Zero Protocol

In a world of biting grey and aggressive cold, memory is the only currency-and the ultimate poison. Investigator Valerius arrives at the Aethelgard Institute, a brutalist monolith of black glass carved into a mountain's peak, to hunt for a ghost. A "Tier One" hazard named Zephyrine has vanished from a sealed cell, leaving behind only the scent of a fire that hasn't happened yet. But Valerius isn't just chasing a missing woman; he is haunted by the soot beneath his fingernails and the shadow of a wife who was made of ash and moonlight.
As he descends into the "Silent Sequence, " the clinical brightness of the archives reveals a terrifying truth: the Zero Protocol is an ossuary of the mind where human trauma is harvested to stabilize a dying world. Hidden conspiracies bleed into his own fractured consciousness, and the line between man and machine begins to dissolve. What if the investigation isn't a search for the truth, but the final step in your own deletion?