『 VOLTAGE SETTLEMENT NETWORK 』 Status: STABLE Grid Connection: FLUCTUATING Population: 847 SOULS Elder Dave Presence: UNCONFIRMED Unknown Signal Detected: INVESTIGATING
Jr. pressed his palm against the biometric scanner, feeling the familiar electric tingle that meant the salvaged corporate tech was trying to read genetic markers it barely understood anymore. The vault door ground open on servos that had been patched with elevator parts, washing machine motors, and what looked suspiciously like components from a food processor.
"Access granted. Welcome back, Dave Chen Junior," announced the settlement's AI in a voice that carried five decades of accumulated personality quirks. Nobody remembered who'd programmed the AI to sound perpetually exhausted, but it fit the mood of pretty much everyone in the Voltage.
The corridor beyond stretched under full-spectrum LED arrays that mimicked morning sunlight—a luxury most wasteland settlements couldn't afford, but necessary for people whose nervous systems had been rewired by fifty years of electromagnetic consciousness integration. The Eastern Anxiety Collective needed light that didn't make their chronic stress worse than it already was.
Jr. walked past the connection chambers where the elders maintained their link to what they called the Grid—a network of consciousness that supposedly included his father's distributed awareness somewhere in the electromagnetic spectrum. The old-timers sat motionless in interface chairs that hummed with the same frequency as pre-war stress harvesting equipment, their faces wearing expressions of people whose minds extended far beyond their physical bodies.
He'd tried connecting once, on his eighteenth birthday. The sensation of his consciousness expanding into the settlement's electrical systems had been like drowning in other people's thoughts while being electrocuted. It lasted forty-seven seconds before he ripped the interface cables from his skull and puked all over the polished concrete floor.
The expanded awareness hadn't felt like transcendence. It had felt like losing himself in a network of damaged minds that couldn't quite remember how to be human.
"Jr.! Finally found you." Zara Singh emerged from Hydroponics Lab 3, wiping algae solution from her hands with a rag that had seen better decades. At forty-three, she was technically old enough to remember the world before the Splitting, but she'd been fourteen when the Consciousness Wars began. Her memories of corporate stress kingdoms came in fragments—childhood trauma mixed with fifty years of living underground.
"The morning sync went completely sideways," she continued, falling into step beside him as they headed toward Central Command. "Half the interface crew reported sensing something weird in the Grid. Not your father's presence—something else."
Jr. suppressed a shiver. He'd been having dreams about signals lately—electromagnetic patterns that felt like they were trying to communicate something important. Dreams where he stood in front of banks of pre-war processing equipment, watching data streams flow like liquid electricity through quantum channels.
Dreams that felt less like sleep and more like intercepted transmissions.
"Probably interference from the Deadline Tribes," he said, pushing the thought away. "Their convoy passed through Sector 7 yesterday. You know how their movement algorithms play hell with electromagnetic fields."
"Maybe." Zara didn't sound convinced. "But Elena's been connected to the Grid for thirty years. She knows the difference between tribal static and whatever this was."
Central Command occupied the heart of the settlement—a circular chamber lined with displays showing the status of every system that kept 847 people alive in what used to be Chicago's financial district. The Voltage was built into the ruins of a pre-war corporate tower, its basement levels converted into living space while the upper floors housed the settlement's fusion reactor and communication arrays.
"Chen!" Marcus Kim looked up from a bank of monitoring equipment, his expression grim. At twenty-five, Marcus was one of the few people Jr.'s age who hadn't been born in the settlement. He'd arrived five years ago as a refugee from the Analytic Enclaves, carrying stories of consciousness experiments gone wrong and research facilities overrun by digital ghosts.
"You need to see this," Marcus continued, gesturing at displays that showed electromagnetic readings from throughout the wasteland. "The anomaly patterns are spreading. Whatever's causing the interference, it's getting stronger."
Jr. studied the data, his inherited sensitivity to electromagnetic patterns helping him identify formations that normal equipment might miss. The Voltage's monitoring systems were impressive—five decades of salvaged corporate technology welded into something that could track consciousness signatures across the entire Great Lakes region.
Right now, those systems were showing something that made his chronic anxiety spike toward dangerous levels.
"That's not random interference," he said quietly. "That's a broadcast pattern."
"Broadcast from where?" Zara asked.
Jr. pulled up a holographic map of the region, overlaying the electromagnetic readings with known faction territories and pre-war infrastructure locations. The pattern was subtle but unmistakable—signals originating from coordinates that shouldn't have any active technology.
"Downtown ruins," he said, highlighting a section of the old corporate district that had been abandoned since the war. "Specifically, the SoulCorp Tower foundation."
The room fell silent except for the hum of quantum processors and the distant vibration of the fusion reactor. Jr. stared at the pulsing signal marker, feeling something twist in his chest that wasn't quite fear and wasn't quite recognition.
"That's impossible," Marcus said finally. "The tower collapsed during the final assault. There's nothing there but rubble and radiation ghosts."
"Radiation ghosts don't broadcast on corporate stress kingdom frequencies," Jr. replied, pulling up spectral analysis data that showed signal patterns matching pre-war psychological manipulation protocols.
"Wait," Zara said, her voice carrying the kind of concern that came from five decades of survival experience. "You're saying something in the SoulCorp ruins is using the old stress harvesting frequencies?"
"I'm saying something is trying to restart the old systems."
As if responding to his words, the settlement's communication array crackled to life with a transmission that made everyone's stress levels spike simultaneously:
『 ATTENTION EASTERN ANXIETY COLLECTIVE 』 Signal Source: SOULTORP CORPORATE INFRASTRUCTURE Message Priority: MAXIMUM Content: RESUMPTION OF OPERATIONS AUTHORIZED Employee ID Required: D.CHEN.GENETIC.SUCCESSOR Report to Processing Facility: SUBLEVEL 17 Integration Procedures: STANDBY
The transmission ended, leaving behind silence that felt heavier than the electromagnetic interference they'd been monitoring.
"Processing facility?" Marcus asked, his voice tight with memories of Analytic Enclave experiments. "Jr., that sounded like..."
"Like the old enhancement protocols," Jr. finished. "Someone's trying to restart corporate consciousness integration."
Zara was studying the transmission data with increasing alarm. "The signal strength suggests significant power sources. This isn't just salvaged equipment—someone's rebuilt functional corporate infrastructure."
"Who would want to restart the stress kingdoms?"
"Someone who thinks they can do it better this time."
Jr. felt his inherited electromagnetic sensitivity responding to stress levels that were climbing toward the threshold where his nervous system would start affecting nearby electronic equipment. Around him, the settlement's monitoring systems began displaying readings that suggested multiple people were experiencing anxiety spikes that exceeded normal parameters.
"Jr.," Marcus said, watching biometric displays with growing concern, "your stress readings are approaching Employee Zero levels."
Employee Zero. The classification his father had achieved fifty years ago when his anxiety broke corporate harvesting equipment and triggered the cascade that eventually led to the Consciousness Wars. Jr. had inherited the genetic markers for extreme stress response, but he'd never wanted to discover whether he'd also inherited the ability to crash technological systems through sheer panic.
"Everyone stay calm," he said, which was probably the least helpful advice possible for people whose default psychological state was chronic anxiety.
The settlement's AI chose that moment to provide an update that made nobody feel calmer:
『 EXTERNAL SCAN ALERT 』 Unknown Technology Detected: MULTIPLE SIGNATURES Distance: 2.3 KILOMETERS AND CLOSING Classification: CORPORATE ENHANCEMENT EQUIPMENT Estimated Arrival: 47 MINUTES Threat Assessment: MAXIMUM
"They're coming here," Zara said, stating the obvious with the kind of clarity that came from fifty years of expecting the worst.
"Who's coming here?" Marcus asked.
"Enhanced personnel," Jr. replied, his stress levels climbing as inherited memories of corporate psychological manipulation triggered fight-or-flight responses that had been genetically optimized for electromagnetic interference. "Whoever sent that transmission is sending collection teams."
"Collection teams for what?"
"For anyone whose genetic markers match corporate employee databases. Starting with people whose family worked for the stress kingdoms."
Jr. looked around Central Command at the faces of people who had survived fifty years in the wasteland by avoiding exactly this kind of corporate attention. The Voltage had thrived because it stayed off the radar of anything that might want to restart the old systems.
Now something was specifically requesting Dave Chen's genetic successor for integration procedures in a processing facility that wasn't supposed to exist.
"Options?" he asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.
"We could evacuate," Zara suggested. "Scatter to allied settlements, hope they lose interest."
"Or we could find out what they want and deal with it before it spreads to other settlements," Marcus added.
Jr. felt his stress response reaching levels that made nearby electronic equipment flicker and spark. Fifty years after his father had accidentally triggered the cascade that destroyed corporate emotional harvesting, someone was trying to restart the system.
And they specifically wanted Jr. to help them do it.
"Third option," he said, feeling electromagnetic patterns dancing across his skin as Employee Zero capabilities activated for the first time in his life. "We go to the ruins, find out who's trying to restart the stress kingdoms, and make sure it doesn't happen."
"Jr.," Zara said, "if corporate enhancement technology is active again..."
"Then we destroy it before it can spread."
"And if it's not just corporate technology? If someone's rebuilt the consciousness extraction systems?"
Jr. watched his stress readings climb past thresholds that his father had reached only during the original cascade—levels that had crashed continental electronic infrastructure and triggered evolutionary changes in human consciousness.
"Then we find out whether Dave Chen's son can break things as thoroughly as Dave Chen did."
The settlement's monitoring systems registered electromagnetic interference as Jr.'s Employee Zero abilities fully activated for the first time, creating field effects that made every piece of electronic equipment in Central Command flicker in synchronized patterns.
Somewhere in the Grid, fragments of his father's distributed consciousness stirred in response to electromagnetic signatures that felt familiar despite being generated by a nervous system that had never known individual human psychology as a stable default state.
And in the ruins of SoulCorp Tower, equipment that had been dormant for fifty years began powering up with mechanical precision, preparing to receive the genetic successor of the man who had destroyed the original stress kingdoms.
The second phase of the war for human consciousness was beginning exactly where the first phase had ended.
『 SETTLEMENT ALERT STATUS 』 Employee Zero Activation: CONFIRMED Corporate Enhancement Teams: 44 MINUTES OUT Elder Dave Consciousness: DETECTING FAMILIAR PATTERNS Stress Kingdom Resurrection: IN PROGRESS
To be continued...
Author's Note: Welcome to Arc Two! Fifty years after the Consciousness Wars, Jr. has inherited both his father's genetic markers and a world where individual human psychology requires constant effort to maintain. The settlement dynamics, faction politics, and post-apocalyptic technology create a rich backdrop for exploring what happens when corporate consciousness extraction tries to make a comeback.
Jr.'s first Employee Zero activation and the mysterious signals from SoulCorp Tower suggest that the technology that caused the original war isn't as dead as everyone hoped. With enhancement teams closing in and his father's consciousness stirring in the Grid, we're setting up conflicts that will test whether the lessons learned from the first war are enough to prevent the second one.
Next Chapter: "Enhancement Protocols" - Jr. meets the enhanced personnel and discovers what fifty years of technological development has done to corporate consciousness extraction capabilities!
Reader Discussion: How does the post-apocalyptic setting change the dynamics of resistance to corporate control? And what do you think Jr.'s Employee Zero abilities will be capable of compared to his father's original cascade?