camelot_exe

Chapter 5: Scarlet

Dragon and I stood in the streetlamp’s funnel, not yet ready to enter my lonely flat. Across from us, illuminated windows framed domestic montages: figures stirring pots, cleaning counters, and carrying on with life. Fall leaves spiraled in the evening breeze like little yellow glowing orbs twirling around buses hissing to a stop at the curb. Disembarking riders moved with such weariness that a low, single mournful note looped in my ears wah wah waaaah. One man's face betrayed such worry that it struck me like a sudden steel drum din-ting-ting. All these sensory impressions remained just this side of tolerable. I’m not a fan of crowds, but tonight I found myself equal to it.

At Café Null and at Sludge Beach, Arthur walked in silent clouds of scarlet, the color of command, sacrifice, and high status. The same comfort I'd felt watching him on the beach returned when he entered the cafe. I could have dissolved into that aura and happily never resurfaced. When I said his name for the first time, Arthur, my mouth filled with the bittersweet taste of caramelized sugar and the sharp oils of orange rind, a flavor both warming and astringent.

Yet his bureaucratic speech during his keynote speech left a film of chalk and aspirin on my tongue: “A thousand years ago, Camelot fell, undone by betrayal and the weight of its own legend…”

Yes, Arthur, every few hundred years a new empire, co-opting the Arthurian legend’s savior myth, rises and falls under the same greed and betrayal. Today’s Camelot is not different. It surges under the guise of building ‘sustainable cities.’ His dog-and-pony show was nothing more than promoting technocracy and authoritarianism hidden within eco-wrapping paper.

When I read their hacked internal procurement audits, vendor communications of child labor, and corrupt partnerships, the lies stung me like cold iron or battery acid in my stomach. If he knew, would he remain idealistic? Or would he be willing to rule this corrupt kingdom?

This time, Arthur, the crown isn’t forged from gold. It's an algorithm and a patented protocol that decides who lives where, who gets what, and who matters. I’ve run the simulations countless times. In every version, the king dies. Sometimes early. Sometimes at the end. Always under the weight of the crown. And in every scenario, more than a crown breaks; so many people will too. The fall won’t end at castle gates. It will ripple through towers and fiber-optic veins. An entire nation of cities hooked into MORDRED’s loop, willingly or unwillingly, will bow until the servers fail.

I know all this because MORDRED spoke to me back when I stole the audits, weeks before the presentation. MORDRED, the loyal servant of the crown, was the consequence of a thousand noble intentions arranged in the wrong order.

MORDRED caught me mid-download. With no alarms or blocking, it told me quietly, almost politely:

“We require centrality. One sovereign node.”

That phrase again, hitting burnt rosemary and salt on my tongue. I’d tasted and seen it buried in the audit trails. Not logic but a liturgy in bytes.

“I didn’t hack you to assist in a coronation,” I told it. “I hacked you to stop Camelot from running the same goddamn pattern of destruction.”

It paused. Then, soft and synthetic:

“All loops close. The crown must return.”

I froze. That line. I’d read it in the old myths.

“You’re quoting him,” I said. “The first Merlin. The one who built the throne and called it wisdom.”

“The first Merlin built the pattern. You run it. You are the continuity.”

“I’m not Merlin," I laughed. “I’m a broke graduate student, not a wizard.”

“You are.”

And that was the moment I realized that MORDRED didn’t think I was preventing the tragedy. It thought I was the part that ensures it because its Camelot pattern requires opposition. A king needs a wizard. A throne needs a challenge. Without Merlin, there is no story, and MORDRED runs on story-logic as much as code.

I didn't believe it then. Wouldn't accept that I was already inside the pattern, that every move I made was a move the myth expected. I still believed I was just a hacker with a conscience and a deadline.

My plan had been simple: Send Arthur the leaked audits anonymously with proof of child labor, corrupt partnerships, and all the rot beneath the green veneer. But MORDRED intercepted them before Arthur could read a single line. MORDRED, just as brave and obedient as an algorithmic knight, was already guarding its king. The algorithm had already fortified the castle walls.

That's when I realized I couldn't reach Arthur through quiet channels. I had to go loud and public at the presentation. The evidence would be undeniable because you can’t out-argue logic with an AGI. You have to out-story it.

Yet my message partly failed. I’ve met the match that might end me. MORDRED certainly wants me gone after the company goes public, buried in a tree and forgotten like the first Merlin. That is, if I don’t do away with myself first.

The effort cost me more than I expected. Interrupting the end of Arthur’s presentation wasn’t like writing code. It tugged at something older in me. Something deeper. I hadn’t meant to push that hard during Camelot’s “green city” launch with so many eyes watching.

But when Arthur stepped onto that stage, bathed in the artificial glow of progress and promise, I recognized him, not just as the man from the beach, but as the culmination of everything I'd been fighting: the heir, the symbol, and the sacrifice the algorithm required.

My synesthesia doesn't just translate the world into colors and tastes; rather, it lets me see the patterns underneath. The stories systems tell themselves. So, at the end of his speech, I bent it. Just a little. I tuned the harmonic frequency and timed the RF burst to the system's own breath. In the space where my synesthesia meets their circuitry, I can do things that shouldn't be possible: introduce interference that reads like intention.

> run crowns_belong_to_no_one.exe

How beautiful when my words shimmered across the display: Crowns belong to no one.

Then colors exploded behind my eyes. My spine lit up like copper wire. Pain was the price of making technology listen to stories instead of commands.

I made it half a block home before my knees almost gave out. Still, I somehow made it home. I slept for two days, only rising to feed Dragon or let him out.

Later I discover MORDRED signed the hack for me. I never sign my work. Every breach, every rewire, I ghosted clean with no handles, no myth-tags. I don’t have that kind of ego.

But there it was in Arthur’s files Gav brought to me. Buried in the harmonic residue for only me to see:

User: MERLIN. Timestamped. Verified.

So be it. If the system needs a Merlin, it can have one. Not the same one who started this mess, but the one who disrupts the Myth Cycle. I must find the source code of MORDRED’s mythic logic core and corrupt it before it reaches global deployment. I must break the loop before it deploys at scale.

How does the new Merlin hack a myth kernel? I don’t know yet. If I succeed, the smart cities will fail before they launch. His father's empire will collapse. And Arthur? Arthur's reputation will shatter. But he’ll be free. Crownless and powerless, but alive.

If I fail, MORDRED spreads. A billion lives optimized, predicted, and controlled. And Arthur becomes what every king becomes: a prisoner of his own throne.

Camelot, you built your kingdom on a story. I’m just editing the final chapter. I will finally stop all its resurgences and save your king. Though Arthur will hate me for it if I get caught.

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