The locked construct no longer simply pressed against the lattice.
By the third hour of continuous monitoring the change became measurable. The containment crystals that had held a steady, grinding pressure began to register short, localized spikes—bursts of sensory data that bled outward into the surrounding corridors for three to seven seconds at a time.
Mara's voice. The specific citrus-and-ozone scent she had carried in the old recordings. A brush of fingertips along the inside of a wrist or the nape of a neck.
The echoes were incomplete, truncated, and only certain people felt them. Those who had already carried the personal frequency contact registered the strongest residual heat afterward.
Aiden stood at the primary console in the monitoring suite, eyes on the lattice readouts. Lira sat two stations over, fingers moving across secondary controls with the same precise economy she applied to every task. Kaelara's voice came over the short-range channel from the outer ring.
