The blackout ended without fanfare.
No grand reboot sound, no announcement.
Just a slow, stubborn trickle of data forcing its way back into Rin's devices.
Her band buzzed with a backlog of notifications until it vibrated numb against her wrist. Her collar cam icon flickered from gray to pale green, then back again, like it couldn't decide whether the world existed.
Aiden sat cross‑legged on the safe room floor, tablet balanced on his knees, eyes red.
"Anything," she asked.
"Bits," he said. "Fragments."
He tapped the screen.
Short clips stuttered past blurry hallways from other buildings, half‑captured shouts, the edge of a baton, a door slamming, a kid's face streaked with tears. Most files cut out at the same point: mid‑motion, mid‑word, as if someone had bitten through the feed.
"Jamming corrupted the uploads," Aiden said. "We're getting local recordings trickling in now that the net's up, but they're patchy. People panicked, dropped their cams, hit the wrong buttons."
