The suite was dim.
Not dark — Echelon suites never defaulted to full dark.
They hovered in calibrated dusk: light cool enough for thought, but soft enough for silence.
SleepCore hummed in passive mode.
Vox had gone quiet thirty-three minutes ago, after receiving no verbal prompt.
ONYX waited, idling across the table like a closed eye.
But Aiden wasn't sleeping.
He sat perfectly still in the cocooned lounge chair, positioned beside a slender, glasslike column embedded into the suite's frame. His legs were grounded. Fingers interlaced. Waiting, without knowing what for.
Posture: intentional. Breathing: measured.
The way he sat when his mind wasn't just active — it was parsing.
The lab had confirmed what the system wouldn't say.
Zeroth Tier.
Classified. Then redacted.
A glitch doesn't redact itself.
Whatever had happened at 12:12... the system didn't just ignore it.
It erased it.
Buried the route.
Nullified the anomaly with such elegance, it almost looked planned.
Because Zeroth —
The word that had surfaced, just once, just long enough for him to see it —
wasn't supposed to exist.
Not in Avalon.
Not in any system.
Tiers begin at One.
Systems may start at zero, but zero is structure.
Zeroth was something else.
A rank not meant to be counted.
A clearance before clearance.
A legacy that refused the ledger.
Not erased. Not forbidden.
Just... absent.
And yet... it had flickered.
Not as a glitch.
But as a truth the system tried — and failed — to hide.
Aiden sat motionless.
Whatever this was...
It wasn't just a secret.
It was an error the system couldn't afford to acknowledge.
Which meant only one thing:
It wasn't flawless.
If it were, there'd be no need to bury what came before.
And now, without warning — and without consent —
something was stirring beneath its surface.
Not loudly.
Not visibly.
Just enough to make the architecture flinch.
And for him to feel it.
He knew there was a trigger.
But not what.
YOU ARE READING
Valmont Series - Inheritance Code
Teen FictionWhat if your perfect life was just a rehearsal? On their twelfth birthday, Aria and Aiden Lancaster wake expecting luxury, freedom, and the future they were promised. Instead, they're given an ultimatum: Leave everything behind - their friends, thei...
