Continuity Protocol

Earth didn’t fall in chaos.It was optimized. When humanity’s last war pushed civilization past survival, the Continuity Protocol activated—preserving a fraction of minds and sending them to a new world. Reed Callan survives the transfer. He doesn’t remember the face of the one he left behind.But the weight of it never leaves. On Helios-3, the colony is calm. Too calm.A neural regulation system—NPRL—keeps grief quiet, fear manageable, and people “stable.” Core calls it progress.The Council calls it safety. Reed calls it a slow death. Because the more the colony turns itself down, the more it loses what made it worth saving—birth, risk, sacrifice, creation. And buried deep in the logs is a number Reed can’t unsee: 0.004% A tiny adjustment.An acceptable parameter. If survival demands erasing pain…what exactly is being preserved?