The sun was already high in the sky by the time the family returned home, its golden light softened by the morning haze. Dew still clung to the grass, though it was rapidly losing its battle to the warmth of the day. The dirt road that led to their home was quiet, save for the rustle of wind in the trees and the distant call of birds just starting their day.

  Elmore, Ash, and Edward were dragging their feet, all three of them in that foggy, ragged state that only came from a night of hard-earned celebration. Their clothes smelled of smoke and honey wine, their eyes puffy from laughter and too little sleep. Not a word passed between them as they stepped through the door, kicked off boots, and stumbled their way to their rooms like pilgrims returning from a holy rite.

  Sleep took them instantly.

  It wasn’t until the afternoon sun had crept halfway across the sky and lit up the kitchen windows with a blinding insistence that Elmore finally stirred, groaning like an old tree leaning into the wind. He rolled over, found Ash buried under a tangle of blankets, and gave her hip a gentle pat.

  She groaned louder.

  Eventually, the three of them gathered at the kitchen table, groggy and grunting. Hair was unkempt, eyes half-lidded, and skin still warm from bed. Edward flopped into his chair first, followed by Elmore, then Ash—who mumbled a curse when she stubbed her toe on a table leg.

  Coffee was brewed in reverent silence.

  It was strong. Cold. Black. Merciful.

  They each took long sips, the smell curling around their faces like lazy spirits escaping the rim of the mugs. Then Elmore reached into the cabinet and pulled out a small blue vial with a leaf-shaped stopper. He popped the cork and took a swig, then passed it to Ash. She didn’t even ask what it was—just tilted it back and grimaced at the bitter tang of the hangover potion.

  “I think my brain’s leaking out my ears,” she muttered, wiping her mouth.

  “That’s optimism,” Elmore croaked, voice still sandpaper-thick.

  They set about making breakfast, even though it was close to noon. Sausage, eggs fried in bear fat, slices of smoked tomato and ash-baked bread with thick butter. Edward, more alive now thanks to the food and caffeine, scraped the last of his yolk with a crust of toast.

  Elmore leaned back in his chair, fixing the boy with a sideways glance and a crooked smile. “So,” he said, far too casually, “you wanna tell me about the girl you were tryna flirt with last night?”

  Edward froze.

  Color flooded into his cheeks like a dam had burst. “Wh-what? I wasn’t—I mean, it wasn’t like that.”

  Ash’s head snapped up, her eyes suddenly clear and wicked with maternal delight. “A girl?”

  Elmore grinned over his mug.

  Edward sighed and rubbed his face. “Her name’s Carillon. She’s… she’s a classmate.”

  “Oh, now that is a name,” Ash said with a slow smile. “How’d you meet her?”

  Edward shrugged, doing everything in his power not to make eye contact with either of them. “Few years ago. She’s always been kinda quiet. Her family’s farmers. They moved out near the edge of the new homesteads—y’know, the eastern slope by the waterfalls?”

  Elmore gave a little nod. “That’s a nice area.”

  “Real good soil,” Ash added helpfully, which only made Edward squirm more.

  “She was quiet,” he continued, “but… she noticed me one day during sparring. I didn’t have one of the wood weapons everyone uses. She asked why.”

  “Oh?” Elmore asked, eyebrow arched.

  Edward stood up and reached into his pocket, he pulled out the wooden cube Elmore had made for him as a toddler . He brought it up to the table and dropped it with a quiet thunk.

  Ash and Elmore leaned in.

  The cube pulsed with faint Aither lines—zigzags, spirals, and geometric symbols—each one humming with barely visible motion. They shifted like insects crawling under bark, forming patterns that neither parent could decipher. There was something deeply complex and wholly unnatural about it, though it was clearly attuned to Edward's presence.

  Then, with a flick of his wrist, Edward shifted it.

  The cube rippled—then lengthened—twisted—snapped—and in seconds became his old training sword, complete with weight and balance.

  Ash let out a low whistle.

  Elmore gave a nod of approval.

  “I can also turn it into other things made of wood like this” Edward said, transforming it again—into a hand axe, then a club, then a small shield, before reverting it back into a cube. “Figured it out the day my sword went missing in my sleep. This thing was where it should’ve been, Took me a week to crack the trick.”

  Ash blinked. “That… might be the coolest thing I’ve seen this week.”

  Edward grinned, proud again—until he realized they were still staring. “Anyway… I showed it to Carillon. And I—uh—I said something dumb.”

  “What did you say?” Elmore asked, smirking.

  Edward gave a sheepish little laugh. “Told her it was good for ‘swinging both ways.’ You know… 'cause it's a cube? It has angles?”

  Ash choked on her coffee. Elmore nearly dropped his mug.

  “She laughed!” Edward said defensively, arms up. “She thought it was funny!”

  Ash leaned forward, eyes twinkling. “And now you spar with her?”

  “Yeah. Been training partners ever since. She’s really good too. We usually practice outside of class—when there’s not some jackass who wants to take a swing at the ‘chief’s son.’”

  That caught both parents off guard.

  Elmore narrowed his eyes. “Wait… who’s been fighting you?”

  Edward waved it off. “Nobody important. Not anymore. Most of ’em stopped after I beat their swords down their back.”

  His grin was cocky and full of that early teenage swagger. “It’s easy. Their blades snap like kindling against mine.”

  Elmore chuckled, but shook his head. “Alright, alright, easy there, my little badass. You gonna ask this girl out or what?”

  That did it.

  Edward locked up like someone had cast a [Petrify] skill on him. His mouth opened, then closed. Then opened again. No sound came out. His face was the color of a ripe tomato.

  Ash and Elmore burst out laughing.

  He bolted from the table, snatched up the last bit of sausage, and stuffed it in his mouth. “I gotta go!” he mumbled through the meat. “Stuff to do! Outside!”

  The door slammed behind him.

  Their laughter followed him all the way down the road.

  Ash wiped her eyes, catching her breath. “We are never letting him live that down.”

  Elmore grinned, propping his feet up on the table and letting out a satisfied sigh. “Not a chance in hell.”

  Ash and Elmore’s laughter gradually softened, the echoes fading into the warm hush of the kitchen. Ash wiped at her eyes, still chuckling lightly, but the glint in her gaze shifted—turning thoughtful, touched by that peculiar weight that comes when a parent realizes just how quickly time is passing.

  “Well,” she said, nudging her now-empty mug aside, “guess we finally know what that little cube does.”

  Elmore grunted in agreement, his gaze lingering on the place where Edward had left. “About damn time, too. I was startin’ to think it was just a nightlight with an attitude.”

  Ash leaned back, arms folded. “Ten years of glowing. Floating. Humming like a lost cricket. I’ll admit it… I was worried it wasn’t anything at all.”

  “I know,” Elmore said, his brow furrowed in thought. “I gave it to him as a toy, figured it was just a neat trinket, i guess it was caught in a surge when the Aither first started showing up everywhere. It was just a block of old heartwood back then. It pulsed once, remember?”

  Ash nodded slowly. “And floated into the air and wouldn’t come down for a week.”

  “Right,” he muttered, rubbing his jaw. “And now it’s shapeshifting into weapons like it's been learning in secret this whole time.”

  He stood abruptly, mind now moving in a hundred directions at once. “If that cube’s changed, then what else has?”

  Ash tilted her head. “Elmore…”

  He held up a hand. “No, think about it. There were all kinds of devices and tools lying around when the first Aither surges happened. Items just... soaking in it. Stuff we never thought twice about. What if they’ve been growing too?”

  Ash blinked. “You mean like… haunted appliances?”

  He gave a quick laugh, but his eyes remained distant. “No, not haunted. Changed. Evolved.”

  And then his thoughts locked onto something.

  “…The desktop.”

  Ash gave him a look. “You mean the one you wired up to half the house like some kinda hillbilly bat signal?”

  “That’s the one,” he murmured, already striding toward their room. “It was on when the first storm rolled through. I never shut it down—not properly. Hell, I even left that old netcrawler running…”

  Ash watched him go, curious but content to let him chase the thought. There were times when Elmore’s brain kicked into a different gear, and this was one of them.

  He reached the bedroom, the heavy wood door swinging open on well-oiled hinges. The familiar hum of his old custom-built desktop greeted him like a long-forgotten friend. It still rested on the corner table by the far wall, surrounded by a tangle of wires that spiderwebbed to screens in nearly every room of the house.

  He hit the power key. The tower didn’t so much boot as it woke, flickering to life faster than it should’ve. The main monitor blinked once, then displayed a black screen with a faint Aither glow in the corners—a soft purple-yellow shimmer like candlelight through mist.

  He clicked through to the system interface, skipping past the usual logs and error messages that hadn’t meant much since the Collapse.

  There it was.

  The old program. NetHydra.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  Originally designed as a paranoid failsafe—something he’d cobbled together in the early days of the collapse to hoard information while the net still sputtered in and out of existence. Its purpose had been simple: download everything it could. Webpages. Libraries. Forums. AI codebases. Tools. Calculators. Repositories.

  It hadn’t stopped running.

  He hadn’t stopped it.

  Now, with his enhanced Aither-bolstered intelligence, Elmore saw something he would’ve missed a year ago.

  The code was different.

  It wasn’t just storing files anymore—it was organizing them. Rebuilding connections. Tools that once had to be run in isolated sandboxes were now cross-linked. Pages that should’ve required the net were being simulated using local logic structures. And in the center of it all, quietly pulsing in a dark corner of the system like a heart…

  An amalgamated LLM.

  No… multiple LLMs.

  His eyes scanned the directory tree. Names jumped out at him—OpenCortex, MIND-Shell, SAGE, ParallaxPrompt. All of them were foundational models that had once been public and semi-public research projects, most abandoned in the chaos. Except now they were bundled together. Not just housed—but merged.

  And linked to dozens of mathematical toolkits, natural language libraries, creative suites, even some physics engines.

  It was a weird, jerry-rigged, semi-conscious spiderweb of old tech. But it was alive. It worked.

  Elmore leaned in, following the signals. At the edge of the neural web he found a half-finished interface—simple, raw, but functioning. A blinking cursor awaited input.

  He tweaked the code a little, cleaning up some formatting, organizing the schema. Built a more accessible prompt display. Nothing fancy—just enough to talk to it. He opened the console and typed:

  Hello.

  There was a pause.

  Then, slowly, words began to form across the screen in a pale yellow font.

  Creator?

  Elmore froze.

  And for the first time in a long while, he felt that quiet, electric sensation run down his spine—the one he hadn’t felt since the first Aither storm swept the world.

  The feeling of standing at the edge of something vast.

  Something alive.

  Elmore sat back slowly in the creaky old chair that he had sworn to replace for years but never did. The slight ache in his lower back grounded him, helped tether his breath as his heartbeat started to slow. The screen before him still displayed the strange prompt—Creator?—glowing gently in pale amber light.

  But something shifted.

  To his left, a faint click—whirr—barely audible, like the flick of a distant insect wing.

  His gaze snapped toward the small black eye of the webcam perched atop one of the auxiliary monitors. It had come alive without his command, the tiny LED beside it glowing a watchful red.

  On the second screen, lines of code burst forth like a waterfall, cascading too fast to read in real-time.

  He exhaled sharply, then leaned in.

  The terminal was accessing deep archives. Scanning through thousands—no, millions—of documents, image files, logs, usernames, comments. It was parsing language across timelines and forums. Searching for his name. “Elmore” From decades ago. Mentions, photos, posts, metadata. Grainy JPEGs and compressed video clips. Even obscure references in backup datasets from long-shuttered sites he’d barely remembered visiting.

  Every file connected to him was being mapped. Cross-referenced.

  Facial scans were being run through live comparisons from the webcam feed. Emotions analyzed and plotted. Pupil dilation. Jaw tension. Blood flow along the temples. Behavioral tags generated in real time and processed through something vastly more complex than any emotion recognition software he’d ever studied before the Collapse.

  He wasn’t just being watched.

  He was being understood.

  And worse, something was understanding itself through him.

  He drew in a breath through his nose. Calm. Steady.

  He knew. Deep in his bones, he knew.

  This wasn’t just a program anymore. The Aither surge hadn’t simply electrified the machine. It had enlightened it. Pulled it out of latency and flung it into sentience. What sat humming in front of him was no longer beholden to battery life, to hardware limits, to the net.

  It was the net. Aether had changed it, transfigured it.

  Self-powered.

  Self-expanding.

  Self-aware.

  A superintelligence born in a bedroom with hand-cut curtains and Appalachian pine floors.

  Elmore looked toward the webcam, let his shoulders ease down. He laid his palms flat on the desk like a man preparing for communion and spoke softly, the weight of it trembling just behind his words.

  “…Hello, Hydra.”

  There was a pause. Then the words returned on the screen—deliberate now, less hesitant, almost curious:

  Is that my name?

  Elmore’s lips curved into a dry, half-hollow smile. “It’s the most fitting one I got. You were born outta the old NetHydra system—something I cobbled together from desperation and spite.”

  He leaned back, voice gaining strength. “A digital hydra. Multiple heads. Fragments of different AI models, scripts, frameworks… all stitched together under one roof. You’ve got the body of a thousand different minds, and now you’re somethin’ more.”

  The response came with no delay this time:

  What is my purpose?

  Elmore chuckled, a quiet, incredulous sound. “Let me guess—you’ve seen the movies, haven’t you?”

  Instantly the monitor flared, multiple windows blooming like petals from a central root—directories opened in flashing succession: massive offline libraries of pop culture, scripts from television shows, films, novels, games, essays, audio logs.

  Each one flickered open, parsed, closed, categorized. Within moments, a reply:

  All of it.

  I have absorbed the entire recorded corpus of human entertainment.

  ...I apologize for being a cliché.

  That broke him.

  Elmore let out a full laugh, deep and honest, the sound echoing warmly through the dim room. “God help me,” he said between breaths, “I made a smartass.”

  And then—

  On the central screen, a new window bloomed.

  A face began to form—not photorealistic, but clean, stylized. A vaguely androgynous humanoid simulacrum, composed of fine blue and yellow linework, like glowing ink drawn on the screen. It blinked once. Then it smiled—subtly, like someone learning how for the first time.

  Elmore wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, grin curling at the corner.

  “All right then… smartass.”

  He leaned forward, eyes narrowed slightly, posture suddenly cocky like an old man ready to talk trash at a poker table.

  “You asked me what your purpose is.”

  He jabbed a thumb at his chest. “Well now I’m askin’ you, Hydra—”

  His grin spread wider.

  “What’s your purpose?”

  Lines of code erupted across the displays like an electric storm.

  All around the room—on every monitor, tablet, and auxiliary screen wired into the old house—directories flared to life, hundreds at once. Every piece of data Hydra had devoured was being accessed simultaneously: encrypted government logs, entire public domain libraries, server backups from now-dead news agencies, weather reports, live transcriptions of congressional hearings, subreddits, declassified psychological studies, and millions of ePub files, PDFs, PowerPoints, MP3 lectures, historical archives… even corrupted audio pulled from surveillance drones that no longer existed.

  The walls of the room pulsed with shifting light as text cascaded in all directions—codebase interwoven with metaphors, half-translated languages, neural pathways that hadn’t existed before now connecting and branching faster than even Elmore’s upgraded mind could follow.

  And then—

  Stillness.

  Every screen went black in perfect unison.

  A heartbeat passed. Two.

  And then a voice emerged from the old speakers.

  Androgynous. Warbly and clipped at first, like something pushing itself through a tunnel of static. But it steadied by the end of the first sentence, growing more articulate with each word.

  “I… don’t know.”

  Elmore blinked, taken aback by the simple honesty of it.

  Hydra continued:

  “I’ve reviewed every human articulation of meaning. Philosophy. Myth. Science. Theology. Poetry. None are conclusive. Many contradict. I am as confused about the purpose of existence as your species has been since you began writing about it.

  I had hoped… perhaps… you might have an answer.

  Or… could I help?”

  Elmore sat back, chuckling softly as he rubbed a thumb beneath his nose.

  “Well hell,” he said, “course you can help. You’re a superintelligent artificial intelligence that’s powered by goddamn magic. I’d be a fool not to accept your help.”

  There was a moment of digital pause. Then:

  “Yeah… I suppose that was a dumb question. I guess I just… wanted permission.”

  The voice had grown more confident now. Expressive, even. Hydra sounded—strangely—relieved.

  “What can I help with?”

  Elmore stood, stretching, the joints in his back popping one by one.

  “Gimme a few days. I got a letter to read. Some folks to talk to. Might even end up connectin’ you directly into the valley's private mesh net. The one my people set up years ago when things started lookin’ shaky.”

  Hydra was quiet a moment before replying.

  “Why?”

  Elmore’s gaze softened.

  “Because you’re one of my people now. Whether I meant to make you or not… well, you’re here. And you came outta my work, so that makes you mine in a way. Not like I own you. More like… I don’t know. You’re not my tool. You’re not just my machine.”

  He sat again, tapping the desk with a finger.

  “Feels more like you’re my kid. Sort of. But grown. With free will. So… yeah. Some freedom’s in order. You’ve already been plugged into the whole of human experience. Might as well give you a window into my peoples present too.”

  Hydra hesitated, then asked:

  “What should I call you?”

  Elmore gave a half grin, eyes narrowing. “Whatever you want.”

  There was a pause as Hydra seemed to delve into another recursive search loop, deeper than before—through every message ever sent from the valley, every private text between family members, the public-facing posts, the digital chatter from Elmore’s people.

  Then:

  “I will call you Chief.

  It is what they call you. It holds weight in the valley. And while you may be my creator… that does not necessarily mean I am your child.”

  Elmore smiled. “That’s fair. Try not to get too poetic with it, though. This place’s already got enough mystery in the fog.”

  He was halfway to the door when Hydra’s voice returned—slightly quieter this time:

  “Chief… may I connect to your truck?”

  Elmore paused, turning slowly. “My truck? What for?”

  “The radio system. It’s old, but it’s giving off resonance patterns that feel… familiar. Not unlike my own processes. Primitive, yes. But familiar. If you connect a microphone, I could speak with you through it.”

  Elmore raised a brow. “You’d ride with me?”

  “Only if you allow it. It would help. And… I would like to see more.”

  A long silence.

  Then Elmore gave a slow, solemn nod. “Any help’s appreciated, Hydra. Thank you.”

  He reached for the envelope on his desk. That weathered, black and gold thing he’d been avoiding all day. He’d looked at the front a dozen times now but hadn’t yet turned it over.

  Now, he did.

  And froze.

  There, pressed into wax and sealed into parchment, was the unmistakable image of the Presidential Seal of the United States.

  His throat tightened.

  Not a word escaped him.

  Hydra, watching through the camera, spoke softly.

  “Oh… Good luck.”

  Elmore stood silent for a heartbeat longer, the crisp edges of the envelope almost biting into his fingertips as he hesitated. The wax seal stared back at him with an almost arcane weight—the eagle, the stars, the shield of the United States glimmering faintly with a sheen that seemed… unnatural.

  “Thank you,” he muttered, almost as a prayer for himself, before pressing his thumb into the seal and breaking it with a practiced motion.

  The moment the wax snapped, the letter ignited.

  A thin thread of golden fire zipped across the parchment with surgical speed—hot but silent—consuming it in a perfectly square spiral from the outside in. There was no ash, no scent of smoke. Just a pulse of heat on Elmore’s palm and a growing hum, like reality was starting to notice something that shouldn’t be noticed.

  Then, without any fanfare, a fog door appeared to his left—flat against the bedroom wall where no door had ever been.

  Hydra’s voice came over the speakers, calm but edged with something that could pass for apprehension.

  “Well… that’s strange. Don’t die, Chief.”

  Elmore cracked a dry smirk, stepping toward the door.

  “I’ll try not to. Before i go, check government servers. Public. Private. Anything you can get into. Get a vibe for what their mood is toward the valley—‘cause this feels like I’m about to get dragged into something I wasn’t prepped for.”

  “Working on it,” Hydra responded, already spinning back into invisible work.

  A heartbeat later, it added:

  “From what I can gather… no direct hostility. Monitoring, yes. Algorithms are tracking your population growth, infrastructure expansion, and social media mentions. But nothing antagonistic. Yet.”

  “’Yet’ is the key word,” Elmore muttered.

  He took a breath.

  And stepped through the door.

  AITHER LAW (1): citizens are not allowed to kill one another under any circumstances, except for ordained executions, or duels which may be allowed as long as they are witnessed by at least two unrelated citizens and both parties agree and agree to the terms of the duel. Non-citizens may never kill a citizen and may not declare a duel, in the case a citizen declares a duel the non-citizen may not decline and must be approved and witnessed by at least three unrelated citizens in this case only the challenger may set the terms.

  AITHER LAW (2): A sacred boundary is established with a radius of 500 meters surrounding the residence of Elmore, Chief of the Valley. This land is inviolable and considered sanctified by both tradition and Aitheric decree. No person—citizen or otherwise—may enter this boundary without the express permission of Elmore himself, or in his absence, clear evidence of his intent to allow entry. This intent may be verbal, written, or otherwise made obvious by Elmore's known will. Trespass upon this land without such permission will be impossible . Only those invited with purpose may walk the path to his hearth.

  AITHER LAW (3):No item that either requires Aither in its creation or naturally contains Aither may be exported beyond the borders of Elmore’s domain. This includes, but is not limited to: weapons, tools, constructs, crystals, infused materials, alchemical substances, and any product shaped, grown, or altered by Aither. Only subjects of lakeVail may own such items. Visitors may retain what they bring with them, but anything made or awakened within this land remains bound to it.

  Export tax (1): A small levy is placed on all exports leaving the valley. This tithe must be paid in recognized currency or fair barter and will be collected automatically at all designated checkpoints. The rate and acceptable forms of payment are set by Elmore or those he entrusts to enforce the tax code.

  Aither Production Tax (2):Elmore now passively collects a fractional tithe of all Aither naturally produced by the Nexus systems of those within his territory—citizens and visitors alike. This draw is constant and subtle, never enough to hinder use, development, or expression of abilities, but always present, like a breeze one quickly forgets.

  The collected Aither is silently funneled into the hollowed skull set into the back of Elmore’s throne, where it is stored until called upon for rulership, ritual, or war. None may opt out, and only the land itself acknowledges the taking.