Not eternal. Just… sufficient.
The Gift dimmed. The presence receded.
As the room returned fully to itself, one final sentence lingered—pressed gently into Sylence's awareness like a fingerprint.
When the vote comes again… someone must speak who is not bound to consensus.
The screens shut down.
Sylence stood alone.
Above ground, Lucia laughed softly at something Andrew said. The sound drifted through the house, grounding, human.
Sylence looked at the Gift one last time.
For the first time since the lighthouse, he didn't feel like he was uncovering a conspiracy.
He felt like he was being positioned.
And somewhere beyond thought, beyond narrative, beyond force—
A consensus waited.
Incomplete.