Global Apocalypse: My System Is Always AFK

The doorway didn’t so much close as it snapped - a single, violent contraction of gold light collapsing inward on itself, the vast shape on the other side letting out one last, layered shriek before the shimmering pane folded down to nothing, leaving only a faint afterimage burned into the air where it had been.

Silence dropped over the vault like a blanket.

Ethan stood there, hand still pressed to the terminal, chest heaving, waiting for something - anything - to indicate whether that had actually worked or whether he’d just made a very large mistake very quickly.

[NOTICE: Corridor connection fully severed.]

[The system can confirm the entity did not complete its crossing. Whatever was on the other side of that doorway is now, as far as the system can determine, exactly where it started - on its own side, presumably significantly less pleased about the outcome than it was ninety seconds ago.]

Ethan let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, sliding down to sit properly on the floor in front of the dais, sword resting across his knees.

”Okay,” he said. ”Okay, good. That worked.”

Kaia lowered her weapon slowly, some of the tension bleeding out of her shoulders, though her expression stayed guarded. ”You just severed an active multiversal transit corridor mid-breach. On your first attempt. With a terminal you found four days ago.”

”Yeah,” Ethan said. ”I’m aware that should probably be harder than it was.”

[The system would like to note, for the record, that it is equally unsettled by how smoothly that worked. It does not currently have an explanation for why the terminal responded so readily to a command it explicitly flagged as risky. It suspects, though it cannot confirm, that the terminal simply trusts the subject’s judgment more than its own risk assessments - which is, frankly, a strange thing for a piece of ancient architecture to have decided about a nineteen-year-old it met less than a week ago.]

”Great,” Ethan muttered. ”Even the basement’s got opinions about me now.”

Osei crept back into the vault properly, tablet still clutched tight, staring at the empty space where the doorway had been with the particular stunned expression of someone whose entire academic career had just been rewritten in the span of six minutes. ”Mr. Verma, that was - do you understand what just happened? You didn’t just close a door. You defended an active breach point against something the terminal itself flagged as a critical unknown threat, using architecture that predates recorded history, and you did it with about ninety seconds to spare.”

”I’ve had a busy month,” Ethan said, standing up and offering her a hand off the floor she hadn’t actually fallen onto, mostly out of habit. ”This barely cracks the top five.”

Kaia watched the exchange with something that looked, for the first time since arriving, close to genuine amusement, though it faded quickly back into the careful wariness she’d carried through the whole ordeal.

”We should talk,” she said. ”Properly. Not standing in a collapsed doorway’s afterglow with everyone’s adrenaline still spiking.”

”Yeah,” Ethan agreed. ”Let’s take this upstairs. I need actual tea, not the emergency kind.”

They regrouped an hour later in the Citadel’s courtyard, above ground, under a sky that had two fewer moons in it than the one Ethan had briefly glimpsed and considerably more familiar. The tea golem, sensing the general tension in the air, had gone into overdrive, producing enough tea for the entire gathered group without anyone having to ask twice.

Kaia sat across from Ethan at the low table Suresh had set up, Devan and Rhea flanking her, watching the golem with poorly disguised fascination.

”So,” Ethan said, cradling his own cup. ”Before we get into whatever’s actually going on with that Collector thing - I need to know something. Is your system going to try and talk to mine? Because if there’s an actual multiversal governing body involved in any of this, I’d like a heads-up before it shows up uninvited.”

Kaia and the system, as it turned out, answered at almost exactly the same moment.

”Our world’s Framework has been trying to establish contact since the corridor first opened,” Kaia said. ”It’s cautious. Formal. It doesn’t reach out often, but when it does, it doesn’t waste time.”

[NOTICE: The system would like to confirm this independently, as it has just received an incoming transmission request — not from the Framework the subject is familiar with, but from a distinctly separate system architecture, formatted with a level of formality the system has genuinely never encountered before.]

[The system would like to read it aloud, verbatim, because it does not trust itself to summarize it accurately without editorializing.]

Ethan set his cup down. ”Go ahead.”

[TRANSMISSION RECEIVED.]

[”Greetings. This message originates from the Threshold Accord, the governing administrative framework of Instance Designation 7-Vel, colloquially referred to by its resident population as ’home.’ We are aware of recent unauthorized breach activity at the shared transit corridor beneath your Instance and wish to extend our sincerest apologies for the disturbance caused by the entity your system successfully repelled.”]

[NOTICE: The system would like to note, with some surprise, that this message is polite. Genuinely polite. Not the Global Administrative Framework’s clinical false-neutrality, and not the Origin Engine’s ancient patience. Actual, deliberate courtesy.]

Ethan raised an eyebrow. ”Keep going.”

[The message continues: ”The entity in question, designated locally as ’the Anomaly,’ has plagued our Instance’s transit infrastructure for several years. We had believed it contained. We were mistaken, and we regret that this mistake nearly resulted in significant harm to your world and its residents.”]

[”We would also like to formally acknowledge the presence of our envoy, Kaia Sundaram, and confirm that her mission - locating and, if possible, making contact with any surviving trace of Arjun Mehra’s legacy - was authorized at the highest level of our remaining leadership. We understand this contact was made without prior coordination with your own governing structures, and we apologize for the breach of protocol.”]

Kaia, listening to the system’s flat recitation, gave a small, tired nod. ”That’s them. Careful to a fault. Always has been, ever since we lost him.”

Ethan looked between her and the empty air where the system’s voice technically wasn’t, absorbing the strange, unfamiliar experience of a governing body actually apologizing for something instead of demanding compliance.

”Okay,” he said slowly. ”This is different. Every other system I’ve dealt with so far has either wanted to erase me or use me. This one’s just... saying sorry.”

[The system would like to note that it finds this refreshing, though it remains appropriately cautious. Politeness is not the same as harmlessness. It has simply never encountered an administrative body that led with the former.]

[”We do have one further request,”] the message continued, the system relaying it steadily. [”Given the severity of the Anomaly’s continued activity, and given what we now understand about your own Instance’s outlier signature, the Threshold Accord formally requests a direct, sanctioned diplomatic exchange - properly coordinated this time - between our Instance and yours. We believe there is a great deal each side could learn from the other, and, frankly, we believe your world may be the first genuine hope we’ve had in years of finally resolving the threat the Anomaly represents for good.”]

Ethan sat with that for a long moment, turning his cup slowly in his hands, weighing the request against everything else currently competing for his attention - a countdown that had technically resolved but might not stay that way, a buried city full of guardians still calling him ”inheritor,” and a growing, uneasy sense that this entire situation was only going to get more complicated the longer he sat here drinking tea about it.

”A diplomatic exchange,” he repeated. ”Meaning what, exactly. Delegates? Meetings? More people showing up at my door unannounced?”

[The system believes, based on the tone of this message, that a formal, scheduled visit is being proposed - considerably more organized than Kaia’s group’s arrival, and, notably, one that would require the subject’s explicit consent before proceeding.]

Kaia leaned forward slightly. ”For what it’s worth - I know you don’t owe our world anything. You’ve never even heard of it until four days ago. But whatever’s happening to your system, to that terminal, to the mark on your sword - it’s connected to us whether either of us wanted it to be. I think we’re better off figuring that out together than apart.”

Ethan looked at her for a long moment, then at Suresh, standing nearby with his usual quiet, patient attentiveness, then finally back down at his tea.

”Fine,” he said. ”One exchange. Scheduled, proper, no surprises. But I want to know exactly who’s coming, and I want final say on how many people show up in my courtyard at once. I’ve had enough of that this year already.”

[NOTICE: The system logs the subject’s consent and will relay the terms accordingly.]

[The system would also like to raise one detail it noticed while parsing the Threshold Accord’s message - a small formatting inconsistency buried in the transmission’s metadata that it initially dismissed as noise, but which, on closer inspection, appears deliberate.]

[Attached to the message, beneath the formal request, is a second, much shorter line - unsigned, informal, clearly not part of the official diplomatic text at all.]

[”If you’re really him, even a little - thank you for coming back. We waited a long time.”]

Ethan read the words as the system relayed them, and felt, for the second time in a week, the strange, uninvited weight of being mistaken - or maybe not mistaken at all - for someone he’d never actually met.