Chapter 178

Chapter 178 KAELOS The emergency holo-session with the Council had ended only hours ago, yet the echoes of their questions still rang in my head. The images of the East Asian Prefecture’s withdrawal—their new name, The Pure Resonance Collective—floated like a dark signal across my mental horizon. It wasn’t merely a refusal. It was a declaration. I stood in the Geneva Transition Center’s upper atrium, looking down at the labyrinth of glass walkways and suspended neural arrays. Below, hundreds of enhanced drifted between sleep and wakefulness inside their stabilizers, like constellations waiting for alignment. Each one was a choice, a possibility, a risk. Elena joined me first, her steps precise, her thoughts like sharpened glass. “You saw the reports,” she said, voice flat. “They’re codifying ideology. The Collective isn’t just rejecting our scaffolds. They’re building an alternative model of resonance—one with no bridges at all.” “I saw.” My voice came out quieter than I expected. She