The charter jet skimmed over the Baltic at midnight, cabin lights dimmed to preserve night vision. Outside, the Aurora Belt fluttered low on the horizon—no longer confined to the poles, it rippled across Europe like a neon river searching for a delta.
Aiden stood at the galley sink, teasing a coil of dawn-peach light from the Dawn-Core and braiding it with a strand of indigo thread Nephis had plucked off his cloak. The two colors fought at first, then settled into a faint shimmer: a seed of planned dissonance. It looked insignificant, but if woven through the right dream-hub it would act like a tuning fork that shook sleepers out of runaway lucidity.
Cassie leaned against the counter, holding her lantern close. "Ground team in Berlin says the entire U-Bahn Ring is humming. Passengers nod off between stations and never get off. They've nicknamed it the Sleep Loop."
Aiden grimaced. "We break the loop at Alexanderplatz. Big central node, lots of overlapping dreams."
Maya appeared from the cockpit, goggles lit by scrolling code. "I've piggy-backed on Deutsche Bahn's Wi-Fi mesh. When we drop the seed, I can flood every train screen with white-noise sigils—give the mind something messy to bite." She stopped in front of Aiden. "Just promise you'll cut power if resonance spikes. No hero charges."
He managed a smile. "Scout's honor." They both knew that meant very little.
Lin Xi floated a palm over Spiral Stone, drawing the final stroke of a seal that resembled a crooked lightning bolt. "This rune invites accident," he explained softly. "Small stumbles, lost keys, sudden hunger—tiny imperfections that break trance." Sweat glistened on his forehead; shaping "fortunate chaos," as he called it, cost more Qi than freezing a code-storm.
Nephis inspected the finished seal, cloak rippling like dark water in zero-g. "We carry unorder into the most ordered dreamscape on the continent. The Song-Addicts will not like it."
"They don't have to," Cassie replied. "They just have to wake up."
The jet touched down at Berlin Brandenburg under a sky still pulsing coral. No customs; the Loom Spirit had sent a single teal glyph to the airport servers, freezing surveillance long enough for strangers with unusual luggage to slip through.
In the city center the team found sidewalks eerily still, though streetlights blazed and taxis idled. Pedestrians stood immobilized, eyes half-open, bodies swaying to music only they could hear. An old woman cradled an invisible violin; a courier held a phone up to empty air, smiling at ghosts.
"The melody's thick," Maya whispered. "Everyone's sharing the same score."
They descended into Alexanderplatz station. The escalator hummed, but no one rode it. Aiden's heartbeat quickened: the deeper they went, the louder the silence grew, as if ambient sound had been traded for vast inner choruses.
At platform level hundreds of commuters stood in neat rows, eyes unfocused, breathing in unison. Overhead monitors glowed with swirling fractal staves—red and gold, hypnotic. A single final chord hung in the air, stretching longer than any breath should sustain.
"Seed goes there," Aiden said, pointing to the junction box feeding the display chain.
Lin Xi knelt, pressing his rune into the metal. Maya streamed her code burst. Cassie angled her lantern, projecting a jagged dawn-beam across the monitors; Nephis set guards against sleeper bodies in case they startled awake violently.
Aiden slipped the braid of dawn-peach and indigo into the circuitry. Dawn-Core hummed, uncertain, then released a muted discord—like plucking a string slightly out of tune.
Instantly the chord on the monitors fractured into white noise. The commuters gasped as if surfacing from deep water. Half collapsed; some wept. A woman screamed when she realized twenty minutes had vanished into the lullaby.
But the air itself fought back, resonating in pockets. From the tunnel mouth a shadowed figure emerged, radiating perfect harmony: a young man in a Deutsche Bahn vest, eyes glowing gold, humming the missing final note. The sleep-entranced nearby steadied, drifting toward him like moths.
Maya cursed. "A live conductor—human amplifier."
Aiden stepped forward, Dawn-Core pulsing. The conductor met his gaze, smile too serene.
"A wrong note," the man said gently, "can be erased."
He raised a hand; the platforms began to vibrate, ready to flood with song again. The Seed was planted, but if the conductor re-cohered the melody now the city might never wake.
Aiden squared his shoulders, feeling Dawn-Core and every bruise he still carried. "Then we'll write a new chorus." The platform lights flickered between dawn-peach and gold—battle lines drawn by color rather than steel.