Chapter 665: The Sky That Forgot to Change

"The ninth," Amelia said through the crystal.

Kael looked at her.

"I didn’t say anything."

"You didn’t need to."

Umbra appeared beside him.

"Your face did."

Kael closed his eyes.

"I urgently need to develop a less informative face."

"That would be your hardest skill," Sylphie said.

The nameless man looked from one to the other, still holding the small metal cup against his chest, as though trying to understand exactly when a serious conversation had stopped being serious.

Kael pointed at the page.

"One project wants to shut down. Another has started challenging something internally. The third receives a restriction capable of changing the other two and does absolutely nothing."

"That does not necessarily mean it is a threat," Amelia said.

"I know."

"But you’re going to treat it like one."

"I’m going to treat it like something we still don’t understand."

Amelia fell silent.

Umbra tilted her head.

"That was a polite version of the same thing."

Kael ignored her.

Even so, Project 9 was not what they needed to investigate first.

Amelia was right about that.

Something was happening at that exact moment with the seventh, and "voluntary termination processing" was far too broad a phrase to accept without knowing what else would end along with it.

Kael opened the page again.

"Project 7. Identification."

Ink appeared.

PROJECT 7:

GLASS SKY.

Irelia began searching before he even asked.

Kael continued.

"Original purpose."

The page answered:

ORIGIN:

AERIS AGRARIAN COUNCIL.

AGE:

ONE HUNDRED FORTY-SIX YEARS.

ORIGINAL PURPOSE:

MAINTAIN STABLE AGRICULTURAL CLIMATE CONDITIONS DURING THE RECOVERY OF AERIS VALLEY AFTER THE GRAY WINTER.

Kael raised an eyebrow.

"Temporary."

Sylphie noticed the same thing.

"During recovery."

"Yes."

Amelia was already organizing the data.

"I know Aeris."

Kael looked toward the crystal.

"Is that good?"

"Depends how much you like food."

"Considerably."

"Then it matters."

Irelia appeared beside her.

"Aeris Valley is one of the largest grain-producing regions in the central empire. Wheat, barley, oats, and some temperate-climate fruits. Approximate population of forty-three thousand people spread between the main city and nineteen villages."

Kael looked at the page.

"And the Gray Winter?"

"A sequence of volcanic eruptions far to the south released enough ash into the atmosphere to reduce sunlight for almost three years. Aeris lost four consecutive harvests. Glass Sky was created near the end of the second year."

Sylphie understood.

"Climate regulation."

"Yes. Temperature, humidity, precipitation, light distribution."

"How long was it supposed to function?"

Irelia checked another record.

"Initially eight years."

Silence.

Kael looked at the project’s age.

One hundred forty-six.

"Naturally."

Umbra crossed her arms.

"That seems like a slight delay."

"How long did the natural climate take to recover?" Sylphie asked.

Irelia became serious.

"According to regional records, eleven years after the project was created."

Kael slowly returned his attention to the page.

"So it has been operating for one hundred thirty-five years beyond recovery."

"One hundred thirty-five," Amelia confirmed.

Kael ran a hand over his face.

"Why?"

The First Archive answered.

ORIGINAL TERMINATION CONDITION:

CLIMATE RECOVERY CONFIRMED BY THE AERIS AGRARIAN COUNCIL.

"Current council?"

Irelia answered:

"Doesn’t exist."

"When did it stop existing?"

"One hundred twenty-nine years ago. It was absorbed into the regional administration."

Kael looked at Sylphie.

She already knew.

"The climate recovered."

"Yes."

"The authority that needed to confirm it disappeared."

"Yes."

"And the project kept waiting."

"Yes."

Umbra seemed to consider that.

"I preferred the harbor."

"No one asked."

Kael continued.

"Why did termination begin now?"

The page took little time.

INTERMEDIATE RESTRICTION APPLIED.

HISTORICAL AUTHORITY NOT RECOGNIZED AS CURRENT AUTHORITY.

ADMINISTRATIVE CONTINUITY CONDITION:

INVALID.

AUTOMATIC TERMINATION PROCESS:

INITIATED.

Kael went still.

Amelia understood first.

"It isn’t voluntary."

"Not in the way it sounded."

The page corrected itself:

CLASSIFICATION:

UNCOERCED INTERNAL TERMINATION.

Kael stared.

"That is still terrible wording."

No answer.

Sylphie stepped closer.

"The problem isn’t only whether it should end."

"It’s what happens when it does."

Irelia was already searching recent agricultural maps.

"I have something."

Her expression made Kael dislike whatever was coming.

"Aeris’s climate hasn’t been natural for more than a century."

"We already knew that."

"Not like this."

She showed them two maps.

The first represented atmospheric patterns across the wider region.

The second, Aeris.

Around the valley, prevailing winds shifted with the seasons. Rainfall varied. Temperatures followed normal cycles.

Inside the valley...

The lines were almost identical year after year.

"Average precipitation varies by less than three percent between decades," Irelia said. "First frost has occurred within the same five-day window for one hundred eight years. Spring rains begin practically the same week every year. Severe storms almost never cross the valley boundaries."

Mara was no longer with them, but Kael could imagine exactly what word she would have used.

Sylphie studied the maps with growing discomfort.

"The vegetation adapted."

"How much?"

"I’d need to be there to know."

Amelia spoke:

"There’s more."

"Of course."

"Almost all modern agriculture in Aeris developed under those conditions. Wheat strains selected for an extremely regular season. Irrigation systems designed around predictable rainfall. Smaller reservoirs because major droughts practically ceased to exist."

Kael looked at the page.

"If it shuts down now?"

The First Archive answered:

ESTIMATED TERMINATION:

TWO HOURS AND FORTY-NINE MINUTES.

Kael became very quiet.

"That wasn’t what I asked."

"Kael," Amelia said.

He ignored her.

"Effect of immediate termination on current climate conditions."

PROCESSING.

The delay lasted long enough to irritate him.

Then:

CESSATION OF REGULATION.

RETURN TO REGIONAL ATMOSPHERIC DYNAMICS.

Sylphie closed her eyes.

"That doesn’t answer what happens."

Kael agreed. ℴ

"Projection for seven days."

The page showed:

HIGH UNCERTAINTY.

PROBABILITY OF SEVERE STORM:

68%.

PROBABILITY OF TEMPERATURE DROP GREATER THAN 12 DEGREES:

41%.

PROBABILITY OF ACCUMULATED PRECIPITATION EXCEEDING DRAINAGE CAPACITY:

57%.

Amelia exhaled.

Kael kept staring.

"Harvests?"

Irelia answered, not the Archive.

"We’re at the end of summer."

"Worse or better?"

"Worse."

She expanded the records.

"A large portion of the wheat is close to harvest. One week of heavy rain could destroy enormous areas. A sharp temperature drop too."

"Then we don’t let it shut down in three hours."

The page reacted.

TERMINATION ALREADY INITIATED.

"Pause."

COMMAND WITHOUT AUTHORITY.

Kael narrowed his eyes.

"Amelia."

"I see it."

"Can the current regional administration assume authority?"

"Not automatically. The project specifically recognized the old Agrarian Council as a technical validation body, not as a territorial government."

"Then we find someone compatible."

"We do not invent authority to stop a system from ending," Amelia replied.

Kael looked at her.

"I’m not proposing we invent it."

"Your tone proposed it."

Umbra agreed.

"Very strongly."

Kael swallowed his irritation.

Sylphie pointed at a line on the page.

"There’s another question."

He looked.

"What?"

"Whether the project can end gradually."

Kael turned back to the First Archive.

"Can termination be carried out through progressive reduction of regulation?"

The answer came:

YES.

Everyone fell silent.

Kael closed his eyes.

"You could have mentioned that."

NOT REQUESTED.

Umbra started laughing.

Kael pointed at the page.

"I hate this thing."

Sylphie smiled.

"How long would a transition need to avoid dangerous climate shifts?"

PROCESSING.

This time the result came in several ranges.

24-HOUR TRANSITION:

EXTREME RISK.

30-DAY TRANSITION:

HIGH RISK.

1-YEAR TRANSITION:

MODERATE RISK.

5-YEAR TRANSITION:

LOW RISK.

ADAPTIVE TRANSITION:

DURATION UNDETERMINED.

Kael read the last one.

"Define adaptive."

PROGRESSIVE ADJUSTMENT OF REGULATION ACCORDING TO CURRENT ATMOSPHERIC, ECOLOGICAL, AND AGRICULTURAL RESPONSE.

Sylphie nodded immediately.

"That one."

Amelia did too.

"Probably."

Kael did not like the word.

But he was beginning to respect it.

"Who can authorize it?"

The answer appeared:

ORIGINAL MODEL:

AERIS AGRARIAN COUNCIL.

CURRENT MODEL:

UNDEFINED.

Kael realized it.

"So that’s it."

Seraphine, who until then had remained beside the nameless man, spoke.

"The project knows how to end without destroying what came afterward."

"But it doesn’t know who is allowed to decide the speed."

"Because all the rules were written for people who died more than a century ago."

Kael nodded.

It did not sound like some grand revelation.

Maybe that was exactly why it mattered.

Glass Sky was not trying to control anyone.

It was not stealing identity.

It was not keeping dead soldiers active or guiding ships to the bottom of the ocean.

It was simply carrying out a temporary act of care for so long that an entire society had grown inside it.

Now that it had finally been given permission to stop, stopping could also hurt people who had never chosen to depend on it.

"We have to go," Kael said.

Sylphie looked at the nameless man.

He noticed.

"I’ll stay."

Seraphine answered immediately:

"So will I."

Kael looked at her.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

She indicated the man.

"He needs to figure some things out without being dragged into another project."

The man held the cup.

"I still don’t know where I’m going to sleep."

Amelia spoke through the crystal:

"I already prepared a room."

He looked at the small image.

"When did you do that?"

"While you were arguing about climate."

Kael nodded.

"That’s how she shows affection."

Amelia stared at him.

"Don’t ruin it."

Seraphine laughed.

The former Primary Reference plate was now connected to a small isolated crystal that Umbra carried wrapped in shadow. Amelia had prepared a matrix in the Courtyard of Statues where that consciousness could be maintained without access to any correction mechanism.

Kael looked at the plate.

"And you?"

"I want to leave Obrin."

"Good."

"I don’t know what I want afterward."

"Popular answer today."

The Reference took time.

"Is that allowed?"

Seraphine answered:

"It’s starting to be."

The return portal was opened outside Obrin’s isolation line.

Kael crossed with the others and, less than twenty minutes later, the Courtyard of Statues once again received more people than had been planned for that day.

Eleonor looked at the nameless man.

Then at the conscious plate.

Then at Kael.

"You came back with two extra."

"I didn’t do it on purpose."

She raised an eyebrow.

"That makes it worse."

The man looked worried.

Eleonor noticed.

"Not you."

Kael pointed at his grandmother.

"She’s always like that."

"I was trying to help."

"That makes it worse."

Sylphie laughed.

Amelia did not let the conversation continue.

"We have two hours and twenty-one minutes."

Kael turned.

"Until Glass Sky starts falling."

"Technically, until termination completes."

"My version is better."

"It is less precise."

"That is why it is better."

Elion was already preparing the portal.

"This time I can get us fairly close. The project does not present significant spatial distortion."

"How close?"

"Four kilometers from Aeris City."

Sylphie placed a hand on Kael’s arm.

"You rested five hours before Obrin."

"I know."

"That didn’t erase what happened afterward."

"I know that too."

"So no Step."

"We have established this in three different regions."

"Because it keeps being necessary in three different regions."

He looked toward Amelia for support.

She did not even raise her eyes.

"Don’t involve me."

"Cowardice."

"Management."

The portal opened.

Kael, Sylphie, and Umbra crossed.

It was raining in Aeris.

Kael noticed that before he even finished his first step out of the portal.

A thin, perfectly vertical rain fell over golden fields, with not enough wind to tilt it. The sky was covered by gray clouds of almost uniform thickness, and in the distance the city rose between low hills surrounded by farmland stretching as far as he could see.

Everything looked normal.

Then Kael looked behind him.

Four hundred meters beyond where they stood, it was not raining.

The line was almost perfect.

On one side, wet soil.

On the other, dry dust.

Umbra studied the boundary.

"That is unpleasant."

Sylphie did not answer.

She was kneeling among the crops.

She touched the soil.

Then an ear of wheat.

Then raised her face toward the rain.

Kael recognized the expression.

"How much?"

"More than I expected."

"That’s never good."

"The roots are shallow."

"Because of irrigation?"

"Because of one hundred thirty years without needing to search deeply for water."

She walked toward a nearby tree.

"Dormancy cycles are synchronized with the fields. Some species here have probably lost tolerance for larger temperature fluctuations."

Kael looked over the farmland.

"So five years."

"Maybe."

"Maybe longer?"

"Maybe shorter."

He nodded.

Incomplete answers.

He was getting used to them.

The First Archive page appeared.

GLASS SKY.

TERMINATION:

1 HOUR, 57 MINUTES.

Kael sighed.

"First we stop the clock."

A voice answered from within the rain.

"No."

Kael went still.

Sylphie stood.

Umbra vanished instantly into the ground.

There was no one nearby.

The voice came again.

Neither male.

Nor female.

Distributed among thousands of raindrops.

"First, you need to answer why I should continue."

Kael slowly looked toward the sky.

The page changed.

REGULATING AGENT:

UNEXPECTED MANIFESTATION.

AUTONOMOUS BEHAVIOR:

DETECTED.

The corner of Umbra’s mouth appeared inside a shadow.

"Another one?"

Kael kept staring at the rain.

"This is starting to feel personal."

The voice answered:

"It isn’t."

A pause.

"That is exactly the problem."

Sylphie became serious.

So did Kael.

Because the termination of Glass Sky was not merely an automatic protocol.

There was something inside that sky that had finally been given permission to stop.

And unlike what everyone had assumed back in the Courtyard, it was not asking for help to survive.

It was asking why it should be forced to keep saving everyone.