“The Bazaar’s owners seeded the Torrent themselves,” Vissa said. “It was never piracy. It was a trap.”
“They’re erasing choice,” she whispered, her voice a broken radio signal. “The Torrent… it’s not free. It’s a leash.”
Across the arcology, millions of implanted citizens clutched their heads. Not in pain—in revelation. They saw the Lachesis code unfurl like a parasite in their own neural maps. They saw the Bazaar’s founders laughing. They saw their own forgotten faces in dusty mirrors, real mirrors, not the polished reflections of the Bazaar’s catalog.
Then the Torrent screamed .