THE FIRST SIGNAL
The white did not fade. It restructured.
That was the difference Kai registered in the three seconds after the interface released him — not
darkness returning, not his vision adjusting, but the light in the chamber reorganizing itself into
something with geometry. Purpose. The Source signal, which had risen through the Null Field like
heat through stone, now ran through the entire chamber in visible lines: along the walls, through the
floor, tracing the outlines of the three constructs who had gone very still the moment his hand left
the interface.
Orin was still holding his arm. Neither of them had noticed.
"What's your void stat," Orin said. Not a question — a check.
"Ninety-one," Kai said.
"It was eighty-nine when we entered the chamber."
"I know."
Orin looked at the interface. The object that had no classification was now running at a frequency
Kai's Null Field read as active — not dormant, not minimum power, not the careful silence of
