The disciplinary hearing unfolded as an exercise in stifling. Conducted within a Europol room crafted to facilitate "conflict-resolution, via alignment " the walls radiated a tone intended to reduce heartbeats and foster compliance. Pamela Pauline chaired the session her expression not furious, but clinically disheartened. Flavio Fergal attended as a " consultant," a calm quiet observer clad in his grey Weaver's tunic.
"Your conduct in the Haven breached both protocol and order " Pamela declared, her tone as slick, as melted grease. "The Guild's operations require precision. You introduced a factor. Your privileges regarding investigations are now revoked. You will be reassigned to archival retro-cataloging for a duration of six months."
Archivists responsibility. A courteous disregard. Devon remained silent. Disputing would merely reinforce their story of his discordance. He maintained his stare on Flavio, who returned it with an expression of nearly mournful comprehension as though observing a desperate bird struggle, against a glass barrier.
When the sentence was formalized a high-priority alert—scale, Gold-Level—blazed across every display, in the room overriding all muting settings. Pamela scowled, annoyance shattering her composed exterior. She activated the channel.
The visage that showed up was gaunt the link, over great distance. It was Elara Vance, the physician yet the robust energy he had observed earlier had vanished, supplanted by a cold clinical fear.
"—to clarify this is not an anomaly. It is a resonance occurrence." Her voice distorted. "Every Martian and Jovian Outpost long-range sensor array is detecting the phenomenon. A consistent ultra- frequency psychic signal. Source: extra-solar. Direction: Omicron-7, past the Kuiper belt. It is not a message. It is an… echo. A dormant signature of stationary mass."
She drew a trembling breath. "The waveform isn't engaging with our equipment. Instead it is connecting with Earth's psychic field. Precisely with the ancient inactive framework from, before the Stillpoint period. The Lethargic Calculus locations."
A map appeared across the screen. Earth. On it like a cluster of subtle stars well-known coordinates illuminated: the Scottish Highlands, the Taklamakan Basin, the Greenland ice shelves and several others. Each one beat in flawless gradual harmony with the delayed data stream, from the sensors.
"They aren't being triggered " Vance stressed, her voice quivering with the weight of the meaning. "They're vibrating. Similar to a tuning fork hit by a sound beyond our hearing. The energy pattern is intensifying. It's producing a… a wave of indifference. A gravitational current, within the mental realm."
Flavio Fergal inclined slightly his facade broken by a moment resembling ecstasy. "The Call " he murmured, the term spoken with sincerity and awe.
Pamela was, in bureaucratic frenzy. "What impacts are we looking at? Specify the danger!"
"Quantify?" Vance responded with a chuckle. "On Mars it's nothing but data-anxiety overwhelming us.. Your Earth-based networks are swamped with alerts. A twenty times surge in Final Stillpoint submissions within the hour. Not from the attuned. From all sorts. Farmers, creatives, youngsters. It's depicted as a… a homesick yearning, for an endless sleep. An immediate clear realization that all exertion is pointless."
The map focused on the Scottish Highlands—the "Glen of Unending Exhalation." The energy reading there wasn't a pulse. It resembled a vortex, a void, in the terrain.
"Your analyst was correct " Vance stated, her gaze meeting Devon's across the screen. "This isn't a philosophy. It's a power.. Something, beyond has just activated the magnet."
The signal faded into noise.
The hearing chamber was eerily silent the somatic harmony field now seeming like a prank. Pamela gazed at the screen her lips parted slightly as the entire structure of her controlled world fell apart.
Flavio rose. His composure was restored,. It was now the composure of total assurance. "No danger, Supervisor Pauline. A conclusion. The universe possesses a point of stillness a condition of entropy. We have dedicated a hundred years refining our society to a tone of harmony. Now the cosmos itself echoes that tone to us. It is the confirmation one could envision." He glanced at Devon, his gaze glowing. "You may cease resisting Analyst. The void isn't vacant. It's abundant. Abundant, with calm."
Devon remained standing unaffected, by his suspension. "This isn't a tune. It's a suction.. You're embracing it as if it were a lullaby." He faced Pamela, who looked pale and motionless. "You asked for a managed variable? Here it is. It can't be archived. It can't be replicated.. You can't blend with it unless you're willing to become part of the silence."
His comm unit hummed. A discreet nearby transmission. The tone was aged, wearied, recognizable. It came from Benjamin Baldric, the informant.
"Duncan… the archive was the introduction. The Royal Library… the stones… they're vibrating. Sari Samantha, she… she's simply sitting at her desk smiling, gazing at the wall. The vibration is most intense where the ancient wisdom is stored. It's stirring all the silent things. You have to go to the origin. The Glen. Before the wave drags everyone down."
The connection was lost.
Flavio was already heading for the door a man guided by a light. "I need to reach my flock. To assist them in hearing."
Devon stepped forward to block him. Luna Lorelei, the Enforcer appeared abruptly at the doorway an unspoken tangible blockade. Her face showed no hostility. It was empty. The resonance had begun affecting her shifting her watchfulness into indifferent watchfulness.
At last Pamela gathered her strength, a strand of authority. "Duncan… regardless of the suspension… what is your evaluation?"
He gazed into her eyes seeing the decaying establishment, within them. "My evaluation is that we devoted a hundred years to eradicating hardship. We achieved that goal.. Now lacking that resistance to shape us we are left with nothing to cling to. The force was always present. We merely completed refining the slide."
He moved past the Luna entering the hallway. Geneva beyond the windows was shifting. The precise, deliberate walk of the townsfolk had decelerated. Individuals were halting on the roads not to converse nor to appreciate, simply… pausing. Heads leaned a bit as though hearing a remote calming noise. The Harmonic Index, on a tower blinked, then stopped at 1.00.
Perfect equilibrium.
It wasn't a victory. It was a measurement captured in the final suspended breath before the dive.
Devon sprinted, not to escape anything but to reach the lone reality remaining: the core of the storm. The Glen. He carried no weapon devised no strategy, a horrifying discordant truth. To confront this he needed to reclaim a human instinct that the Stillpoint Era sought to eliminate.
He would have to find a reason to care, violently and inconveniently, in a world that had chosen to gracefully stop.