Morrie POV.
I chose the place carefully.
Three rooftops.
Two alleys.
One correction path.
It followed exactly as predicted. It always chose the shortest root to repair and correction.
I lay steady, rain soaking onto my sleeves, sniper steady against my shoulder.
It all aligned.
I slowed my breathing.
I needed it to dodge.
That was the aim.
When the Seam Keeper stepped into range, I fired.
Just like before the Seam moved before the bullet could reach it.
That is what it didn't know.
I wasn't aiming at where it was.
The first bullet hit nothing.
The second never missed.
From behind the Seam Keeper, a second sniper activated, hidden, pre aligned in such a way that the absence of the first bullet activated it.
When the Seam Keeper moved it completed the circuit.
The bullet hit it right in the back.
Reality screamed.
I felt it tear like fabric pulled too tight.
The Seam Keeper glitched.
It outline folded in ward, collapsing over each other as it failed to resolve cleanly.
It started to vanish.
Too fast.
I didn't hesitate.
I ran and jumped.
I latched onto it.
The Seam tried to complete the correction.
Tried to shed me off.
I wrapped my arms tighter and pressed my body into the glitching Seam, forcing myself into space where it was moving through.
Pain sparked not in my body but in my continuity.
Memories shuttered.
Names tried to fall away.
I held onto one thing.
Keal.
The Seam Keeper collapsed inward like a teleportation.
And I went with it.
The Seam Keeper completed it transition.
The pull stopped abruptly, like a door sealing behind me.
I landed hard- but not on anything solid.
The place felt like space, but not empty. Distance folded in on themselves. Light existed without a source: structures floated that weren't structures at all- more like concept give shape, half-finished equation hanging in the dark.
This is THE REPAIR ZONE
My sniper was still in my hands.
That surprised me.
The Seam Keeper hadn't prepared for a cargo.
It was weak now, it it was unstable, stretched thin form carrying something it was never meant to. I felt like it was trying to announce the anomaly I represented.
I didn't give it the chance.
I brought the rifle up, I aimed at its center were it form faild to repair.
I fired.
No echo.
No recoil.
The Seam Keeper unraveled silently collapsing into nothing like a mistake finally acknowledged.
Gone
Before it could warn others.
I exhaled too early though.
I wasn't alone.
I could feel them now.
Other Seam Keeper- dozens, maybe more, moving through the repair space, stitching, sealing, correcting features I couldn't see. They weren't looking for me yet.
But they would.
I didn't belong here.
Every second I existed in this place increased the probability of detection. My presence wasn't loud but it was wrong.
I scanned the impossible horizon, forcing my mind to stay functional.
Then I saw it.
A distortion.
Not a gap- more like a hesitation, it is like a fabric, a place where correction keeps looping without finishing.
I started moving.
Each step felt like moving through a resistance not physical bot conceptual. The longer I stayed the harder it became to remember why I was here.
Keal. Quiet. Observant, away watching.
If he was anywhere, he would be inside the loop.
I adjusted my grip on the sniper and moved faster, weaving through floating Seams and half-healed voids, carefully not to draw attention.
Because if even one Seam Keeper realized what I had done, I would be corrected.
And I wasn't leaving without him.