A week following her escape from Copenhagen Agata Vance observed her professional downfall unfold on a public news broadcast while she stayed in a location, near Oslo. The event transpired with crushing precision.
To begin a statement from Somnum International's "Ethical Oversight Board." It conveyed "regret" concerning Dr. Vance's " distress" about her sister yet strongly criticized her article as "methodologically unsound conjecture," mixing up "correlation, with causality." It referenced peer-reviewed research indicating Somnum Protocol participants experienced "unparalleled life satisfaction."
Next the advertisement campaign was initiated.
It was everywhere. Sleek minimalistic imagery. The face of a woman tense, with anxiety mirrored in a computer monitor. A calm voiceover asked, "Are you burdened by the question of 'what comes ?" The reflection then eased, becoming gentle while a delicate calming emblem—a graceful rendition of Kane's spirals—flickered softly on the display. "Why endure ambition's pain?" The woman smiled, not out of happiness. Deep relief. She shut the laptop. The closing image showed her hands quietly planting a seedling sunlight speckling her fingers. The slogan read: Somnum. Embrace your possibility.
Agata's essay, titled " lobotomy " wasn't censored. Instead it was absorbed, processed and transformed into advertising material. Her intense metaphor was softened, reshaped into a goal. Lobotomy? No valued customer. This is freedom.
The undermining was precise. A previous coworker from Zurich, a Somnum "Wellbeing Consultant " delivered a gentle softened interview. "Agata is exceptional naturally " he remarked, his expression a façade of worry. "However grief can cause us to dread remedies we haven't fully grasped. The Protocol isn't, about elimination; it's about enhancement. We assist individuals in releasing pain to discover their true peaceful selves."
Comments poured in under the news segments. "This 'doctor' desires for everyone to share her misery." "My Somnum Calm has been the blessing, in my life. I continue working; I just don't cry on Sundays now." "Fear-spreader." That final remark turned into a hashtag. #AnxietyMonger
Her university email got deactivated. Her professional accounts were marked with " claims" warnings. The scientific community, vigilant treated this career-damaging bomb thrown by a mourning family member with great caution and avoided it altogether. The Industry of Idleness possessed a shield than any attorney squad: the immense market-proven demand, for its offerings.
Inside a London hotel suite, purchased with cash Devon Duncan observed the feed. He had been pursuing phantoms. Javier Jeffrey had disappeared into Somnum's business network. Elara Vance posed no threat.. Now the sole evident scientific dissenting voice was being methodically removed from public conversation not through deletion but, by recasting its meaning.
His Europol account generated an alert. Completion of a Wellness & Perspective" module was necessary to maintain system access, offered through a recent collaboration, with Somnum. He shut the laptop.
His disposable phone vibrated. Ben. Shes become a warning example. The debate has ended. The product is exceptional. Require an approach. Head to Scotland.
Attached were coordinates and a name: Felisca Fleur.
The glen nestled in the Scottish Highlands embodied a primordial quietude sharply differing from the composed serenity Somnum offered. Mist hung over the heather. The sole noise was the flow of a burn and the call of a faraway bird. Felisca Fleur's cottage rested at the head of the glen with smoke curling from its chimney up into the moist, sky.
She was elderly her face marked by time and calm scrutiny. She poured tea into chipped cups her gaze assessing Devon with the same impartial attention she might afford an unfamiliar creature on her property.
"Ben mentioned you would arrive. Inquiring about the 'quiet '" she said, her mellowing the term.
"What quiet?"
She looked through her window at the imposing cliff of the glen. "It exists in the land. A different kind. Not tranquil. Not the kind of peace I'm used to anyway. It's… a silent waiting. The birds continue their calls the stream continues to flow.. It seems as if everything is holding its breath. As if something has been… put to rest. Deeply rested. My da would've said the elderly are slumbering deeply than they should."
Devon experienced a coldness that wasn't caused by the fog. "Has anything altered around here? New arrivals? Some progress?"
"Aye. A 'retreat.'" She uttered the term with disapproval. "Somnum acquired Lochview Lodge beyond the hill. Started fall. 'Deep Calm Immersion.' People arrive tense, urban. They depart…" She hesitated, thinking. "They depart organized. Over-organized. No spark, in their gaze. A… a dull satisfaction. As if they've been completely emptied."
She rose, retrieving a wrap. "Come along with me."
She guided him along a sheep trail ascending further into the glen. The temperature dropped noticeably. Close to the summit she paused, indicating the terrain, beneath them. From this vantage point Lochview Lodge could be seen—a repurposed manor house, its estate sprinkled with individual pods designed for meditation.
"Can you see it?" Felisca inquired.
Devon observed. The premises were flawless. A small number of individuals walked among the structures their steps steady and calm. There was no feeling of relaxation or happiness. It was the motion of upkeep. It resembled Elara Vance's service station with landscaping.
"It appears peaceful " he remarked.
"It's not calm. It's motionless " she snapped abruptly. "Calm includes elements of weather. This has none. That's the silence I'm referring to. It's creeping. Along the glen. The postman caught on to that Procedure. He once had a temper, a passionate rage, about football. Now he simply… smiles. No longer even delivers the mail punctually. Seems to have lost track of why it should matter." She looked at Devon, her aged eyes sharp. "You're resisting it right?"
"Trying to."
"Confront the entity inside the lodge then. Not the people caught in its deal. They are doomed. It is the origin. The spring they draw from. That's where your adversary lies. No longer, within their minds.. Inside that structure."
Back at the cabin Devon's phone caught a signal. A news notification flashed. It displayed Agata Vance's face, blurred and serious. The headline read: DISHONORED SCIENTIST, ON THE RUN CLAIMS CONSPIRACY.
The account cited " sources" implying Agata was mentally unstable potentially a threat to herself. It referenced her sister's " transition" and Somnum's provision of "compassionate counselling", for the troubled doctor. The story was whole: the calm majority and the frantic individual shouting against the remedy.
Ben made a call while Devon gazed at the monitor.
"Do you see it?" Ben's tone was strained.
"I understand it. They didn't prevail in the debate. They rendered the debate meaningless."
"Agata is secure. At least, for the moment. Yet she has lost her voice. They transformed proof into a sign." Ben exhaled audibly. "Felisca is correct. The true battleground isn't sentiment. It's the origin. The lodges, the sanctuaries. Where the Protocol is executed. Where the Calculus is formulated."
"You're mentioning sabotage " Devon responded evenly.
"I'm referring to archaeology!" Ben retorted sharply an intensity, in his tone. "We require evidence. Not of damage—the market labels that peace. We demand proof of procedure. Of the mechanism itself. The initial Lethargic Calculus wasn't mathematics; it was a ceremony. Somnum has mechanized the ceremony. We locate the machine. We record the cogs. Then we reveal to everyone that it's a machine."
Devon gazed upon the expectant quiet of the glen. He reflected on the Vacants, the joyfully insignificant the peacefully catalogued. He considered his tired spirit and how some part of him continued to find Hugo Hubert's proposal reasonable.
"Lochview Lodge " Devon mentioned.
"A beginning " Ben responded. "I'll secure you an entry point. A position. They consistently recruit for upkeep. For tasks needing hands not brains." The call ended abruptly.
Devon drained his tea. Felisca was repairing a sock, near the hearth her actions delicate and sure as the dusk closed in. A silence filled with the essence of the weather.
"You'll be entering then " she declared, not posing it as a question.
"Yes."
She gave a nod. "Watch out for the silence inside. It attempts to take residence within you. It's an entity. It doesn't resist. It simply… lingers." She glanced upward her needle shimmering in the fire's glow. "Never allow it to linger."
Outside, the true Highland dark fell, deep and living. Inside Somnum's lodge, a different kind of dark was manufactured, packaged, and sold as the dawn. Devon had his target. Not a person. A place. A factory for the will.