CHAPTER 10 : NEWS!
Morning came like it always did too early, too loud, and pretending nothing fundamental had shifted.
Juno stepped into the building just before eight, coat neatly pressed, expression neutral enough to pass for bored professionalism. The lobby smelled of cheap coffee and disinfectant. Screens along the walls scrolled market updates, weather reports, and curated headlines meant to soothe rather than inform.
None of them mentioned gods.
Yet.
He tapped his badge, walked through the turnstile, and immediately felt it.
Noise.
Not the audible kind though there was plenty of that but tension. Threads pulled too tight. Conversations that stopped half a second too late when he passed. Eyes that lingered, then darted away.
That was unusual.
Juno made it three steps onto the main floor before he caught the first fragment.
".....never seen anything like it, I'm telling you...."
"…police response was insane, like they wanted everyone to see...."
"....they released the footage themselves, who does that?"
He slowed, pretending to adjust his cuff.
Clusters of coworkers stood around desks and terminals, ignoring their work entirely. Holo-screens were pulled up not internal data, but public news feeds. Live commentary. Replays. Speculation.
A robbery.
His robbery.
Juno frowned inwardly.
That wasn't supposed to be public. The Exchange had enough influence to bury planets, let alone a single incident. Four minutes of compromised security, two unconscious guards, one opened vault clean, quiet, deniable.
Instead...
He drifted closer to one group, coffee in hand, the picture of mild curiosity.
"What'd I miss?" he asked casually.
A junior analyst turned, eyes bright with the kind of excitement that only comes from disaster happening to someone else. "You didn't hear? Meridian Exchange got hit last night."
Juno raised an eyebrow. "That's not exactly rare."
"This was," another cut in. "Police say it triggered some kind of… global alert. Not just Interpol everyone. Military satellites, deep-space observatories, even seismic stations picked something up."
"Picked what up?" Juno asked.
The analyst hesitated. "They won't say. But they released everything else. Footage, timelines, internal layouts—stuff corporations never let go."
Juno's grip tightened imperceptibly around his cup.
They released it.
"Why would they do that?" he asked.
"That's the weird part," the analyst said. "It's like they wanted it to spread. Like they wanted people looking."
Juno nodded slowly, pretending to consider.
But his mind was already racing.
This wasn't damage control.
This was escalation.
Someone multiple someones had decided that secrecy was no longer the priority. That whatever had happened in that vault was too big to hide, and too useful not to frame.
They were setting the stage.
"Any suspects?" Juno asked lightly.
The analyst snorted. "Nothing solid. One figure on camera, face distorted. They're calling it a professional, maybe enhanced. But honestly? Feels like that's not the point."
Juno forced a smile. "Then what is?"
The analyst lowered his voice. "They keep using the same phrase. 'Event-level crime.' Like the robbery itself doesn't matter just what it caused."
Event-level.
Juno excused himself and walked toward his desk, the chatter fading behind him. He sat down, logged in, and pulled up a private channel.
No messages.
No previous messages or phone record.... what's going on?
That was worse than bad news.
His boss did not go silent unless silence itself was the message.
Juno leaned back, eyes unfocused.
They had rung the bell.
Now the world was shouting about it.
In an office at the top floor sat a gorgeous lady discussing with the Roman patriarch. The room glitters with runes all over the place
The abandoned church squatted at the edge of the old district like a forgotten thought.
Once, it had been a place of gathering stone walls echoing with hymns, stained glass catching sunlight and turning it into color and meaning. Now the windows were cracked, boarded from the inside. Ivy crawled up the bell tower, choking it inch by inch. The cross atop it had fallen long ago, lying half-buried in weeds like a discarded symbol.
Inside, however, the air was alive.
Candles burned in careful patterns across the nave, their flames steady despite the absence of glass and the presence of wind. Symbols some Christian, some far older were etched into the stone floor, overlapping like layers of memory.
At the center sat a little girl.
She could not have been more than twelve.
Her legs were crossed, hands resting on her knees, eyes closed in concentration. Her dark hair was tied back simply, her clothes plain. If anyone had stumbled in by accident, they would have seen nothing remarkable at all.
They would have been wrong.
The air around her shimmered faintly, bending light the way heat did. Shadows leaned toward her instead of away. The candles closest to her burned with blue-white flames, whispering softly in a language that was not sound.
Behind her stood an old nun.
Her back was straight despite her age, her habit worn thin but meticulously clean. Deep lines etched her face, but her eyes were sharp too sharp for someone who had supposedly withdrawn from the world decades ago.
"Softer," the nun said gently. "Do not push. Let it come to you."
The girl frowned slightly, still not opening her eyes. "It's loud today," she said. "Everything is loud."
The nun's expression darkened, just for a moment.
"Yes," she said. "It is."
She moved closer, placing a weathered hand lightly on the girl's shoulder. At once, the shimmer softened. The candles steadied.
"Tell me what you see," the nun said.
The girl hesitated. "Threads," she said finally. "Everywhere. Big ones. Small ones. Some are shaking."
"Good," the nun replied. "And the shaking ones?"
"They feel… scared," the girl said. "But also excited. Like when people run toward a fire instead of away."
The nun closed her eyes briefly.
That matched what she had felt at dawn, when the bell rang across existence and ripped her from prayer. A pressure she had not sensed since her youth. Since before she took vows, before she learned how thin the veil truly was.
"Do you see the source?" she asked.
The girl's brow furrowed. "It's far," she said. "But also close. Like it's already inside everything."
A pause.
"And it feels old," the girl added. "Older than the stories you told me."
The nun exhaled slowly.
"Can you look at it directly?" she asked.
The girl shook her head at once, eyes still closed. "No. It notices."
The candles flickered.
"That is enough," the nun said firmly. "Open your eyes."
The girl did so, gasping slightly as the world snapped back into normal focus. She looked up at the nun, worry creeping into her expression.
"Sister Agnes," she said. "Did something wake up?"
Sister Agnes did not answer immediately. She walked to the edge of the circle and looked up at the ruined ceiling, at the slice of gray sky visible through the broken roof.
"Yes," she said at last. "Something did."
"Is it bad?"
Agnes turned back to the girl, her gaze softening.
"That," she said, "depends on who finds it first."
She extinguished one of the candles with her fingers, ignoring the heat.
"Listen to me carefully," Agnes continued. "What you felt this morning the noise, the fear that is not meant for you. Many powerful beings have noticed it, and they will move. Some to protect. Some to control. Some simply because they cannot resist."
The girl swallowed. "And us?"
Agnes knelt in front of her, meeting her eyes.
"We stay hidden," she said. "We learn. And when the time comes..."
A distant tremor rolled through the church, subtle but unmistakable. Dust drifted from the rafters. Somewhere far away, something immense shifted its attention.
Agnes's jaw tightened.
"...we pray," she finished quietly, "that we are not too late."
Far across the city, Juno stared at his dark monitor, the echo of a god's aura still humming beneath reality, and realized the same thing.
Whatever they were trying to achieve by exposing the robbery, it wasn't justice.
It was invitation.
And too many had already accepted.
The little girl was 'Eleanor'.