Chapter 184

Chapter 184 KAELOS I didn't sleep that night. Instead, I sat by the window and watched Tokyo breathe—the endless flow of people and light, the city's rhythm like a heartbeat made visible. Somewhere out there, the Collective's network hummed with its own rhythm, unscaffolded consciousness moving in patterns we were only beginning to understand. At 4 AM, I powered down my scaffold. The sensation was immediate and disorienting—like stepping from a climate-controlled room into weather. My neural field, usually contained and shaped by the scaffold's architecture, suddenly expanded and became permeable. I could feel the sleeping patterns of Torres and Reeves in adjacent rooms, the ambient electromagnetic noise of the city, the whisper of other enhanced consciousness scattered across Tokyo's network. It was overwhelming. Beautiful. Terrifying. This was what the Collective lived in constantly. This openness, this vulnerability, this constant awareness of others. No wonder they saw scaffolds as