The air above Neo-Intramuros was thick with artificial fog, pumped out from vents in the high walls of the Cathedral of Silence.

  Surveillance drones hovered like mechanical fireflies, their sensors humming in search of heat signatures and unauthorized frequencies.

  From a distance, the cathedral looked like a beacon—pure white, beautiful, divine.

  But up close?

  It was a fortress.

  Behind its mirrored glass windows and prayer-chamber facades, the Friarcore operated a network of control: memory editing, cultural erasure, spiritual surveillance.

  They didn’t just police people—they reprogrammed them.

  And tonight, Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio planned to walk through its front door.

  Rizal adjusted the collar of his coat.

  With a flick of his pen, he projected a cloaking field around them, distorting their heat signatures.

  “I’ve mapped a breach point through their archives,” he said. “A ventilation tunnel below the chapel leads directly into the memory servers.”

  Bonifacio rolled his shoulders, blades strapped to his back.

  “I’m not built for sneaking,” he muttered.

  “Then consider this a miracle,” Rizal replied, smirking faintly.

  Bonifacio raised an eyebrow. “Was that a joke?”

  “I’ve been practicing.”

  Before they could move, a sudden gust of wind swept across the rooftop.

  A figure landed beside them—graceful, masked, wrapped in dark purple tactical robes.

  Her eyes glowed faintly behind a visor shaped like an old anting-anting pendant.

  Bonifacio instinctively stepped in front of Rizal, bolos drawn.

  The figure didn’t flinch.

  “Easy, Supremo,” she said. “I’m not your enemy.”

  Bonifacio froze.

  Only one person used to call him that.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “…Oryang?”

  The woman removed her mask.

  It was his second wife.

  Older. Harsher.

  But unmistakably Gregoria de Jesús—code-named Lakambini in the underground.

  “I thought you were—” Bonifacio began.

  “Dead? Yeah. So did you,” she said. “I also got pulled back when the world started rotting again.”

  Rizal stepped forward, bowing slightly. “Gregoria de Jesús. A pleasure to meet you again.”

  Oryang gave him a nod. “You’re still shorter as ever.”

  “…and being blunt is still part of your charm.”

  With Oryang leading the way, the trio slipped through a forgotten sewer duct beneath the Cathedral’s old foundations.

  Rizal’s pen scanned the walls, disabling pressure plates.

  Bonifacio stayed close, blades ready.

  Oryang moved like shadow.

  Inside the corridor, faded frescoes of old saints covered the walls—each one replaced with corporate logos and QR code altars.

  Fray Damaso Veritas had turned the house of faith into a machine of submission.

  Oryang whispered, “The memory servers are two levels up. But we hit a problem.”

  “What kind?” Rizal asked.

  “They’ve started upgrading. Adding live neural sync. If you access the server directly, it’ll try to overwrite your mind instead.”

  Bonifacio grunted. “So how do we stop it?”

  Oryang turned to Rizal. “You don’t just shut it down. You rewrite it. Replace their false sermons with real memory.”

  “You want me to upload truth into the system,” Rizal realized. “Force the people to remember.”

  “It’s poetic,” Oryang said. “And dangerous.”

  Rizal stared at the pen in his hand, then at the glowing veins in the wall pulsing with digital faith.

  “I’ll do it,” he said.

  Bonifacio placed a hand on his shoulder. “We protect you while you do.”

  The Memory Core Chamber was circular, lit from below by a massive memory pool—a liquid interface glowing with stolen thoughts.

  Above it, a podium with neural link cables and ancient symbols carved into steel.

  Fray Damaso Veritas was already there, waiting.

  “I knew you would come,” he said, stepping forward in his marble-white armor. “You never could resist playing savior, Rizal.”

  Rizal climbed the steps toward the console. “You’ve turned the people into cattle.”

  “I’ve saved them from the burden of choice,” Veritas replied. “You, Bonifacio, Oryang—you are chaos. I offer peace.”

  Bonifacio scoffed. “You offer slavery in a prettier cage.”

  Veritas spread his arms. “Your stories are myths. Romantic lies. The new generation doesn’t need the past—they need control.”

  Rizal placed the pen into the console’s port.

  “I disagree.”

  The console flared.

  The memory pool roared.

  And Veritas screamed.

  “You fool! You’ll overload the system!”

  “Let them remember,” Rizal said, voice rising. “Let them choose.”

  Oryang tossed Bonifacio one of her spare daggers. “We’ve got incoming!”

  The walls exploded as Friarcore enforcers stormed in.

  Bonifacio roared, charging into battle with Oryang at his side.

  The two moved in sync—like they’d trained for this moment their whole lives.

  Meanwhile, Rizal’s mind was inside the memory stream.

  History unfolded in bursts:

  His mother, Teodora, in chains.

  The printing of Noli Me Tangere in Berlin.

  Bonifacio handing out Kalayaan pamphlets in secret meetings.

  Oryang escaping under fire, carrying Katipunan documents in her dress.

  He poured it all in—every truth, every pain, every memory.

  Let them see.

  Let them remember.

  The servers began to spark.

  The false sermons dissolved into raw historical footage, rebel chants, ancestral prayers.

  Screens across Neo-Filipinas flickered—people in cafés, schools, churches—watching old truths come alive.

  Veritas screamed, trying to sever the link, but it was too late.

  “Rizal!” Bonifacio shouted. “We have to go!”

  Rizal collapsed as the system shut down.

  Bonifacio caught him, slinging his arm over his shoulder.

  Oryang hacked open the exit tunnel.

  “We’re not done yet,” she said. “This is just the first fire.”