Chapter 2: The Carpenter's Ghost
Elias began to do something dangerous: he began to search for the source.
He bypassed the commercial web and slipped into the archives—the places where the old books were digitized before the Great Condensing. He found the Name. Jesus. He had heard it, of course. It was used as a swear word in the street or seen on the crumbling facades of the "Legacy Buildings" downtown that used to be churches. But Elias had never looked at the man.
He stayed up until the artificial sunrise, reading the Gospel of John. He wasn't looking for a religion; he was looking for a person. He read about the turning of water into wine, not as a magic trick, but as a gift to a panicked host. He read about the weeping at a friend's grave.
And then he hit the line that cracked his digital shell:
"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love."
Elias looked at his hands. They were clean, manicured, and had never held anything more substantial than a stylus. He felt a sudden, violent craving for something real. For the first time in his thirty years, he felt the sensation of being known. Not tracked by an algorithm, but known.