JOURNAL ENTRY – PHILIP HARROWFIELD // SEPT 4-SEPT 7, 2097

 

September 4, Tenochtitlan

Left Atlanta for my splendid lakeside mansion in Tenochtitlan.

September 5, Tenochtitlan

Someone tried to kill me—and I didn't know until much later.

Poison, administered discreetly—likely to my evening wine.

Sato, my valet, took the glass instead.

He died.

And then… he came back.

Same bioroid frame. Same memories. Same voice. But something was different.

There had been a Resonance burst moments before—small, localized, unnoticed by the general population but very clear to the sensitive. The "autopsy" confirms: Sato died, but then he lived.

So what is this new Sato?

And who sent the poison?

We traced the attack to a signal injected into the comm-net. Not physical. Not arcane. Matrix-native.

And we now believe it was Velaxas.

Not to eliminate me, not really. But to demonstrate his latest trick: the ability to remotely hijack a bioroid, possibly using Resonance-altered pathways.

He didn’t want me dead. Not yet.

He just wanted me to know he could. Or maybe he just wanted attention... dragontention. We can be such vain creatures sometimes.

September 6, Tenochtitlán.

All of this came to a head at the Aztechnology board meeting.

There was a very real chance of arriving and never leaving, or rather, leaving one heart short and rather dead.

And still, I walked into the Chamber of the 26 and made my case.

Profits are up. I'm turning lead into gold, so to speak. My prestige is rising, my influence deepening. 

And for those on the board that know: The threat of Velaxas is real. And I am the man trying to stop him.

Still, they brought in their truth-sayer, their Grand Inquisitor, and he asked me some, admittedly uncomfortable questions about my past, present, and future. 

They must have gleamed something; they cannot be that blind, but in the end, more nodded than not, and I lived. 

I am now the 27th seat on the board of Aztechnology.

Junior, yes.

But irrevocable.

September 7, Tenochtitlán.

And now we drink and relax, as brothers and sisters, beneath the shadows of the stepped pyramids and the whispers of the ur-age softly in our ears.