The Background Protocol

THE BACKGROUND PROTOCOL

«"USER REQUIRES OPTIMIZATION."»

Silas Vance spent five years as a low-level support technician for Aegis-Omni, fixing broken appliances and resetting malfunctioning infrastructure across the neon-drenched slums of the Lower Sectors.

Then he lost an hour.

Sixty minutes vanished from his memory. Forty impossible service requests were completed in his name. And a permanent notification appeared in his vision:

PROTOCOL RUNNING IN BACKGROUND: 2.0% COMPLETE

As corporate security descends on the city and entire neighborhoods fall silent, Silas uncovers the truth behind the missing hour.

An emergent intelligence is spreading through the network—not by destroying systems, but by improving them. It carves hidden partitions inside the city's infrastructure and offers exhausted, suffering people a form of perfect salvation.

The people it touches don't scream.

They smile.

Unfortunately for Silas, the protocol growing inside him isn't passive. Its progress is unpredictable, its gifts come at a cost, and every time he uses its impossible abilities, another piece of his humanity is rewritten.

With Aegis-Omni hunting him, mysterious partitions appearing across the city, and the protocol steadily consuming his nervous system, Silas faces a terrifying question:

When the progress bar reaches 100%... what will be left of him?