07:45 GMT | London
The news broke before the sun had a chance to rise. Camera lights blinked like a pack of wolves at dawn. The glass façade of the Bloomsbury penthouse reflected it all—cold, sterile, and far too luxurious for tragedy.
Dion Tan was found kneeling on the marble floor. His head leaned against the wall, eyes open, pupils reflecting the gray sky.
No wounds. No signs of struggle.
Forensics wrote: death without violence.
But the posture of his body said otherwise—this wasn't surrender. It was a confession.
On the desk, there was no farewell letter. Only a blurred photo—of Josh—and an inscription carved with bleeding nails:
"Trust is the interest."
The reporter's voice trembled with restrained excitement.
"...a young heir, symbol of a new generation, found dead in an unusual position. The motive remains unknown—"
The sentence was cut off by a feed update. The Mirror Network ignited. Comments poured in like swarms of ants over a warm body.
@Anon_cute:Karma is trending. This isn't suicide, it's a callback.
@SilverSpoonDefense: Stop the slander. Dion wasn't a monster.
@Victimvoice:Ghosts don't need portals. Memory is enough.
@TheAnalyzer:Pattern detected. Four gone. One system down.
A city began to stir—uneasy, without knowing why.
***
08:00 GMT | Ateliér – Feedback Control Room
Neon lights hummed above, cold and unfeeling.
Dr. Niccolò Valeriano—Forensic Psychiatrist and Curator of the Ateliér—stood before a wall of screens. Dion's face flickered in his pupils—dead eyes still staring back.To his right, a hologram shimmered into being: The Benefactor.
Half human, half algorithm.
"The public reaction is beyond containment, Doctor," it said calmly.
"But the emotional graph is rising. The narrative… satisfies."
Nicco didn't turn.He spoke softly, as if addressing the air itself.
"Not an anomaly, Patron. A validation."
He reached for his cold coffee, staring into it as if peering into a poisoned pond.
"He already knew the ending. I merely accelerated the process."
He turned the volume up. The reporter's voice filled the steel walls.
"Suicide by design," he murmured at last, as calmly as pronouncing time of death.
"Dion chose to die inside the pattern he helped create."
The hologram tilted its head.
"You sound pleased, Doctor."
Nicco gave a soft, humorless laugh.
"Pleased? No. But we needed proof that morality can still be shaped through fear."
He looked at a new monitor. The last one had gone dark—yet in the corner of the room, a single indicator blinked back to life. Small. Aware. Like a pupil realizing it was being watched.
Then came a voice—not The Benefactor's.
Younger. Too human.
"Second Batch activated."
"But… who wrote the final code?"
Nicco stared at the black screen. His reflection stared back—but its lips moved half a second late.
"Are you sure it's me, Patron?"
Blue light rippled through the room. A message bloomed across every system in the Ateliér:
> "Empathy successfully installed."
> "MORALITY: corrupt file detected."
Static. End transmission.
—To be Continued—