The northern cluster of the city was in chaos. Traffic signals were frozen, communications staggered, and several emergency routing systems were offline. Meadow and Alaric stared at the monitors, fingers flying across the interfaces, adjusting microtransactions and rerouting critical systems to stabilize the city. Dr. Evelyn Ward stood behind them, watching the data pulse in real time, analyzing patterns with a calm precision that made the room feel smaller than it was.
"This is more than a test," she said. "The fourth vector is taking real action. Every adjustment you make is being countered immediately." Meadow's pulse was still racing from the proximity to Alaric. His shoulder brushed against hers as he leaned over the console, and she felt the tension between them in the way she had felt it the night before. She swallowed hard, trying to focus on the monitors, but awareness of him lingered.
