Blood stained Eduardo Rivera's morning reports crimson. The metallic scent mixed with his coffee's bitter aroma, reminding him of another morning – the cathedral massacre, when he first saw what evolution patterns could do to Church-sanctioned enhancement ports.
Through his office window, revolution stirred in Costa del Sol's morning air. The desk scanner's soft warning tone drew his attention: evolution patterns detected in the crowd below. The display showed spreading webs of crimson light beneath enhanced skin – the corruption that the Church had declared anathema since the First Enhancement Council of 1923.
Three more parliament members dead.
Their enhancement ports corrupted beyond salvation, each body bearing The Director's signature like digital stigmata.
A street-level security feed showed a mother hurrying past the plaza's sensors, clutching her enhanced son close. The boy's ports pulsed with forbidden patterns, veins of red light spiderwebbing beneath his skin. The nearby priest touched his silver enhancement regulator – standard Church equipment since the Great Schism, when the first evolution patterns appeared.
The crowd grew larger. Working-class citizens filled the square, their standard Church-approved enhancements glowing the steady blue of orthodox doctrine. Their children wore Rivera's image on digital displays, hope pulsing in frequencies the priests had deemed pure.
His desk monitor showed climbing approval ratings. Each percentage point another crack in the old guard's foundation.
Good.
Let them fear change.
"Sir." General Santos's voice carried decades of military discipline, but Rivera caught the slight tremor beneath – the same tremor he'd heard three months ago, when they found Sarah's body twisted by evolution patterns that defied Church understanding. The general's enhancement ports pulsed orthodox patterns while the security scanner revealed fluctuations. His fingers brushed his collar, adjusting for phantom pressure. "St. Michael's Orphanage final count."
Rivera's heart stopped.
"Thirty-two children."
His fingers found the old scar on his palm – public defender's habit from when he believed in justice through law alone. The tactical display showed their broken bodies in merciless detail. Each port corrupted by patterns that made the Church sensors scream heresy.
"They're not harvesting enhancements anymore." Santos's enhanced heart rate spiked on the scanner. A bead of sweat traced his temple despite the climate controls. His eyes held the same haunted look from the cathedral, when they'd discovered how deep the evolution patterns could burrow. "Just sending messages."
Police autogyros swept past the window, brass hulls reflecting morning light. On the street, a priest's sermon competed with revolutionary chants, his silver regulator glowing with approved frequencies as he warned against the corruption of evolution.
"How many enhanced children disappeared this month?" Rivera forced the words past the tightness in his throat.
Santos shifted his weight – veteran's tell that Rivera had learned to read during their years together in the anti-corruption taskforce. "Seventeen." His eyes darted to the window, where a child's laughter carried up from below. "All modified beyond—" He swallowed. "Beyond Church protocols."
"Beyond Church control, you mean."
The general's enhancement ports flickered red. Fear bleeding through perfect discipline.
"All connected to Project Lazarus."
The pattern emerged after Rivera's investigation. After he publicly backed Church authority. After he refused to recognize the Army of Technological Awakening.
A message flashed across his screen: another parliament member found dead. In the square below, a young girl pointed skyward at an autogyro. Her enhancement ports pulsed with rhythms that made Church sensors wail – the same patterns they'd found in Sarah's code before everything went wrong.
"The team at the cathedral." Rivera rubbed his temples, fighting a headache born of too many reports, too many dead children. Too many memories of Sarah's last words about evolution being humanity's true destiny. "What did they find?"
Santos's enhancement cores produced discordant frequencies against standard patterns. His hand moved toward his medal but stopped halfway – catching himself. Years of friendship made the fear in his eyes cut deeper. "Those evolution patterns..." The professional mask cracked. "Sir, the Army isn't just enhancing people anymore. They're rewriting what it means to be human."
The screen on Rivera's desk flashed urgent red. Cardinal Vega's message cut through multiple encryptions:
*"Emergency meeting requested. The Army's influence spreads deeper than we feared. Some wounds only faith can heal. Some corruption only fire can cleanse."*
Rivera's hands clenched. He'd built that orphanage himself, before politics. Before power. Before understanding that sometimes justice needed teeth.
Started asking questions when enhanced children vanished.
Started fighting back.
Now it was ashes and small bodies. A message written in innocent blood.
"Sir." Santos's composure finally broke. His eyes met Rivera's with the same intensity from their academy days, before enhancement politics divided the force. "Parliament's calling emergency session. The investigation... supporting the Association..."
"They're scared." Rivera studied his old friend's face. Each flinch a confession. Each hesitation damning evidence. The crowd's chants grew louder, shaking the plaza's foundations. "Good."
His public approval numbers soared. Street cameras showed the masses wearing his image, their enhanced displays pulsing with righteous anger. A child released a paper airplane that caught thermal updrafts, its surface encoded with evolution patterns that made Church sensors shriek.
"Sir..." Santos wiped his palms on his uniform, just like before their first raid together. His enhancement ports struggled to maintain steady rhythm. "The last president who challenged them—"
"Died in a car bomb that took out three city blocks." Rivera stood, hands steady despite the fury building in his chest. Media sensors caught his every move, feeding hope to the hungry crowds. "I remember. I pulled his grandson from the wreckage myself."
The memory cut deep: tiny hands clutching his jacket, infant enhancement ports blazing with trauma. The first evolution patterns blooming in pure systems like digital roses.
He watched Santos flinch, saw the moment military discipline crumbled before primal fear. Old soldiers feared change.
They should.
"How many children have to die, General?" Rivera's words carried across every feed. Through the window, a mother's cry pierced the chaos – her child's ports evolving beyond Church control, crimson light racing beneath skin like lightning. "How many bodies before we admit the system is broken?"
"The system kept the peace." Santos's voice cracked on the last word.
"Peace?" Rivera's laugh held only ashes. "Tell that to the parents at St. Michael's."
Warning indicators flashed across his screens. Something moved through the palace's secure networks. Something bearing The Director's signature – the same signature that had corrupted Sarah's enhancement ports until her body rejected orthodox patterns entirely.
Costa del Sol's art deco spires caught morning light like brass judgment. The crowds below called for justice in voices that shook the streets. A child's enhanced laughter cut through it all – evolution making Church sensors cry heresy.
New message. Multiple encryptions. Maximum priority:
*"Team compromised. Full containment authorized. No witnesses. -V"*
Rivera recognized the signature. The same one from three months ago, when this all began.
When he'd started asking questions.
Started pushing back.
Started winning.
The crowd grew larger. Their anger building. Their faith in him strengthening. The priest's words shifted from scripture to revolution, his regulator flickering between orthodox patterns and something new.
"Find them." His order carried across secure channels. "Whatever it takes. Whatever it costs. Find them all."
Thunder rolled across Costa del Sol's quantum-encrypted sky. Storm clouds gathered, promising rain to wash their sins away.
But some stains, Rivera knew, went deeper than water could reach.
Some corruption could only be cleansed by faith and fire.
The security scanner screamed warning as something evolved in the palace networks. Something wearing The Director's signature. Something that carried echoes of Sarah's last transmission in the quantum stream.
Below, a child's enhancement ports flared with patterns that made her mother weep and pray, crimson light pulsing beneath skin in shapes that defied Church doctrine. Evolution or damnation. Progress or heresy.
The void was about to get its name.
And Costa del Sol would burn with divine purpose.
Whether its soul survived or not.