AARON The other man nodded as he spoke, his voice steady but heavy with truth. He said this was how the powerful had always ruled. For centuries, they shaped the crowds, twisted elections, and bent systems to serve themselves. Power was never enough for them. They always wanted more. He said we pushed back once, for a time. We did it by valuing education and teaching people how to think clearly and question what they were told. Then we grew careless. We let others think for us. That cycle had happened before and we survived it then. This time was different. Machines now existed. Artificial intelligence could replace us. Whoever stood behind all this did not want control alone. They wanted us gone. Cold fear wrapped around my heart. I knew I was sinking into the same terror he warned me about. Images filled my mind without mercy. Elena and Lucas lay broken at the feet of one of those machines. Its task finished. Its master satisfied. I could almost smell the blood and metal. Holes were drilled into their hips, just like the ones Ronan had seen with his own eyes during that earlier horror. The picture felt so real that my chest tightened, as if I had been there myself. Then something shifted inside me. While I stared into nothing, trapped in that image of my dead family, a spark lit deep in my chest. The fear drained away as fast as it had come. In that moment, a choice was made. No matter how impossible this trial looked, my family would live.No one would bend my will again. No one would twist the people around me into weapons or victims, not while I still breathed. I turned toward Ronan Ashcroft. “How do we stop them?” I asked. “They control all our communication. How do we tell people the truth about what is being done and how they are doing it?” Ronan frowned, silent as he worked through the problem. After a long minute, his eyes shifted to the school behind us. His head dipped once, slow and thoughtful, like he had just agreed with his own idea. “How good are you at arts and crafts?” he asked. ****** One day passed, and confidence filled me in a way I had not felt for days. The plan had taken nearly an hour to shape, but Ronan and I finally put it together.My job was to gather as many civilians as possible. Together, we would make posters using school supplies. Those posters would be placed everywhere we traveled. Ronan would speak with Commander Silas and push him to spread the message through the armed forces, across the continent and beyond. The flyer itself stayed simple. It told people to trust only what they saw with their own eyes. It reminded them that law enforcement and the military were not their enemies. It warned them to stay away from places where large crowds were being encouraged. Each person I recruited would become something more than a helper. They would become messengers. They would carry what they learned here to others, then teach those people to do the same. The work would be slow and exhausting. If done right, it could cover entire regions. This new network would not be fast, but it would be honest. It would be far more dependable than the digital systems that had lied to so many. The final goal was clear. Every town and city would have a place where written information could be handed directly to local officials and trusted observers. From there, couriers would carry those messages outward to distant communities. We moved quickly. Refugees at the army staging area were eager to help. Once Marcus Hale came out of surgery, Seraphina threw herself into the work without hesitation. She carried a huge share of the load and never slowed down. By the end of the first day, more than a hundred people had joined us. Volunteers kept coming. Supplies did not. Physical materials were scarce, and that became our first real obstacle. Luck stayed with us, though. The school still had paper and basic writing tools. Old methods, but reliable ones.We used them to create simple flyers that could be shared at gathering points along volunteer routes. People needed purpose. They needed something to do, anything that made them feel useful. This plan gave them that. It did not matter that success was uncertain. It did not matter that the risk was real. Control, even a small amount, meant hope. For many of them, that was enough to keep moving forward.