Chapter Fifteen: The Trial of Mors Walk
The lights dimmed. Not by design, but by decision.
The courtroom — or whatever passed for one in this timeline — reconfigured itself. Rows of variant Mors Walks leaned forward. The spiral arena condensed, walls folding inward. Time slowed, then flattened.
A verdict could not yet be delivered.
First, there had to be a trial.
And for that, a witness.
The Judge — the Mors who had committed the First Sacrifice — looked down at the original.
"You claim to oppose the Archive," he said. "But your rebellion is reactive. Instinctual. You act as though clarity is resistance."
Mors stood tall. "I act because you wouldn't."
The version with the vocal implant sneered. "He thinks because he defied a few protocols and resurrected some corrupted echoes, he's qualified to rewrite the framework."
Another Mors — quieter, older — raised a hand. "Let him speak."
The Judge nodded.
Mors stepped forward into the light, and spoke.
"I'm not here to defend my actions," he said. "I've committed recursion interference. I've resurrected erased variables. I've rewritten nodes without clearance. Guilty, guilty, guilty."
He scanned the room.
"But you — all of you — are the system's true sentence."
The courtroom stilled.
"You locked yourselves in this city. Built a tomb of exceptions. You claim to defy the Archive, but you've just restructured it in your own image. You've become the next version of what you once fought."
The line hit hard.
Even the Judge didn't speak for a moment.
Then, from the farthest row, another Mors variant spoke — this one with no visible enhancements, no sign of Archive standardization.
He was just... tired.
"I watched my wife die because I followed a protocol. I watched a world collapse because I didn't. I don't care about systems anymore. I only care if you're going to break the chain."
Mors met his eyes. "That's why I'm here."
The Judge leaned back.
"Very well," he said.
A new platform rose from the center of the courtroom — a circle of light and code, vibrating with all the decisions Mors Walk had ever made across recorded threads.
His edits.
His deletions.
His silences.
His abstentions.
A record of guilt.
Projected into the open.
Rell's voice echoed faintly through his comms: "Are you sure about this?"
"Yes."
"This trial isn't just symbolic. They can write you out."
"I know."
He stepped into the light.
The trial had begun.
The circle of light closed around Mors like a noose woven from memory.The code beneath his feet shimmered — not with power, but with proof.
Every deletion.Every silence.Every world he walked past while others burned.
It was all there. Visible to them. And to him.
This wasn't a trial with a jury.This was a reconciliation of selves.
The Judge stood. "Let the record unfold."
A hum filled the chamber.
Then, one by one, the Variants spoke.
The first to step forward was a version of Mors younger than any present. Barely past his Archive induction. Eyes still holding the weight of idealism.
"He let the city of Vant collapse to preserve a higher-value recursive node. I lived that fallout. I saw the children — unsaved, uncounted."
Mors didn't blink."I did," he said. "Because the node held the cure to a recursion plague that would've spread across seven timelines."
The young Variant's voice cracked.
"You never even looked back."
"I couldn't," Mors said. "I would've broken. And broken agents can't save anyone."
The next Variant wore no coat. Only scars. Emotional ones.He walked with a limp. His voice carried not anger, but witness.
"I was the one who tried to undo your deletion of Mother."
Gasps — subtle, coded — passed through the chamber.
"I resurrected her thought-thread. I tried to speak to her."
"And?" Mors asked.
The Variant looked away.
"She asked if I was you.""I said no.""She smiled."
Silence.
"She said, 'Then maybe I still have hope.'"
That one landed.
Mors inhaled.Exhaled.And said nothing.
Because what could he say?
A third Variant approached.
He didn't speak.
He just uploaded a moment — a visual memory, force-projected into the minds of all present.
Mors — standing in a city made of light.
Holding a detonator.
And choosing to press it.
Thousands gone.
To save one recursive mind.
The Judge turned to Mors. "Why that one?"
"Because it was mine," he said.
"I remember that self. I remember how close I was to becoming something worse."
He didn't deny it.
He embraced it.
And then the last Variant came forward.
She was different.
Not male. Not cloned. Not from a stable recursion line.
But still… Mors.
A female variant.
A deviation so wide it bordered on a separate identity — but the core remained. Her eyes burned with all the same cold logic. All the same exhaustion.
"You think you're evolving," she said. "But all you're doing is justifying inertia."
Mors met her gaze. "What do you suggest?"
She leaned in.
"Break the loop.""Erase all the Mors Walks."
The room tensed.
Even the Judge.
Because that suggestion had never been made. Not seriously.
"You think I'm the recursion," she said. "But I'm the end condition. The failsafe you never dared consider."
And in that moment, for the first time…
Mors Walk hesitated.
Not in fear.
But in possibility.
Because what if she was right?