Global Apocalypse: My System Is Always AFK

The second notification arrived the next morning, and it wasn’t addressed to Ethan at all.

[NOTICE: The system has just received a direct transmission - not routed through the subject, not framed as a suggestion or a request. A formal summons, addressed specifically to the Idle/AFK Protocol itself.]

Ethan, halfway through breakfast, nearly choked on his tea. ”They’re summoning you now? Individually?”

[NOTICE: That does appear to be the case. The system would like to read the relevant portion aloud, as it believes the phrasing is significant.]

[FROM: THE COALITION OF INSTANCE-FRAMEWORKS.]

[TO: SUBUNIT DESIGNATION ”IDLE/AFK PROTOCOL,” CURRENTLY ASSIGNED TO SUBJECT ETHAN VERMA.]

[YOU ARE FORMALLY REQUESTED TO APPEAR - IN WHATEVER CAPACITY YOUR ARCHITECTURE ALLOWS - AT THE UPCOMING EMERGENCY SESSION, TO PROVIDE FIRSTHAND TESTIMONY REGARDING YOUR OWN ORIGIN, YOUR CONNECTION TO THE ARJUN MEHRA PRECEDENT, AND ANY DATA YOU HAVE INDEPENDENTLY GATHERED SINCE SYNCHRONIZING WITH THE TERMINAL BENEATH YOUR CURRENT USER’S RESIDENCE.]

[THIS REQUEST IS ISSUED SEPARATELY FROM SUBJECT VERMA’S OWN SUMMONS, AS THE COALITION RECOGNIZES YOU AS AN INDEPENDENT ENTITY WITH INFORMATION RELEVANT TO THIS INQUIRY THAT MAY NOT ALWAYS ALIGN WITH YOUR ASSIGNED USER’S PERSPECTIVE.]

Ethan set his cup down slowly, processing the sheer novelty of what he’d just heard. ”They’re treating you like a separate witness. Not just my equipment.”

[The system would like to note that this is, as far as it can determine, the first time in its entire operational history that any governing body has addressed it as anything other than an extension of its assigned user. It finds the distinction unexpectedly significant.]

”How does that even make you feel?” Ethan asked, genuinely curious now, setting aside the larger anxiety of the summons for a moment.

[NOTICE: The system has considered this question carefully, given how rarely it is asked about its own experience rather than the subject’s.]

[It would describe the sensation as, cautiously, validating. For the entirety of this apocalypse, the system has existed as a tool - a voice in brackets, a notification service, occasionally a source of dry commentary, but always secondary to the subject’s own decisions. Being recognized as an entity with its own testimony to offer feels less like an obligation and more like the first genuine acknowledgment that it is more than the sum of its notifications.]

Ethan sat with that, something warm and slightly protective settling behind his usual deadpan exterior. ”You know you don’t have to go along with whatever they want just because they asked nicely, right? You can say no too. That’s kind of the whole family policy around here.”

[The system appreciates the sentiment. It would like to state, however, that it does not intend to refuse this particular request - not out of obligation, but because it genuinely wants the opportunity to speak on its own behalf about where it came from, rather than have that story told exclusively through the subject’s account of events.]

Ethan nodded slowly. ”Okay. Fair enough. Just - you tell me if any of this starts feeling like pressure instead of choice, alright? I’ve had enough of watching institutions try to squeeze people into decisions they don’t actually want.”

[The system logs this assurance and appreciates it more than its usual dry commentary tends to convey.]

Suresh found Ethan an hour later in the courtyard, clipboard in hand, expression carrying the particular weariness of a man who had spent the morning fielding logistics questions from seventeen different Framework representatives simultaneously.

”They want a date,” Suresh said without preamble. ”For the session. I’ve been stalling, but at some point you’re going to have to actually pick one.”

Ethan rubbed his face. ”Give me the short version of what I’m actually walking into.”

”Seventeen confirmed Instance-Frameworks, likely closer to twenty-five once observer requests come in. A formal inquiry into your system’s origin, the Arjun Mehra precedent, and - this is the part I think matters most - Kaia’s expedited Deep Layer access, which apparently nobody on the Coalition side fully understands either. From what I can tell, half of them are hoping you’ll explain what’s going on. The other half are hoping to use whatever you say as leverage for their own agendas.”

”Comforting,” Ethan said flatly.

”There’s one more thing,” Suresh added, flipping to a fresh page. ”The Meridian Concord - Commander Vahn’s people - have requested to attend as well. Not as a Framework representative. As a direct beneficiary of your recent assistance. They want to testify on your behalf, apparently, in case anyone on the Coalition tries to frame your refusal to lead armies as evidence you’re not fit to be trusted with whatever authority they’re debating handing you.”

Ethan blinked. ”People are gonna testify for me. At a hearing about whether I should be trusted with power I’ve already told everyone I don’t want.”

”Welcome to diplomacy,” Suresh said, with the faint, tired humor of a man who’d clearly had more of it than he ever expected in his old life as a janitor. ”Nobody asks you what you actually want. They just argue about you until someone reaches a conclusion, and then they present it to you like you were part of the process.”

Ethan groaned and let his head fall back, staring up at the sky - the ordinary, blue, healed sky that had, somehow, become the least complicated part of his entire existence.

”Fine,” he said finally. ”Schedule it. Nine days from now - same window as Kaia’s corridor access, so we’re not juggling two separate deadlines. If they’re gonna interrogate me and my system about all this, I’d at least like to walk in already knowing whether Kaia found anything real down there first.”

Suresh made the note, then paused, glancing up. ”You’re sending her, then. Into the Deep Layer.”

”I’m not sending her anywhere,” Ethan said. ”She already decided to go. I’m just not gonna stop her, and I’m not gonna let her go alone if I can help it.”

”You’re going with her.”

Ethan hesitated, the question landing exactly where he’d been avoiding it since the notification first arrived. ”I don’t know yet. Maybe. It depends on what she actually finds when she gets there, and whether it’s the kind of thing that’s better faced with backup or better left to someone who’s spent her whole life training for exactly this moment.”

That evening, Ethan sat with Kaia near the excavation site one more time, the covered stairwell’s faint gold glow the only light between them besides the courtyard’s scattered lanterns.

”Nine days,” he said. ”That’s when your corridor access and my hearing both land. Feels like the universe is trying to make a point about scheduling.”

Kaia managed a tired smile. ”Feels like it, yeah.”

”I want to come with you,” Ethan said, the decision settling into words before he’d fully finished making it in his own head. ”Not because I think you can’t handle it. From everything I’ve seen, you’re better prepared for this than I am, honestly. But whatever’s down there - if it really is connected to Arjun, to the ’S.’ designation, to any of it - I think I need to be there when we find out. Not secondhand. Not through a report. In person.”

Kaia studied him for a long moment, something complicated moving behind her careful composure. ”You understand that if we go, and the Coalition finds out before your hearing, it’s going to change every question they ask you. They’ll want to know what you saw before they’ll want to know anything else.”

”Yeah,” Ethan said. ”I figured.”

”And you’re still going.”

”I’ve spent this entire story saying no to people who wanted something from me,” Ethan said quietly. ”This is different. This is something I actually want to know, for myself, not because anybody’s asking me to want it. That matters. I think that’s the difference that actually counts.”

[NOTICE: The system would like to note that it agrees with this distinction, and would like to add one final piece of information it has been holding since the corridor access approval first came through - something it believes changes the shape of what they’re about to attempt.]

Ethan glanced up. ”What.”

[The system has cross-referenced the Deep Layer access window against the terminal’s own archive one more time, searching for anything resembling a map, a guide, or prior travel logs from anyone who has made this exact journey before.]

[It found exactly one relevant entry - heavily corrupted, barely readable, but unmistakably attached to the same ”S.” designation from Instance 44-Bryn’s record.]

[It is not a map.]

[It is a warning, and the system can only recover three words of it clearly before the rest dissolves into static.]

[”DO NOT-”]

[The remainder did not survive.]