"Focus your energy on what you can actually influence. The rest? Let it go."

Trapped in the Library's sealed corridors with nanobots spreading through his leg like liquid silver, Bran faces a terrifying reality: the microscopic invaders have compromised his access to the tube system. What should be a simple journey to Love Island becomes a desperate flight through abandoned maintenance tunnels.

As crimson emergency lights reflect off his infected uniform, Bran discovers that his yellow gloves—symbols of his hard-won reinstatement—no longer work. The nanobots are jamming his signal, cutting him off from the very pathways that define his purpose as a Wave Messenger.

TiGer's wisdom about the "Circles of Power" cuts through his panic: worry about what you can control, influence what you can, and release what lies beyond your reach. But when fellow messengers flee at the sight of them and Baxie reveals they're wanted for sabotage and espionage, the circle of what they can control shrinks dramatically.

An unexpected encounter with Automotons in the maintenance shafts brings surprising allies. TiGer's fluency in their guttural language—a skill Bran never mastered despite working alongside them for three ancycles—opens doors he didn't know existed. The stocky creatures offer safe passage through routes too physically demanding for Adreno Guards to patrol.

Hidden in the tunnels, they overhear a devastating conversation between Cripps, Walter, and Nora. The truth emerges like a blade: Bran's reinstatement was never about redemption—it was a setup. They wanted him to fail spectacularly, using his inevitable mistakes to undermine Captain Higgs's judgment.

But the conspiracy runs deeper. A CortiCom device has been "discovered" in Bran's quarters—evidence of communication with external vessels that he never possessed. They're not just being hunted; they're being systematically framed.

With limited options and the nanobots spreading, they make a desperate leap onto a blue Serotonin Tanker crossing the Limbic Gap. The journey to Love Island becomes a race against time as Bran's infected leg threatens to give out entirely.

In Roxy's elegant headquarters, surrounded by healing waves and the promise of safety, Bran finally allows exhaustion to claim him. But even as sleep approaches, questions linger: How did Roxy hear from Sher Gar when the Library was sealed? And what did she mean about "better times with the Sandy"?

As consciousness fades, Bran clings to one certainty: whatever comes next, he won't face it as a passive victim.

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The difference isn't in what happened.

The difference is what you do with it.