It hummed.
Faint ripples moved through the air—barely visible, like heat distortions blf. Hana could hear them if she listened hard enough: the echo of Keller's voice, faint and distant, buried under layers of interference. It wasn't sound exactly—more like static woven with emotion. Pain. Resolve. Love.
Her eyes were locked on the portable console she had salvaged from Lin's wrecked equipment. It glowed weakly, its circuits flickering in rhythm with her heartbeat. Lines of corrupted code pulsed across the display, forming fragments of words.
> SIGNAL ANCHOR DETECTED.
> THREAD ORIGIN: UNKNOWN.
> CONNECTION — FRAGMENTED.
"Come on…" Hana whispered, her fingers trembling as she typed. "Talk to me, Keller."
Lin stirred nearby, pale and exhausted, his bandaged arm still leaking faint light beneath the wrappings. "You shouldn't even be able to detect him," he muttered, voice low. "The Seam's collapsed—its signal shouldn't exist outside quantum interference."
