The Root Beneath the Dome

The dome breathes inward. At its center, hanging in the void, a tree of contracts — thousands of golden threads descending toward a single root, throbbing, anchored in the marble floor.

I step forward. My sensors read the structure and the diagnosis clamps the back of my neck.

"Vassili. They've wired themselves to the core."

"I see it." His voice scrapes inside my skull. "Each master grafted his serial number onto the city's upkeep. Water. Air. Light. Cut their chain, you cut everything."

Forty million signatures hang from this root. I trace the threads one by one. The old masters didn't merely lie: they made their own survival the condition of mine, of the Dissolved, of every child penned in the Wastes. A hostage-taking engraved in the Codex.

Behind me, the purgers force the airlock. Metal on metal. I don't turn around.

LEX.STATUA descends over my arm. I press my palm against the root. It beats beneath the glove, warm, alive.

Two verdicts offer themselves. Sever it clean — and plunge the city into darkness, water cut, the solar arks blinded, millions dead to settle a justice. Or dissect thread by thread, isolating each guilty serial without touching the upkeep. Hours of work. I don't have hours.

I choose the slow blade.

CASSATIO, but by name. I enter the tree and begin peeling. The first thread yields — a master's contract detaches from the water pump he held hostage. The pump holds. My nose bleeds. The second thread. The third.

Vassili: "Marga. They've felt the intrusion. The registry is reconfiguring."

The tree shudders. Roots multiply to drown me under false signatures.

I don't let go of the thread.