Blackwoods loaded sense by sense, pine smell and cold air and filtered light through impossible trees. Vivian's avatar materialised in her safe zone clearing, immediately surrounded by alerts. Messages from the coalition, demands for updates, questions about the facility tour.
Jr. was waiting on his usual branch, looking more agitated than she'd ever seen him.
"They know," he said without preamble. "The collective figured out you met with Astrid, that you toured Verdant facilities, that you're considering some kind of deal. They're calling an emergency coalition meeting to vote on immediate data release."
"They can't release without my keys."
"They can try to override the encryption. Ghost_River is good, might succeed given enough time." Jr. launched himself to her shoulder. "You need to address the coalition now, explain your decision before they split entirely."
"Where's the meeting?"
"Same neutral zone. Everyone's already gathering."
Wait. This was wrong. She'd already done this. The coalition meeting had already happened, she'd already set up the countdown, already...
No. That was Chapter 5 ending. This was different. This was the full chapter about the coalition response, the deeper conflicts, the way compromise fractures movements.
Vivian shook off the déjà vu, focused. "Let's go."
They moved through the forest, and she could feel the difference immediately. Other users weren't just watching anymore. They were hostile. Someone's avatar spat at her feet as she passed, the gesture crude and childish but the intent clear. Another shouted "Corporate sellout!" from the safety of distance.
Word had spread fast. Moth's daughter had toured Verdant headquarters, met with the enemy, was delaying the release everyone wanted.
The neutral zone was packed. Easily thirty avatars, maybe more, crowding around the central fire. The atmosphere was electric, angry, the kind of energy that preceded either breakthrough or collapse.
The collective dominated the space, fragments swirling in agitated patterns. But there were new faces too. Avatars Vivian didn't recognise, people who'd heard about the meeting and come to watch or participate.
"There she is," the collective announced as Vivian entered. "The girl who was supposed to burn Verdant down, who instead went on a guided tour and came back ready to negotiate."
"I wasn't negotiating," Vivian said, keeping her voice level. "I was verifying."
"Same thing. They showed you their best face, paraded suffering patients, probably paid actors for all we know, and convinced you to delay action." The collective's fragments coalesced into something approximating a humanoid shape, more solid than usual, as if the anger was giving them coherence. "Your mother died fighting them. How long did it take before you betrayed her memory? Three months?"
The accusation stung because part of Vivian wondered the same thing. Was she being smart or being played? Careful or cowardly?
"My mother's journal says otherwise," Vivian said. She pulled up the entries again, displayed them for the newcomers who hadn't seen them. "Her last words to me were explicit. Don't weaponise her death. Use it to make things better."
"Words written whilst she was dying from the technology she was trying to expose," a new voice said. Avatar like crystalline geometry, sharp edges and refracted light. "Neural degradation affecting her judgement. How do we know those entries represent her actual wishes and not confusion from a dying brain?"
It was a fair question. Vivian had wondered the same thing, reading the increasingly scattered entries, watching her mother's handwriting deteriorate.
"Because the sentiment is consistent," Keiko said, stepping forward. Her butterfly wings caught the firelight, iridescent and beautiful. "I've read the entire journal. From the first entry to the last, Emilie Petersen believed in the technology's potential. She wanted it fixed, not destroyed. That didn't change even as she was dying."
"Convenient for Verdant," the collective said.
"Maybe. But it's also true." Keiko pulled up neurological data, research papers, the kind of academic rigour that was her speciality. "I've verified everything Astrid showed us. The brain scans are legitimate, the medical reports match published literature on neural degradation, the safety protocols are real and functional. This isn't corporate propaganda. It's documentation of actual improvement."
"Improvement that came after seven deaths," someone said. Male avatar, tiger-striped, predatory. "After Moth's death. After how many close calls we don't know about because they're still covering things up?"
"Which is why we're demanding transparency," Vivian said. "Full release of all data in six months. Everything. The deaths, the cover-ups, the improvements, the current state. Let people decide with complete information."
"Six months," the collective said, voice dripping with contempt. "Do you know how much can change in six months? How many witnesses can be pressured, how many documents can be altered, how many legal strategies can be prepared?"
"Yes. Which is why I'm not trusting Verdant. I'm building a system that doesn't require trust." Vivian pulled up her interface, started configuring code with Jr.'s help. "A public countdown. Six months from today, all data releases automatically. Verdant can't stop it. I can't stop it without providing proof that the comprehensive report is complete and accurate. And if I try to delay without justification, the coalition can override me."
She worked as she spoke, building the dead man's switch in real-time, making every decision visible to the watching avatars. Jr. added security layers, encryption that would require multiple keys to disable, verification protocols that logged every access attempt.
"It's like what Moth built," Foxglove said quietly. "But better. More distributed, more transparent, harder to disable."
"Exactly." Vivian finalised the code, prepared to deploy it. "But before I activate this, I want coalition consensus. Not unanimity, I know that's impossible. But rough agreement that this approach is worth trying."
"And if we don't agree?" the tiger-striped avatar asked.
"Then I leak everything tonight and we see what happens." Vivian met his gaze steadily. "But I think that would be a mistake. Data without context gets dismissed. We've seen it happen a hundred times. Corporate scandal breaks, news cycle churns for a week, lawyers muddy the waters, public attention moves on. Nothing changes."
"Sometimes nothing changes because people like you compromise before the fight even starts," the collective said.
"And sometimes nothing changes because people like you burn things down without thinking about what comes after," Vivian shot back. "My mother spent six months documenting evidence, building networks, trying to create lasting change. She didn't want a news cycle. She wanted accountability."
"She also died before achieving it," the crystalline avatar said. "Maybe her approach didn't work."
"Or maybe it would have worked if Verdant hadn't stopped her." Vivian pulled up the disabled dead man's switch logs, showed the timeline. "Three days before she died, they found her automation script and deleted it. If they hadn't, all of this would have gone public back in March. We'd have had eight months of exposure, investigation, reform. Instead we got silence, and now we have a chance to finish what she started."
Subject Five's mother spoke up, her elderly avatar moving into the firelight. "I've been listening to this debate for an hour before you arrived, Vivian. Watching people argue about what Moth would have wanted, what justice requires, what tactics work. And I keep thinking about my daughter."
The coalition quietened, gave her space.
"Anna was a chronic pain researcher. Lived with fibromyalgia for fifteen years, understood suffering in ways most people don't. When she volunteered for Verdant's trials, she knew there were risks. She weighed them against the possibility of helping develop treatment for conditions like hers." The woman's voice was steady, controlled, the kind of calm that comes from crying yourself empty. "She died because Verdant didn't take those risks seriously enough. Because they rushed deployment, because they prioritised profit over safety. That's unconscionable."
"Exactly," the collective said. "Which is why we should destroy them."
"But Anna also believed the research was valuable. Worth pursuing if done properly. Her last journal entry, three days before she died, talked about the patients who might benefit someday. Children with chronic conditions, veterans with treatment-resistant PTSD, people for whom traditional medicine had failed." Subject Five's mother looked at Vivian. "So when you ask what Anna would have wanted, I think she'd say the same thing Moth said. Make it better. Make it safe. Make sure the deaths weren't for nothing."
"That's giving Verdant exactly what they want," the tiger-striped avatar said. "Permission to continue, absolution for murder, a PR narrative about learning and growth."
"No," Foxglove said. "It's demanding accountability whilst not throwing away something that actually helps people. There's a difference."
"Is there? Because from where I'm standing, it looks like corporate co-option wearing activist rhetoric."
The argument spiralled, avatars talking over each other, the coalition fracturing in real-time. Some supported immediate release, burn it all down, maximum damage. Others advocated for Vivian's approach, verification and transparency and measured reform. A few just wanted to walk away entirely, too exhausted by infighting to continue.
Jr. leaned close to Vivian's ear, whispered: "This is getting out of hand. You need to force a decision."
He was right. If this continued, the coalition would collapse into factions, each pursuing their own tactics, undermining each other. Chaos instead of coordination.
"Vote," Vivian said loudly, cutting through the argument. "Simple majority. We vote on whether to implement the six-month countdown with comprehensive report, or immediate full release of raw data. Everyone who's been part of Moth's network gets one vote. Newcomers can watch but not vote until they've verified their commitment."
"Who decides who votes?" the collective asked.
"Foxglove keeps the list. She's been coordinating this network longer than anyone." Vivian looked at Foxglove, who nodded confirmation. "She knows who's been fighting this fight, who's contributed, who's trustworthy. We defer to her judgement."
"And if we don't like the results?"
"Then you're free to act independently. Leak data if you can break my encryption, pursue your own tactics, do whatever you think is right. But you won't have coalition support, and you'll be working against people who are supposed to be your allies."
The threat was implicit but clear. Unity required compromise. Purity meant isolation.
Foxglove pulled up a list, verified participants. Eighteen avatars had voting rights, people who'd been active in Moth's network, who'd contributed evidence or resources or expertise over the past year.
"We'll do this anonymous," Foxglove said. "Digital ballot, encrypted results. No one knows how anyone else voted, prevents pressure and retaliation."
The vote took maybe five minutes. Avatars interfacing with the ballot system, making their choices, the weight of decision visible in their body language.
Vivian waited, trying not to let her anxiety show. If this failed, if the coalition voted for immediate release, she'd have to decide whether to honour that decision or act independently. Either choice would fracture relationships she'd spent months building.
Foxglove tallied the results. "Eleven for the six-month comprehensive approach. Seven for immediate release. The countdown wins."
Relief washed through Vivian, but she kept her expression neutral. Eleven to seven wasn't a comfortable margin. Almost forty per cent of the coalition opposed this approach.
"Rigged," the collective said immediately. "Convenient that exactly enough people voted for compromise to make it seem legitimate."
"You watched me tally," Foxglove said, voice hard. "The ballot system is transparent, anyone can verify the count. This is democracy, not conspiracy."
"Democracy can be manipulated."
"So can revolution. At least this way everyone got a say." Foxglove turned to Vivian. "Activate the countdown. Make it official."
Vivian took a breath, then deployed the code. The dead man's switch went live, distributed across multiple servers, verification protocols engaging, encryption hardening into something that would require serious resources to break.
And in the sky above the neutral zone, a countdown appeared.
Six months. 180 days. 4,320 hours. Ticking down in real-time, visible to anyone who entered Blackwoods, a public commitment that couldn't be quietly abandoned.
The assembled avatars looked up, watching numbers change, the weight of time rendered visible.
"It's done," Vivian said. "Six months from now, everything goes public. Verdant knows it, we know it, anyone who enters Blackwoods knows it. There's no backing out."
"Unless you provide evidence that the report is complete," the crystalline avatar said. "Which gives you an out."
"Not an out. A success condition." Vivian pulled up the verification protocols. "The evidence I'd need to provide has to satisfy coalition review. Multiple people verify independently that the report is comprehensive, accurate, honest. If it's not, the data dumps anyway. I can't stop it alone."
"But you can influence the review. Convince people. Apply pressure."
"So can you. That's the point. This requires collective judgement, not individual control." Vivian looked around the gathering. "I'm not asking you to trust me. I'm asking you to trust the system we've built together."
The collective's fragments swirled, agitated but losing coherence. "This is a mistake. In six months, you'll have been absorbed into Verdant's structure, given a salary and a title and a reason to delay further. The report will be sanitised, the data will be contextualised into meaninglessness, and nothing will fundamentally change."
"Maybe," Vivian admitted. "But maybe not. And the only way to find out is to try."
"Revolution doesn't happen through trying. It happens through commitment, through burning bridges, through making choices that can't be undone."
"My mother burnt bridges. Got her killed and her evidence suppressed. I'm trying a different approach." Vivian met the collective's fractured gaze. "If it fails, if in six months I've been co-opted and the report is bullshit, then you can say I told you so. And we'll leak everything anyway, because the countdown guarantees it."
The collective considered this, fragments conferring in ways Vivian couldn't follow. Finally: "We'll watch. We'll verify independently. We'll document every compromise, every delay, every sign that you're being manipulated. And when the countdown reaches zero, we'll make sure the data actually releases, no matter what you try to do."
"That's all I'm asking."
The meeting began to dissolve, avatars drifting away in clusters, arguing amongst themselves. The seven who'd voted for immediate release grouped together, clearly planning something. The eleven who'd supported the countdown scattered more broadly, each processing the decision in their own way.
Eventually only Vivian, Jr., Foxglove, and Keiko remained by the dying fire.
"That was closer than I'd like," Jr. said. "Eleven to seven. Almost half the coalition opposed this."
"Which means almost half supported it," Foxglove countered. "In activist spaces, getting sixty per cent consensus on anything is remarkable."
"The collective is going to be a problem," Keiko said. "They're not just opposed, they're hostile. They'll look for any excuse to override the countdown, to prove you've been compromised."
"Let them look. The more they verify independently, the more evidence we have that the process is working." Vivian pulled up the countdown again, watched the numbers tick down. "Six months. That's not that long."
"It's long enough to doubt yourself a thousand times," Foxglove said. "Long enough for Verdant to apply subtle pressure, long enough for the coalition to fracture further, long enough for public interest to wane."
"Long enough for actual change, if we're careful." Vivian sat down, let her avatar show exhaustion. "My mother spent six months building this network, documenting evidence, trying to create something that would last beyond a news cycle. I can spend six months finishing that work."
"What's your first step?" Jr. asked.
"Attend a Verdant board meeting. Astrid promised me access to deployment decisions. I want to be in the room when they discuss expansion, see how they actually make choices about risk and safety." Vivian pulled up her calendar, cross-referenced with Verdant's schedule. "There's one next Tuesday. Strategic planning for 2026 rollout."
"They'll sanitise it if they know you're watching," Keiko said.
"Probably. But I'll still learn something from what they choose to hide."
They sat in silence for a while, the fire burning down to embers, the countdown ticking above them. Other users occasionally passed through the neutral zone, looked up at the numbers, moved on without comment.
"Subject Five's mother," Vivian said eventually. "Anna's mother. Do you think she really believes what she said, or was she just supporting me because she feels obligated?"
"Does it matter?" Foxglove asked. "The outcome's the same either way."
"It matters to me. I don't want people supporting this approach because they feel sorry for me or because they think it's what Moth would have wanted. I want them supporting it because it's actually the right tactical choice."
"Maybe it's both," Jr. said. "People are complicated. They can think something is tactically sound and emotionally resonant at the same time. Doesn't make either motivation less valid."
Vivian supposed that was true. Her own motivations were mixed, tangled. Grief and pragmatism, anger and hope, desire for revenge and desire for reform all competing for dominance.
She logged out eventually, back to her flat, the real world reasserting itself with all its mundane demands. It was late, past midnight, she had school in the morning and hadn't done half her homework.
The neural interface left marks, she noticed. Red pressure points on her temples where the sensors sat, slight headache from extended immersion. Nothing like what her mother had experienced, nothing dangerous, but a reminder that the technology always took something.
She opened her laptop, pulled up the files, verified the countdown was working properly. The encryption was solid, the distribution was wide, the verification protocols were functioning. In six months, one way or another, the truth would be public.
Whether that truth would matter, whether it would change anything, whether it would honour her mother's work or betray it... she'd find out.
Vivian opened a new document, started writing:
Mum,
I did it. Set up the countdown, got coalition approval, committed to six months of verification and transparency. The collective thinks I'm being manipulated, that I'll be co-opted by Verdant, that in half a year I'll be wearing a corporate badge and defending their choices.
Maybe they're right. Maybe I'm naive to think I can work with the people who covered up your death, who disabled your dead man's switch, who let seven people die before implementing basic safety measures.
But I keep thinking about your journal entry. The last one, where you weren't sure anymore, where you questioned whether releasing the data would help or just destroy something valuable. You were dying and confused, but you were also more experienced than me, more familiar with how systems actually change.
I'm trying to honour what you wanted, even though I'm not entirely sure what that was. The files say one thing. Your journal says another. Both are true somehow.
Six months. The countdown is public, can't be stopped without proper justification. Either we'll have a comprehensive report that actually changes things, or we'll have definitive proof that Verdant can't be trusted and we'll leak everything anyway.
Either way, your evidence matters. Your death matters. The seven people who died before you matter.
I'm trying to make sure they all count for something.
Love, Vivian
She saved the letter, added it to the growing collection of things she was writing to a mother who'd never read them. Therapy, maybe. Or just the need to explain herself to someone who'd understand the complexity.
Her phone buzzed. Message from Astrid Kvelland:
I saw the countdown go live in Blackwoods. Clever solution. The board is... concerned, but I convinced them it's manageable. First board meeting is Tuesday, 14:00. I'll send you materials beforehand. Come prepared with questions.
Also: Mrs Johansen gave an interview to Aftenposten. Goes live tomorrow. It's honest, painful, and doesn't paint us in a good light. But it's fair. Thought you should know.
Vivian typed back: I'll be there Tuesday. And thank you for not trying to stop Mrs Johansen.
I made you a promise. Full transparency. That includes letting people speak even when it hurts.
The exchange felt surreal. A Verdant executive thanking her for destroying their reputation whilst simultaneously inviting her to board meetings. Moral complexity rendered in text messages.
Vivian finally turned off her laptop, tried to sleep, but her mind kept racing. The countdown, the coalition, the board meeting, six months of pressure and verification and trying not to become the thing she was supposed to be fighting against.
Her mother had done this, carried this weight, spent months knowing she was dying whilst trying to fix something broken. Vivian had six months of fighting ahead, but at least she was alive, had time, had support.
Had a countdown ticking in the sky above a digital forest, a promise made public, a commitment she couldn't back out of even if she wanted to.
Outside, Oslo slept. Inside Blackwoods, the numbers changed. 179 days, 23 hours, 47 minutes.
And somewhere between digital and physical reality, between compromise and revolution, between her mother's death and her own future, Vivian tried to believe she was doing the right thing.
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