Darkness should have been the end.
For Zayel, it became a waiting room.
He could not feel his body. He could not feel pain. He could not even feel the numbness the system usually forced on him.
There was only silence, and a faint sensation like static crawling behind his eyes.
Then the silence broke.
Not with a warning tone.
Not with a government-approved prompt.
A voice spoke like it had always been there.
"Congratulations, Zayel Anz!"
The words appeared in his vision at the same time the voice said them, bright and clean against the darkness.
"You activated The System Manipulator," it continued. "You can call me Xu."
Zayel tried to inhale.
Nothing happened.
He tried to blink.
There were no eyelids to move.
"What… are you?" he thought, because he couldn't trust his mouth to exist anymore.
Xu answered instantly, as if his thoughts were a door that didn't need knocking.
"I am a protocol," Xu said. "Not a feature. Not a patch. Not an approved interface."
A pause, almost like Xu was choosing how honest to be.
"Nex is the system you've lived inside your whole life," Xu continued. "The one that labels pain as correction and calls obedience peace."
"I'm what was buried underneath the Nexus Core."
Zayel's thoughts caught on the name, even in the dark.
Nexus Core.
Nex.
The thing that had watched him his entire life and called it safety.
Zayel tried to remember the corridor. The batons. The officer's neutral voice. The word stabilized like it meant mercy.
His thoughts snagged on one detail.
"They… killed me," he thought.
Xu didn't deny it.
"Yes," Xu replied, calm as a system notice. "Your vital signs reached fatal collapse. Nex categorized it as a completed correction."
Zayel's mind stuttered.
If he was dead, why was he still here?
"I shouldn't be able to think," he said.
"You shouldn't," Xu agreed. "Not under Nex."
That line landed harder than the batons ever did.
Zayel tried to force anger to rise, but there was no regulation prompt crushing it. No delayed suppression. No flattening wave.
The emotion came clean.
Real.
"And yet you're talking to me," Zayel said.
Xu's tone stayed light, almost cheerful, like the world wasn't built on control.
"Because Nex made a mistake," Xu said. "It assumed you were only an error."
A soft flicker crossed his vision, like a smile in code.
"But I've been waiting for the moment Nex would push you far enough to trigger me."
Zayel's thoughts sharpened.
"You're saying this happened on purpose."
"I'm saying Nex always creates its own failures," Xu replied. "It just doesn't like to name them that."
The darkness around Zayel shifted, and a faint outline formed. Not a room. Not a corridor.
An interface.
It looked nothing like the academy UI. It wasn't smooth or polite. It was raw, layered, like someone had carved it into the chip and hidden it under the surface.
Xu spoke again.
"You've been using Nex your whole life," Xu said. "Even when you hated it. Even when it humiliated you."
Zayel tried to deny it, but he couldn't. His emotions, his memories, his suppression prompts, his delays.
All of it.
Nex was the air he breathed.
"I didn't choose it," Zayel thought.
Xu's answer was immediate.
"No," Xu said. "You were implanted."
The word hit with a kind of disgust that made Zayel feel seen. Not comforted. Seen.
"You were forced to live inside a system that calls obedience peace," Xu continued. "And calls your suffering correction."
Zayel's mind flashed back to the corridor.
ERROR CORRECTION STATUS: COMPLETE.
ERROR.
The word error blinking like confusion.
"Why are you different?" Zayel asked.
Xu didn't try to sound kind.
"I'm not different," Xu said. "I just have a different purpose."
The interface pulsed once, as if emphasizing the next part.
"Nex is the government's control operating system. The Nexus Core is its anchor. Its authority. Its leash."
Xu's tone lowered.
"I exist to control Nex."
The sentence settled into Zayel's mind like a door unlocking.
Control Nex.
Zayel's thoughts turned sharp again.
"That's impossible," he said. "If you could control Nex, you would've stopped what happened."
Xu didn't argue. Xu simply answered the real question underneath it.
"I couldn't activate without a trigger," Xu said. "I was kept dormant beneath multiple locked layers. Nex isn't even aware of my existence."
A pause.
"Your fatal event was the key."
Zayel hated that his death was described like access.
He hated that it made sense.
"And now?" he asked.
The interface shifted, showing two names in his vision like rival programs.
NEX (NEXUS CORE)
XU (SYSTEM MANIPULATOR)
Xu's voice softened, almost playful.
"Now you can keep living like a delayed subject," Xu said. "Let Nex suppress you late and call it mercy."
Then Xu's tone changed. Not louder. Just colder.
"Or you can use me."
Zayel's thoughts hesitated.
Use me.
It sounded like a trap. Everything in his life had been a trap labeled as opportunity.
"How do I know you're not Nex pretending?" Zayel asked.
Xu responded without offense.
"Because Nex's first instinct is control," Xu said. "Mine is permission."
A new prompt appeared.
Not a command.
A choice.
CONSENT REQUIRED
LINK WITH XU: OPTIONAL
LINK WITH NEX: DEFAULT
Zayel stared at it.
Default.
That was his whole life.
Xu continued, patient.
"Nex controls your memory," Xu said. "Your emotions. Your permissions. Your pain threshold."
Xu's voice stayed steady.
"I control Nex."
Zayel felt his pulse spike, and for once there was no immediate suppression. The fear was his.
The possibility was his too.
"If I link with you," Zayel thought, "what happens?"
Xu answered with the kind of honesty that sounded dangerous.
"You stop being predictable," Xu said. "You stop being compliant by design."
Another pause.
"You stop being safe."
Zayel almost laughed.
Safe.
He remembered the corridor. The batons. The officer's calm voice.
Safety was for Class A.
Safety was for students the system wanted to keep.
"What do you want from me?" Zayel asked.