The data node was quiet, except for the soft pulse of its cooling fans. The room, an auxiliary archive chamber tucked behind Tayseri Ward's central records office, was one of those places built for function, not presence. No security detail. No windows. Just a console, a half-dead light fixture, and storage towers reaching into darkness above.
Sebastian sat alone at the console, reviewing the logs he'd pulled from three unlinked contractor systems. On the surface, they looked harmless—routine entry records, customs approvals, low-level traffic redirects. But stacked together, they didn't make sense.
He paused and rubbed his temple.
The timestamps on each file showed events that should have happened minutes apart, but the individuals listed would've needed to be in three different districts at once. There was no public transportation fast enough, no special clearance on record, no explanation in any auxiliary systems.
> SAS-C: "Cross-referenced personnel profiles. One name appears in all three sequences: Arven Malk. Civilian rank. Minor customs inspector. Assigned to Tayseri sub-dock. Clearance: restricted."
Sebastian narrowed his eyes. "Why would a low-level customs officer be tied to three unrelated clearance operations in three different zones?"
> SAS-C: "He shouldn't. And he wasn't, logically. These events conflict in ways that violate physical causality. He was inserted after the fact."
"Inserted?"
> SAS-C: "Yes. Records were altered to place him in those sequences. Not by human intention, but by systemic compensation. The system is correcting for a missing narrative connection by fabricating one."
Sebastian leaned back in the chair. The words felt heavy, but the meaning was clear. Something, some mechanism inside Citadel systems, was patching over story gaps. Not by creating fake data out of nowhere, but by taking familiar names and sewing them into places they didn't belong.
"Like a body trying to close a wound," he muttered, "even if the tissue's wrong."
> SAS-C: "Correct. The logic of the system is being held together with shortcuts. Filler. Someone, or something, is trying to preserve the illusion that everything still makes sense."
He stared at the logs again. Arven Malk. He doubted the man even knew. He was probably just a name, harmless, unnoticed, easy to use.
That was the part that scared Sebastian. Narrative weight had to go somewhere. If the universe lacked Fate, then maybe it was trying to grow its own, blindly.
He copied the anomaly cluster to a secure drive and tagged it under an encrypted label: Echo Threads: 001. He wasn't ready to act on it yet. But he'd need a pattern. A history. Something to track when the next patch job appeared.
> SAS-C: "Suggested action: log system location for return monitoring. Recommend no further edits at this time."
Sebastian nodded. He disconnected the drive, wiped the console of residual data trails, and stood up.
For now, he'd let the cracks grow on their own.
The shuttle ride to the docked platform was silent, aside from the occasional creak of its older hull. Sebastian sat in the back, his omni-tool dimmed to standby, his posture still and neutral. This wasn't a high-value job. Just a classified diagnostic review on a privately leased storage platform moored near Tayseri's outer ward—technically legal, but only just.
He liked those kinds of jobs. No oversight, no unnecessary conversation, and just enough clearance red tape to keep curious eyes out.
The platform itself was older than it looked. Weathered from exposure and patched across too many cycles, its central data node was tucked behind a reinforced door labeled "Prototype Isolation – Level 2." No cameras, no security check-in. The entry code had been sent to him encrypted and anonymously.
He worked quickly. Thermal regulators were within normal limits. Diagnostic logs showed typical system wear. At first glance, everything looked clean.
But as he reviewed the data clusters tied to test activity, one file stood out. It was older than the others by several weeks and mislabeled as "Field Latency Calibration." When he decrypted it, the feed snapped to a single frame from a static-blurred camera.
An Asari. Mid-strike. Her form bent low into a crouch, one arm extended with biotic energy trailing from her palm.
She wasn't posing. She was mid-motion, fluid and brutal. Unaware of the camera. Just doing what she did best.
His breath caught, and for a moment he didn't blink. Then, slowly, he brought up the frame overlay and ran it through SAS-C.
> SAS-C: "Match confirmed. Subject identified as the individual in the Thesan Huntress archive footage. Estimated current designation: classified civilian identity with private contractor overlays. Location: within Citadel jurisdiction. Surveillance tag: not yet issued."
So she was real. She wasn't a symbol or an echo or a memory. She was here—on the Citadel. Working under the radar, like him.
And just like him, the system didn't know what to do with her.
> SAS-C: "Would you like to log contact opportunity probability?"
"No," he said quickly. "Erase the image from this system. Lock it in our private archive only."
> SAS-C: "Confirmed."
He stared a moment longer, then closed the feed. There was something sharp beneath his skin now. Not alarm. Not excitement either. Just tension. The sense that a thread he wasn't holding had brushed past him in the dark.
He didn't know her name. Not yet. And she didn't know his. But something was pulling them closer. Not fate. Not attraction. Just… gravity.
He wiped the terminal, logged the basic diagnostic results, and transmitted a false success report to the shell company that had issued the contract. He left nothing behind but the echo of a connection that hadn't yet begun.
The air inside his quarters was still. Not quiet—there was always the faint buzz of the Citadel's environment controls—but still in a way that made the space feel suspended. As if nothing in it moved unless he decided it should.
Sebastian sat on the floor, bare feet against the synthetic weave mat, his omni-tool projected in a low glow around his left arm. Three data streams hung in the air: a resource shipment schedule, an internal promotion review list, and a disciplinary notice—unconnected in form, but not in function.
> SAS-C: "All elements verified. Current vector analysis indicates an intervention window. Would you like to proceed?"
He nodded.
The first document was a supply manifest. Nothing sensitive—just a shipment of component-grade capacitors and maintenance relays headed to a mid-tier tech firm on the Tayseri side. The listed recipient was a known aggressive contractor with a record of cutting corners and filing threats when underbid.
Sebastian rerouted the shipment. Slightly. Just enough that the delivery would be delayed by forty-eight hours and flagged for quality control review.
The second file—an operations report—was tied to a quiet, competent junior technician who worked in the same field. Her work was clean, her reports better. She'd been passed over twice due to limited field experience.
Sebastian ran a subroutine through her most recent diagnostics submission, flagging it for cross-referencing against the newly delayed contract. When the late shipment triggered a review, her file would be pulled. It wouldn't guarantee anything, but it would shift momentum.
> SAS-C: "Cascade projected. Estimated outcomes: disciplinary inquiry into contractor pending two repeat violations. Junior technician receives interim review request. Probability of promotion event within six days: 64.2%."
He studied the projection.
Nobody had been forced. No minds altered. No commands issued. Just one small redirection, letting the world fall the way it might have—if someone had been watching from above.
"Was it right?" he asked, though he already knew the answer.
> SAS-C: "There is no ledger. No divine scorekeeper. But the system gained stability. Less harm. More order. That is alignment with your mandate."
Still, he sat there, unmoving. It was one thing to nudge probabilities. Another to see people's lives shift because he decided they should.
He wasn't a god. He didn't want to become one.
> SAS-C: "You didn't decide their worth. You saw what was already there and cleared the fog so it could be recognized."
He exhaled. Slowly. "Then we'll see if the fog stays gone."
He stood, folding away the interface and powering down the projections. Outside his window, Zakera's skyline glowed with artificial dusk, the day's simulated cycle drawing to a close. Thousands of lives were moving through decisions, unaware that reality had just tipped slightly in a new direction.
One ripple. One test. The world hadn't pushed back.
Not yet.