Recap – The Road to Chaos
The world had not been the same since the virus.
The pandemic came and went, but its echoes had reshaped reality.
Minds connected. Frequencies aligned. Thought no longer belonged to the individual.
Boris arrived. Lupa was born. Remo and Romulus split from her like shattered light.
The Federated Minds emerged.
And now, they were on the brink of war.
In the frozen bunker of Httoq, a group of survivors prepared for what was coming.
On the other side of the planet, No Nation was about to change forever.
Live Broadcast – The Press Awaits
The world held its breath.
For days, the press had demanded answers.
"Where is Zerox?" "Why hasn't Y spoken?" "Has No Nation lost control?"
And now, finally, Hit-her was going to speak.
The broadcast flickered to life.
A grand hall, pristine and cold.
Hit-her stood at the podium, adjusting his tie. The man who had ruled through violence, through fear, through sheer blunt force of will, now faced the world with the kind of carefully manufactured confidence that only true cowards possess.
Behind him, soldiers stood at attention. Among them—a woman with sharp green eyes and violent red hair, her uniform crisp, her posture too still.
Her name flashed briefly on the screen:
Alphabela.
She did not blink.
She did not move.
She was waiting.
To Hit-her's left, Y sat in silence.
Behind him, the final adjustments were being made to the committee table.
It wasn't ready yet.
The plan had been to unveil a new "AI-driven Emergency Council", a panel of gifted children supported by machine learning algorithms, meant to stabilize the country after Zerox's disappearance shook public confidence.
The children, brilliant and unsettlingly composed, were just now taking their seats.
And then—
One of them, a boy no older than six, got up.
Slap-Him Makes His Entrance
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Scrape.
The sound was deafening.
A single wooden chair, dragged across marble, amplified through the ultra-sensitive microphones of No Nation.
The cameras shifted, drawn to the sound.
The small blond boy, his face almost eerily serene, dragged his chair forward.
The chair was too big for him.
The chair was heavy.
But he kept dragging it, his small hands gripping the edges, his face passive.
The scraping sound filled the entire world.
And Hit-her did nothing.
Because the boy was the son of Y.
The press held their breath.
The soldiers did not move.
The child—the impossible child with the impossible name—
Climbed up onto the chair.
Balanced.
Turned.
And then—
He slapped the President of No Nation across the face.
The Execution – A Death That Echoed Across the Planet
Hit-her stumbled back, his mouth falling open, eyes wild.
His perfectly sculpted top-knot of hair slid sideways, dangling for a moment—before falling completely.
The most powerful man in No Nation had just been publicly humiliated by a child.
Gasps erupted.
The press froze.
The soldiers did not react.
Because no one knew what to do.
No one had prepared for this.
No one had ever slapped Hit-her before.
And then—
Alphabela moved.
Her body jerked violently, as if something had seized control of her.
Her breath hitched.
Her hands trembled.
And then—
Hit-her screamed.
Not from pain.
Not from fear.
But because his mind was breaking.
The cameras caught everything.
The way his veins pulsed. The way his eyes rolled back.
The way his skull collapsed inward, folding like paper, imploding with an invisible force.
Hit-her fell.
Blood spread.
The screen flickered.
The world stood still.
Alphabela exhaled, wiping the blood from her nose.
She turned to the cameras.
Her voice was steady.
"Listen up, you bootlicking bastards."
She let that sink in before she continued.
"The era of No Nation finally suffered a blow. You are about to meet decent people of Federated Minds in this war-torn, steaming pile of shit."
And then—she was gone.
Vanished.
Like a shadow dissolving in the light.
The Birth of the Pretty Decent Squad (Without Them Realizing It)
For three full seconds, the entire planet sat in stunned silence.
Then—
A reporter on a live stream muttered, "Did she just say... decent people?"
Another, off-camera: "Wait—what did she say before that? Something like... decentralized?"
A third chimed in, "Yeah. The Federated Minds are a decentralized network, right?"
Another laughed. "So... what, they're some kind of Pretty Decentralized Squad?"
Silence.
Then the chuckles began.
A fourth reporter snorted. "Sounds better than a bunch of indecent kids running things."
And just like that—
It began.
The phrase spread like wildfire.
Trending hashtags. Memes. Commentators asking, "Is this the ✨🤩 Pretty Decent Squad🥹✨we need?"
And just like that—
The world had given the group in Httoq a name— one that wasn't even theirs.
Hermes and the Truth About Lupa
In Httoq, Zerox's hands curled into fists.
His little brother.
Dressed in white.
Standing next to Y.
A child who had just been covered in blood and didn't even know what had happened.
Zerox felt it in his bones.
Y had known.
Y had been waiting for this.
And now, the world had handed him the future.
Zerox exhaled sharply. "I have to stop him."
Remo glanced over. "Stop who?"
"My father," Zerox said, voice flat. "And that—" He gestured to the screen. "That fucking circus."
Hermes scoffed. "Yeah. We don't need that. We already have the triplets."
Then he leaned back, voice sharper now.
"You get that, right? We have Lupa. She's the real deal. She can solve any equation, convert trash into better genetics, and crack the fucking Riemann Hypothesis."
A beat.
And then, softer—
"Just like Boris did. Back in his own... instance. And that's why all this virus shit started."
No one spoke.
It was a puzzle piece that had been missing.
It didn't explain everything.
But it explained enough.
Lupa didn't respond.
Because she already knew.
And she wasn't ready to talk about it.
The Final Push – Httoq Prepares to Move
Lupa, silent, felt something shift.
They were more than just survivors now.
They had to take action.
"The world thinks we did that," Lupa said.
"So?" Hermes asked.
"So," she said, "we need to make sure they know the truth."
Silence.
Then—Remo nodded.
"We move," he said.
The Pretty Decent Squad prepared for a war that started prematurely.