# May 21st, 2032.
Paris, UES (Union of European States) European Headquarters of Public Relations for CORG (Council of Order and Global Regulation) 14:17 The Grand Vauban Auditorium had a capacity of nine hundred people.
At that moment, there were eight hundred and seventy-three.
Journalists.
Representatives from racial rights organizations.
Activists.
Academics.
Cameras.
Microphones.
The kind of room that breathes through a single mouth whenever the person at the podium knows exactly what they are doing.
And at the center of it all, standing behind the podium engraved with the CORG symbol in raised relief, the circle split in half by a vertical line, the visible world separated from the invisible, the initials layered together like a promise, stood Aldren Mous.
Sixty-two years old.
Human, born in Amsterdam in 1970.
Son of a Dutch father and a mother of Elven descent, granting him a significantly longer lifespan than the average human, along with a subtle elongation in his facial features most people took time to identify.
Gray hair cut with surgical precision.
Thin-framed glasses he did not need for vision, yet wore out of habit.
“They make people listen more carefully.” He had said it once in an interview, with the calm certainty of someone who had tested the theory enough times to stop doubting it.
A Grade-A Perceptual Influence Don.
One he never used during public speeches.
CORG explicitly prohibited the use of Dons in political communication contexts, and Aldren Mous was, above all else, a man who believed his words already traveled far enough on their own.
President of CORG for eleven years.
The man with the greatest institutional authority over the classification and regulation of abilities, individuals, events, and threats across the known world.
“…and that is why,” he said, with the measured cadence of someone who had delivered enough variations of this speech to know precisely where to breathe, “CORG reaffirms its commitment to the Milan Coexistence Protocol.
Not as a document.
Not as a diplomatic formality.
But as a living principle.” The room listened.
Aldren Mous had that effect.
It was not charisma in the performative sense.
He did not gesture excessively.
He did not raise his voice to manufacture artificial drama.
It was presence.
The feeling that the man behind that podium had seen enough things to never need to pretend urgency.
“Bullying between species and races is not a matter of individual behavior.” He paused.
Let the silence work.
“It is a systemic issue our organization has the responsibility to combat, not only through courts and policy, but through culture.
Through the way our institutions train young bearers.
Through the way media outlets report incidents between races.
Through the way we…” The side door of the auditorium opened.
A woman entered.
Black suit.
CORG internal-grade insignia on the lapel, indicating a field agent with direct presidential access.
Short hair.
An expression that was not quite panic, but stood exactly one step away from it.
Agent Serel Kaine.
Aldren Mous’s direct adjutant for six years.
He saw her the way only someone with eleven years of presidency learns to see the people working under him.
He read the expression in less than two seconds.
He revealed nothing.
“…Through the way we build a world where ability classification does not replace racial dignity.” He straightened the papers atop the podium, a deliberate, controlled gesture.
“Thank you.” The applause began.
Genuine.
The room was with him.
Aldren Mous nodded once, stepped away from the podium with the same calm stride he had entered with, and met Serel Kaine two meters from the side exit.
“How much time do I have?” he asked quietly, without slowing his pace.
“It happened nearly seventeen hours ago,” she replied, matching his stride.
“We only received signal confirmation forty minutes ago.
X-grade emergency channel.” Aldren stopped.
Only for a second.
Only long enough for someone who knew him well to realize that information had landed differently than usual.
“X-grade channel,” he repeated.
“Yes, sir.” He resumed walking.
Faster now.
“Base 121.” It was not a question.
Serel confirmed it anyway.
“Yes.
North Pole.
Last night.” She handed him a tablet with an encrypted screen.
“Single transmission received from Agent 12O+ at 21:23.
Total silence afterward.
We dispatched a reconnaissance team at 06:00 this morning.” “And?” Serel hesitated.
Half a second.
Aldren noticed.
“The base no longer exists.” Her voice came out flat, the way trained people speak when reporting something for which they possess no adequate frame of reference.
“No structure.
No personnel.
No containment Dungeon.
No laboratory.
No physical archives.” Pause.
“It’s ice.
It’s as though the base never existed.” Aldren Mous looked down at the tablet.
On the screen was the transcription of Agent Dren Vasic’s final transmission.
He read it twice.
Fast.
With the attention of someone who had learned to read reports searching for what was not written, not merely for what was.
The code is 3€21#.
He stopped walking.
This time it was not one second.
It was five.
Serel remained silent.
She knew the president well enough to understand that whenever he stood still like that, he was calculating something, and interrupting him during such moments had, in her personal experience, always been a mistake.
“How many people know this code?” he finally asked.
“Inside CORG, with clearance for identification archives at that level?” Serel counted mentally.
“Six.
Including you and me.” “Seal the archive.” “It’s already sealed.” “Seal access to the seal itself.” Serel did not blink.
“Understood.” Aldren Mous looked through the corridor window.
Paris lay outside.
Gray and beautiful and completely unaware.
The Tower of Claptulum was visible in the distance, as always, its silhouette dominating the horizon the same way it had ever since it first appeared in 345 A.D., without warning, without explanation, and with no one still knowing, nearly two thousand years later, what exactly existed in its deepest interior.
Some mysteries remain.
“Summon the Inner Council,” he said.
“Not through digital channels.
In person.
Here in Paris, tomorrow morning.” “At what hour?” “Before sunrise.” Serel noted it down.
“And the code 3€21#?” she asked.
“What do you want us to do with it?” Aldren Mous handed the tablet back to her.
“I want to know,” he said, “who that code was designed to protect.” A pause.
Short.
Precise.
“And I want to know whether that person is aware we’ve just discovered he’s still active.” He turned and walked down the corridor.
Serel remained where she was for a moment.
Looking at the tablet.
At the transcript.
At the code that had taken CORG’s largest classified database time to locate, inside a base with access to everything.
3€21# She closed the tablet.
And followed the president.
Far away, in the North Pole, the wind covered what remained of Base 121.
Which was nothing.