Last Hope – While in Layer II
Silence wasn't empty.
Not here.
It breathed between the steel walls and synthetic sky, humming in the veins of a city built on control. In Fade's absence, the world didn't pause—but it listened.
Kaela sat cross-legged within her training pod, the interface around her flickering softly with holographic strands of code. Her eyes were half-closed, fingers twitching occasionally as new subroutines were manually adjusted.
[Cognitive Sync – Active]
[Processing Delay: 0.41 seconds | Source: External Interference Detected]
[Flagged: Class Delta Echo – Unstable Code Signature]
She frowned. The anomaly matched no known pattern—until she ran it backward. Then forward again.
A shadow embedded in the system's rhythm. Familiar. Too clean to be noise. Too exact to be anything but intentional.
"Silken Fang…" she murmured.
Not an attack.
A footprint.
She leaned forward, lips tightening. "You knew we'd be watching."
