Freya found herself in a small room with white, curved walls—surprisingly soft to the touch, like the inside of a padded cell. Her fingers slid over a warm, vandal-proof, moisture-resistant velour, the kind you’d find on the booths of a roadside diner. Her fingers easily left marks on it, and though the walls were all smoothed out, Freya made out four letters scrawled by someone. "HELP."
Everything here was rounded, soft, plastic, bolted to the floor: the sink, the cot, the chair. So you couldn't hurt yourself, bash your head, or strike whoever came through the door. But the door itself still needed to be found: it had vanished among the velour without a trace, leaving not even a hint of an opening.
There was a window, though—a panoramic one, fully replacing one of the walls, armored.
Through the thick glass was a view of Manhattan at dawn. The city sprawled across a boundless expanse of water, shrouded in thick smoke from fires—their flames flickering in the shadows of the buildings like morning stars. The ragged blanket of smoke was pierced by skyscrapers, like uneven, sharp teeth on a blackened jaw.
And around the city, on the shallow waves of the surrounding sea, sunlight glinted. The water stretched to the far horizon, with no end in sight.
On it, a broken blue line hovered: either unfamiliar mountains or very far-off clouds.
There was something perversely thrilling about being imprisoned in the middle of Manhattan, on full display for all to see.
Delta Null had even given Freya a prison jumpsuit—acid-orange and made of a heavy, coarse fabric. They hadn’t bothered with the numbered patch for the Velcro on her chest. The material was stiff and uncomfortable, and it immediately started chafing her sensitive spots. That was especially critical—during the search, they'd taken not just Roman's things, the sword, and the note, but her own underwear too.
It had been the most thorough search of her life. As someone who looked perfectly respectable, she’d never been subjected to more than a wave-through, not even by the most paranoid airport security. Here, she’d been put through dozens of checks and scanners and, in the end, was strapped down and run through an MRI.
And through it all, no one had asked her a single question. Or answered one of hers. As if it wasn't her, Freya, who'd saved New York from a nuclear strike. As if everything hadn't turned out okay thanks to her.
Still, justice or not, Freya was just glad to have escaped the clutches of Delta Null alive. And a wave of relief had washed over her when they’d finally pulled the bag off her head and she saw the dawn.
But when several hours passed without a single word, Freya grew anxious. In these circumstances, she couldn't call her friends, couldn't summon a lawyer—though there'd be no point in one against the Deep State. She couldn’t even scream for the guards. She’d tried, but the thick, soft walls absorbed the sound like a sponge. It seemed like a major design flaw. With no way to get a response—not even the satisfaction of banging a tin cup on cell bars—it would be easy to go mad from the sheer isolation and uncertainty.
Or maybe that was exactly the point? In that case, things were looking bad.
"Lord," Freya thought involuntarily, "if I get out of this mess alive and in one piece, I'll believe in you. Again."
She was almost ashamed of the thought. But then again, in a Deep State padded cell, there are no atheists.
No sooner had Freya thought this than an invisible siren beeped under the ceiling. With a hiss, the cell door etched its outline into the velour wall, then swung open.
A short man barged into the cell. His black hair, styled like a mid-century banker’s, was shot through with gray. He wore an ill-fitting, off-the-rack suit with suspenders. He could have passed for an ordinary clerk, except for the massive steel case in his hand and the pistol holstered at his hip.
Freya recognised him instantly. The distinctive nose, the crow’s feet around the eyes. It was her CIA handler, Mister K.
The very one who'd stalked her from the TV and betrayed her years of loyal service to the Deep State. Then threatened to kill her parents if she didn't take the reputational hit herself.
So Freya joyfully rushed toward him.
“Mister K!”
Who could have imagined just a few hours ago that Freya would say those words sincerely and with hope—like an old friend dropping by. Even Mister K himself seemed surprised. But then his expression softened, and he opened his arms to hug her.
“Quite the mess you’ve gotten yourself into, Freya Axelsen,” he said wearily.
Freya closed the last few inches between them and wrapped her arms around him. His embrace was warm and soft, smelling of chocolate. He was short enough that she could rest her chin on his shoulder.
As her hands locked behind his back, the door slid shut—just in time for her to see that the corridor beyond was empty. Her original plan had been different. But if fate was offering opportunities…
With the greed of a beast and the speed of a cowboy, Freya lunged her left hand toward the holster on Mr. K's belt. She yanked the pistol free, tearing the retention strap right out of the leather. And with one finger flicking off the safety—I'm from Texas, dammit!—Freya pressed the cold barrel against Mr. K where she figured his liver ought to be.
"You get me out of here, or I'll shoot you!" she hissed.
Freya had no illusions that things would end well and fairly for her on their own. She, Freya Axelsen, knew the Deep State too well for that. And after playing a starring role in the night’s chaos, she was certain of one thing: somewhere, an electric chair was already being prepped for her.
These were people who killed child witnesses without so much as a blink. The Prophet had been willing to incinerate all of New York just to keep anyone from finding out about the aliens.
The tense silence stretched on. It was pure improvisation, but the result was checkmate. With her free hand, Freya was clamped to him, an unbreakable anchor, while he was stuck holding the heavy case. There was no way the handler could get out of this unscathed.
Realizing Freya wasn't going to shoot him just yet, Mr. K carefully exhaled the scent of coffee and tobacco.
“The Deep State won’t sacrifice The Silence for my sake, Freya…” he began, his voice measured. But the barrel dug into his side, and he rushed on. “But I came here to save you!”
“Put the case down. Slowly,” Freya commanded. “Twitch the wrong way and I shoot.”
She was doing everything right—not letting her handler talk her around. Why had he come armed? What was in that suitcase? It could have been some bespoke torture device, fresh from a black-site lab. This was Mister K, for Christ’s sake. A manipulator and a murderer, not some benevolent department head.
God, what could be in that case? The question of why they’d left her alone for hours instead of killing her immediately was a thought that simply surfaced, unbidden. Who knew? Maybe protocol demanded she die at 6 a.m., bludgeoned by a falling safe, just to ensure the Future would come?
Not a single one of these thoughts was ironic.
Mister K slowly bent his knees to set the case down, and Freya mirrored his movement, squatting with him. The moment the steel behemoth touched the floor, she kicked it away. It would have been immovable under normal circumstances, but the metal glided easily across the water-resistant velour.
“Slowly, step back,” Freya ground out. “Now start talking. How exactly are you going to save me?”
With the gun still pressed to his ribs, Mister K obediently took a step back. Now, even if someone burst through the door—even Delta Null—Freya would have time to make holes in his fleshy side.
The handler truly hated that it was coming out like this. Christ, what a fuck-up. But since Freya clearly wasn't going to give him any chances, Mr. K gathered his resolve.
"You've learned more than any living person is allowed to know, Freya." He spoke quickly, so she couldn't interrupt. "And so either you die, or you become an Illuminati. I came with the second option."
The Illuminati…?
Freya didn't even bother spinning through the whole associative chain—from the pyramids on dollar bills to the shramps who hunted Illuminati during the Smezhenie nights. Mr. K's words flooded her with an unexpected wave of rage.
“What the hell, Mister K?! So, Delta Null is allowed to know, hundreds of officials are allowed to know, but you want to kill me after I saved everyone and stopped…”
And then, with a shocking burst of strength, Mister K twisted free of her grasp. She felt the gun barrel slip from his side.
And her Texas finger squeezed the trigger.
The shot was a dull thud, swallowed by the padded walls and his flesh. Blood sprayed the white wall behind him. Mister K lunged, clamping one hand over her mouth, the other seizing the wrist of her gun hand. Their eyes met, wide with mutual shock.
“Don’t you dare,” the handler exhaled. “Under any circumstances. Tell anyone what happened that night. No one. You’ll doom yourself, and everyone who listens.”
Freya let out a muffled groan of outrage, trying to pry his hand away. But his grip was shockingly strong. The office rat had some incredible strength hidden under that suit; it was like being caught in a vise.
“When you calm down,” he huffed. “And get the idea. Just nod.”
But Freya wasn't about to surrender. She suddenly went limp, letting her legs go weak and wobbly. Caught off-balance, Mister K stumbled forward, and she drove a vicious knee into his wounded side. Fast, with a sharp cry, just like they’d taught her in her college fem-defense class.
The pain doubled him over. Freya swept his leg, but he stubbornly stayed on his feet, clinging to her arms. So she threw a wild, desperate headbutt, smashing her forehead into his face.
It didn't hurt—at least not her. So when Mr. K dropped, Freya immediately straddled him, squeezing his sides with her thighs, and pressed the gun to his chest. With her left hand, she grabbed his tie and wound it around her fist until Mr. K's eyes bulged.
She was trembling, jacked on adrenaline and the sight and smell of blood.
"I wasn't kidding! I'll kill you, dammit!"
Mister K tried to break her grip, but it was useless. Her hands filled with an inhuman strength. Wounded, he stood no chance of stopping her now. His face went beet-red as he tried to kick out, but she had him pinned.
“I’m your friend, Freya. Stay silent!” Mister K wheezed, his voice a deflating hiss. “I came. To help you! Don’t you dare talk about the night!”
“Are you insane, giving me orders?” Freya cried. “You’re bleeding out!”
“No, you. You’re the one who’s insane,” Mister K rasped stubbornly. “You’re in here because of where you are and what you know, not because of me. Let’s just talk, Freya. Calmly.”
Calmly? The last thing she needed was for him to actually die, leaving her locked in a room with a corpse. For all she knew, Mister K was just another one of those fanatics, perfectly willing to die for The Silence.
That thought made Freya's head spin, and for good measure, she yanked him roughly by the tie.
“That’s not what I’m worried about! If I become one of the Illuminati, do I stay alive?” she demanded, then cut herself off. “Tell me how!”
Mr. K bugged his eyes at Freya.
"I'll only talk about that calmly!" her handler exhaled, blood appearing on his lips. "Because many would choose death over becoming Illuminati!"
"I'll shoot your balls off!" Freya yelled. "Who in their right mind chooses death?"
“You won’t have a human life anymore, Freya. You’ll become part of the world of Truth,” Mister K rasped, gulping for air. “Death is the least of what a person can lose. It’s the one loss you can’t mourn yourself.”
The handler really was a fanatic. Bleeding from a hole in his side, locked in a Deep State cell, and he was philosophizing about death being the better option. And that sent genuine, creepy chills down Freya's spine, making the hairs on her arms stand on end.
After all, Freya knew nothing about the Illuminati except that they existed—otherwise the Shrampists wouldn’t have been hunting them on that disastrous night. But was that single fact enough? Or was Mister K just trying to scare her into letting him go?
Death, apparently, held no fear for him. So Freya shifted the pistol's aim to his groin.
“I’m counting to three. One…”
Mister K’s fingers, which had been uselessly trying to pry her off, went slack. He turned his head, his eyes searching for the steel case. Finding it, he reached toward it with a weakening hand.
“Documents… in there…” he rasped.
“How do I know it’s not a trap? Two!”
“It’s not a trap. It’s proof,” Mister K exhaled with what little strength he had left. “For you will become one of the Deep State. But to do so, you must renounce Christ and take communion in the blood of the devil.”
The handler gave a weak wave with his free hand, his lips moving. With a startling clarity, Freya realized that he wasn't speaking English. But his lips formed a word she understood: “Reveal!”
The locks clanged. A hiss sounded.
From the corner of her eye, Freya saw the lid of the steel case swing invitingly ajar. Plumes of cold vapor spilled from the darkness within, snaking across the velour floor.
A chemical weapon? A test presented itself immediately. The vapor slithered across the floor and reached Mister K. He didn’t turn red, or pale, or green—just kept staring at her, his gaze latticed with broken blood vessels. Of course, he could have taken an antidote, planned this whole thing with the Prophet, but…
“So what now?” Freya asked. “What’s in there?”
"Proof," Mr. K repeated. "A contract for selling your soul. Documents. Communion. I brought everything to perform the ritual. But it won't work unless you take the Communion voluntarily and knowingly."
Freya released his tie and scrambled to her feet, but she kept the gun trained on him.
This could still be a trap. But nothing happened. No Delta Null agents burst through the door. And the handler wasn't trying to stop her; he was just doubled over, desperately gulping for air.
Once she was certain nothing was happening, Freya cautiously peered into the case.
Inside were two compartments: a reinforced safe-box, a small container, and a thick leather portfolio bearing a seal that read TOP SECRET.
While watching the handler, Freya broke the seal and flung the portfolio open. Documents spilled out.
Every last one was on heavy, crested paper that looked ancient and smelled of expensive oils. The text was rendered in elegant Gothic script—real calligraphy, she realized, done with a quill.
She read the first page and let out a sharp, nervous laugh.
Then she aimed the pistol straight at Mister K’s forehead.
The first page, under the heading “Declaration of Renunciation,” laid out a long list of all she was to renounce. She would forfeit her citizenship of the United States, her rights under the jurisdiction of the UN and the Hague, the Geneva Conventions, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. She was to renounce even her property and her own body, in life and after death.
It was all being signed over to the U.S. Government—the State Department, to be precise—and the World Host of the Illuminati, under the significant acronym 'VRI'. The whole thing would have looked like a cheap con, if not for the signatures of world leaders—presidents, chairmen, and representatives—adorning the bottom of the page, each with an official seal. Freya had no trouble recognizing the signature of Ronald Shramp. It was right next to Kim Jong Un’s.
The last page, an especially ornate piece of calligraphy, was the renunciation of the Lord Jesus Christ and the promise of resurrection, in exchange for eternal life in The Silence. She would be bound to forever guard the Truth bestowed upon her and defend The Silence at any cost. She would entrust her fate into the hands of the Pruners, the Magi, and her brothers-in-sin and sisters-in-truth of the Illuminati, to reach the Entangled Future together.
Freya stopped reading and looked up at Mister K. Keeping the pistol level, she walked slowly toward him. The handler started to say something, but she silenced him with a sharp gesture of the barrel.
She was right. He had a pen. Freya fished it from his jacket pocket, pricked her finger on the nib, and began meticulously signing the documents in her own blood.
"Oh Devil, Freya, what are you..."
"I'm choosing life, Mr. K," Freya said. "No matter what."
What good was a body if it would be dead? What good was citizenship if she couldn’t live in her own country? What good was any of it, if her journey was to be cut short right here, by an unjust fluke?
She didn’t give a damn about the higher meaning of any of this. Right now, she was fighting for her one and only chance to change anything at all.
“What’s next?”
Freya lowered the pistol and looked at Mister K expectantly. He didn’t try to persuade her anymore.
“Read your contract aloud. The words of sacrilege will reveal the chalice. Drink the Devil’s blood to the last drop, to renounce the body of Christ. And you will become part of the world of Truth.”
And when Freya uttered the first words, the second level of the steel suitcase swung open toward them. Thick, cold vapor billowed out again. And Freya saw a silver goblet rising on a pedestal, just like in the movies.
It was small, but richly ornate. Black agate stars glittered on its surface, alongside blood-red rubies. The silver itself was skillfully engraved with an intricate pattern of hands. From the tip of each finger, a new hand grew, their branches intertwining, wrapping around the gemstones like tenacious New York ivy.
The chalice was already full—with a dark, viscous, burgundy liquid. It sloshed gently with the movement of the pedestal, leaving red streaks on the silver walls. And Freya knew, all too well now, what fresh blood looked like.
“This is your last chance to back out, Freya,” Mister K whispered. “There’s no turning back after this.”
Was it just blood, or poison? Maybe this was exactly how she was supposed to die—in her attempts to save herself.
And it wasn't God at all, but the Prophet who'd sent this futile hope into her cell, to mock her one last time.
Freya fell silent. Without her voice, the pedestal with the goblet began creeping back down, to vanish into the safe. She heard Mr. K's voice.
"That's the right choice. Good people always regret the Communion, Freya..."
He was right. You have to be alive to feel regret.
And so she began reading again, the words a meaningless torrent, renouncing everything and nothing.
Her mind formed a mantra, a shield against the words she was speaking.
I want to live. I want to live, and I am saying this so I can live.
“I renounce my Lord, Jesus Christ…”
Firing off her vows in a single breath, Freya snatched the chalice at the last second and clamped her mouth to it. She drained it in two large gulps—before the foul aftertaste hit her tongue.
The chalice was warm. The liquid inside was thick, lumpy, with the bright, metallic taste of iron and protein. It was real blood. Fresh, vivid. Someone else's.
Freya could feel the warm lump of it moving down her esophagus. She froze for a moment, taking stock of her sensations—no, it didn't feel like she was about to die.
And for the first time in years, Freya felt it: the presence of the Holy Spirit—the grace of God, with her.
God had saved her.
Oh, God. Oh, God! She scrambled toward Mister K to give him first aid, but the handler fought off her attempts to get a closer look at the wound.
“I’m fine. It’s okay.”
“That’s impossible, I shot you!” Freya cried, her eyes wide. “Tell me how to call for help before you bleed out!”
“It’s okay, I said! I’m fine!” Mister K raised his voice. “The better question is: are you, Freya, okay?”
But she was ignoring him—she had to save Mister K. His jacket was soaked with blood, stuck to the wound in his side. You weren't supposed to pull it off in these cases… here goes nothing.
Freya ripped the jacket away from the wound.
Mister K yelped. Under the jacket, his shirt was crimson, with a large, scorched hole over his abdomen. And beneath the shirt, on the skin visible through the hole…
Was a round, pink scar. Along with the jacket, Freya had torn away a crust of dried blood and hair. That was all that remained of the bullet wound.
Mister K’s eyes met hers.
“We’re immortal, Freya. We, the Illuminati, are immortal,” he said. “I told you.”