Some days I forget I’m supposed to be managing a concert tour. Halo’s show might be the face of it all — the roar of crowds, the global streams, the memes — but behind that curtain? There’s an empire taking shape.
Skyway Elite is the tip of the spear. Entertainment, simsense, new Halo concepts, Phoenix Rising reviews, whole “reality” constructs being test-piloted for the next phase. The ratings feed the machine, and the machine feeds me.
Then there’s the Axon Research Initiative. Digging into the magical past to unlock the future. Academic on the surface, but the implications are anything but. A team of scholars and conjurers picking apart the bones of the First and Second Ages, mapping power where others see only myth. Velaxas. The Obsidimen. Resonance. The End of Ages. Life on other worlds. Induced Awakenings. Cures for all your woes. The past pas the power to unlock the future.
Ironview Holdings LLC is the other hand. Not the district — the company. Darklight revenues sluiced into opportunities across the globe, from Norway’s fjords to Indonesia’s island chains. Risk and emerging markets, dressed up in glossy investor decks. Truth is, those markets only open because of my personal connections — to dictators, warlords, semi-legal dynasties. You don’t get those deals without shaking the right bloody hands.
The coalition against Velaxas remains fragile, every meeting another balancing act. To some, I’m the glue; to others, the interloper. And the work doesn’t stop there. Samarkand is its own theater — clandestine operations I won’t commit to paper, the kind that only exist because they’re denied. And speaking of Samarkand: Vivek and his daughters won’t just fade quietly into myth.
Philip Harrowfield handles the boardrooms, the press calls, the appearances. TB mutters about power left on the table, enemies not yet crushed. Wizkid runs his own parallel campaign in the Matrix, building, tinkering, probing.
Three voices, one body, and not enough hours in the day.
What ties it together is momentum. If I stop moving — if any of us stop moving — the whole structure collapses.
So we don’t.
We build, we burn, we smile for the cameras.
Sept 27 — Vancouver
Shiawase Stadium. Packed to the rafters, drones buzzing like flies over sugar, and the air thick with AR overlays. Tonight was supposed to be just another concert, another triumphal stop.
Instead, Halo took the stage and announced — without pre-clearance — her “lifelong ties” to the Universal Brotherhood. She spoke about handouts in Redmond, about their “self-improvement” courses, about how they helped her find focus when she had nothing. Delivered in HD simsense, raw and sincere. Hard to argue with. Hard not to believe.
It’s not what we agreed to. Not quite. She framed it as gratitude, not allegiance, but the nuance is already lost to the feeds. The story is “Halo endorses the Brotherhood.”
I’ll keep digging. Mr. Black and his team are already busy with the list Wizkid pulled — seventeen hundred “problematic” members, flagged for further action. Some will be nudged, some erased. I could call in Aztechnology assets, or even UCAS intelligence, if I need muscle. But for now, the shadows are cleaner.
Philip Harrowfield hates this development.
TB smells prey.
Wizkid shrugs: “she’s making a play.”
Sept 28 — Seattle, Renraku Megadome
Seattle — always wet, always wired, always restless. Halo leaned into it, called the city the bridge between East and West, “sometimes troublemaker, never boring, always raining.” The crowd ate it up.
I smiled the whole time, the perfect boyfriend-board member-producer. Inside, TB grumbled about wasted potential; Wizkid spent the whole set mining the crowd’s AR overlays for exploitable code.
Sept 29 — Seattle, Street Concert
Different venue. An old sports stadium, the smell of soy-dogs and cheap synth-beer heavy in the air. This one was for the streets: orks, trolls, humans stacked ten to a flat in Ironview, all there to scream themselves hoarse.
Halo thanked Silvia McKay by name — the local councilwoman — for “helping turn Ironview around.” A lie, of course. McKay did nothing except show up for ribbon-cuttings. But now? She’s a hero, and with a little more guidance, she might even be a mayoral candidate one day.
The tour officially “ended” here. Halo told them the Darklight chapter was closed, and that Tenochtitlan on October 8 would mark the beginning of “something new.” No details. Just promises. Clever girl. Keep them guessing, keep them thirsting for the blessings of the Goddess.
Sept 30 — Seattle, Semi-Private Show
Invitation-only. Power brokers, sponsors, old friends of the tour. Halo gave them exactly what they paid for: exclusivity. I gave them handshakes and subtle offers.
Oct 1 — Departure for Tenochtitlan
Seattle fades into the mist again. My new home is the old heart of the empire: Tenochtitlan.
I’ll always keep ties to Seattle — TB won’t let me sever them even if I tried — but the Board seat binds me here. The neighbors are also colleagues, rivals, potential allies. The trick is to be useful without being threatening, to offer opportunities without painting a target on my back.
Aztechnology’s Board is… wildly energetic and dysfunctional at the same time. Members sabotage each other’s projects, undercutting divisions for personal gain. And they constantly interfere with operations, not trusting the top executives to do their jobs without oversight.
But you never strike the Board directly. Never. That way lies the obsidian knife. To win here, you have to be clever. And I am exceedingly clever.
Oct 5 — Tenochtitlan, The Black Flame
Grand Inquisitor Natti requested my presence. At least officially, that's what he did, but really, it was me accepting his challenge — or invitation — depending on how you frame it. To prove that I am all that he hopes I am.
He brought me before the Black Flame. An ancient source of arcane power, burning darkly since before memory, since before this city had its current name. Natti claimed stewardship, tracing a line of guardians who “took over” from the previous ones — meaning they killed the locals and claimed the fire during the Conquest.
The Inquisition serves Aztechnology, yes. But not entirely. The inner cadre — the cabal who know the Flame — serve it first. Natti hinted that some of my fellow Board members are Disciples, though he did not say who. Perhaps not all of the Inquisition even knows.
When I reached out and the flame touched me, the Sun-Stone woke from its slumber. Again, it opened the gates for power, and arcane energies surged through me, threads of my ancient legacy unspooling. Without the stone... I would have been touched — but not transformed.
