Rodion's projection spun slowly above the stone floor, a faint dome of cold light, almost like frost trying to become a shape. To anyone else it would have looked like a heat-haze or a trick of breath in winter. To Mikhailis—because of the calibration behind his lenses—it was a map with bones and lungs and memory. The Whiteways were never still; even stone here seemed to breathe. The model showed that breathing: corridors flexing on the beat, tiny pulses like a heartbeat where the leyline ran thicker, and ghost-dots drifting where footsteps had been.
He planted his boots, hands on hips, and leaned in until the light brushed his nose.
If this thing starts showing pop-up ads I'm uninstalling you, he thought, the corner of his mouth tugging.
