The second Breath Box went down three days later.
This time, it didn't just stop.
It caught fire.
It was installed on the rooftop of a community learning center in Adana.Midday.Full sun.
Three staff members were inside.Two ran the Kara programs.One taught vocational repair to teens using parts based on the prototype.
None were hurt.But when they climbed to the roof, all that remained was a melted frame, scorched coil, and the acrid smell of something deliberate.
—
Leyla received the call during lunch.
She didn't finish her food.She didn't speak.
Just packed her case and left.
Ziya followed.
Ece watched them go, her knuckles white on the edge of the blueprint table.
—
At the scene, the damage was surgical.
No fuel left behind.
No power surge.
No lightning or circuit flaw.
The only thing recovered intact?
A single piece of the outer casing with a spiral carved into it.
Broken in the middle.
Again.
—
Zeynep arrived late that evening.She walked the site slowly.
At one corner, she knelt.
Picked up something others missed:
Ash.
Pressed flat.Like it had been wrapped in fabric.Deliberately placed under the unit.
She held it up.
— "It was smothered first," she said.— "Then lit.Not by accident.By message."
She looked at Emir.
— "They want to kill the idea.Not the machine."
—
At the workshop, tension built like static behind the eyes.
Yusuf stopped cracking jokes.Ece redrew the coil layout three times in silence.Ziya added three redundancies into the new schematics.Leyla rewired the energy regulator to trip at the first sign of tampering.
And Çağla?
She built a script that trawled the dark web for posts referencing Kara tech.
She didn't sleep that night.
—
At dawn, Emir stood by the window, notebook open.
He didn't write.
Not yet.
Atatürk didn't appear.
Not as a voice.Not as a dream.
Only a memory.From Volume I.When the silence wasn't about sabotage.
But about readiness.
And now?
"This is the test we never designed for."
—
They decided to release a statement.
Not through media.
Through memory.
A short poem, posted anonymously, on the same forums that once hosted the first fragments.
It read:
"We built to remember.You burn to forget.But forgetting never stops the rain.And the next storm comes with water we taught to breathe."
—
Cliffhanger:An anonymous account posts a reply.
"You should've stopped at poetry.Machines invite consequences."
Attached: a blurry photo.
Someone watching the Builders from a distance.
Zoomed.Grainy.Recent.
And underneath:
"We're closer than you think."