A week had passed since the duel beneath the Skystation.

  The rebel camp had grown.

  The fire Rizal lit inside the Cathedral of Silence had ignited something unstoppable.

  From underground guilds in the Mindoro Megasectors to student-led collectives in the Ilocos Arcology, people were rising—remembering.

  But with power shifting, fractures emerged.

  And so, Rizal and Bonifacio went in search of one man.

  A strategist.

  A mind that had shaped a revolution once before, even while his body failed him.

  Apolinario Mabini.

  At the Mindvault.

  Buried beneath the geothermal plains of old Batangas was a black chamber shielded from all networks.

  It had no doors—only codes known to the most loyal.

  There, surrounded by quantum scrolls and faded republic banners, lived a figure in a grav-chair.

  Thin, frail, but eyes sharp as blades.

  Apolinario Mabini, the Sublime Paralytic.

  Bonifacio stepped forward. “Mabini.”

  Mabini glanced at him, unimpressed. “Andres. Still swinging blades at problems?”

  “And you?” Bonifacio asked. “Still hiding in caves while others fight?”

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  Rizal placed a calming hand on Bonifacio’s shoulder. “We didn’t come for debate. We came for help.”

  Mabini’s grav-chair hovered closer. “Then speak.”

  As they sat around a map-table, Rizal detailed what they’d done: the awakening of memory, the fall of the Cathedral, Aguinaldo’s rise.

  Mabini listened in silence. Then he asked, “Do you know what happened to the First Republic?”

  Neither answered.

  So he told them.

  “You, Bonifacio, sparked the revolution. But Aguinaldo… maneuvered it. And after he took control, I tried to steer it toward true democracy. I drafted a constitution. I warned against imperial influence—American or otherwise.”

  “And he ignored you,” Rizal said.

  “The military authorities exiled me,” Mabini replied. “They didn't want wisdom. They wanted obedience.”

  Bonifacio grit his teeth. “Nothing’s changed.”

  Mabini floated above the map, tapping a glowing section.

  “Then we change the game.”

  Mabini revealed the blueprint for a hidden satellite called La Liga, a defunct orbital archive designed to preserve Filipino history.

  “It was lost in orbit after the Philippine-American War,” Mabini explained. “But it still exists. And if we access it, we can overwrite the corrupted feeds Aguinaldo now controls.”

  Rizal’s eyes lit up. “The original republic records… untouched by warlords, colonizers, or Friarcore?”

  Mabini nodded. “Every law I wrote. Every letter you penned. The truth, unfiltered.”

  Oryang stepped into the chamber. “There’s a catch, isn’t there?”

  Mabini smirked. “There’s always a catch.”

  Mabini explained that La Liga had been locked behind an encryption protocol linked to the original leaders of the Katipunan and the First Republic.

  A digital keychain, encoded with their consciousness.

  “To access it,” Mabini said, “you’ll need the fragments of three minds: mine, yours—Andres—and…”

  He hesitated.

  “Emilio Aguinaldo.”

  Silence.

  Bonifacio stood. “I’m not merging minds with that traitor.”

  “You won’t have to,” Mabini said. “Just retrieve the memory imprint he left on the old Republic Seal. It’s stored in his stronghold in Cavite—under heavy guard.”

  Rizal nodded slowly. “Then that’s our next move.”

  Bonifacio turned to Mabini. “And you? Will you come with us?”

  Mabini smirked. “I may not walk, Supremo. But I can still lead.”

  As they departed, Rizal lingered.

  “You know,” he said, “in school they called you ‘The Brains of the Revolution.’”

  Mabini chuckled. “And yet they let it be led by children.”

  “They tried to erase you.”

  “They always do,” Mabini said. “But truth has memory. You’ve just given it a voice again.”

  Rizal paused. “We’ll recover La Liga. Even if we have to break the sky.”

  Mabini floated back inside. “Then break it smartly, doctor.”