"Yes," Zalmos agreed. He reached over and gently touched Elias's wrist. "But you won't need a body where you're going. You'll need something else."
The recall hit Elias at 3:14 AM. Not a phone chime or a knock—a dent in his sternum, pulling him north. He didn't own a car, didn't have a pass, but the Proxy didn't care. He dressed in the dark, walked twelve blocks to the Zalmos Arch, and pressed his palm to the reader. zalmos proxy
"To whom?"
The card flared. The noodles went cold. And Elias—or whatever had once been Elias—folded into the space between heartbeats, carrying a message he was forbidden to read, to a god who hadn't yet learned that loneliness was the only thing that grew in the dark. "Yes," Zalmos agreed
"What is it?"
Elias sat. The chair was too small, child-sized, his knees brushing the table's underside. He'd been a Proxy for eleven years. He'd delivered ultimatums to presidents, carried sealed whispers into volcanoes, once held a dying star in his bare hands until it agreed to go dark. But instant noodles at 3 AM—that was the hardest. You'll need something else