Meadow's POV
The alert did not fade. It stayed on every screen, bright and sharp, burning into your eyes as if it wanted to make sure you understood that nothing about this moment was temporary. THIRD MOVE INITIATED. ALL SYSTEMS ALERT. PREPARE FOR COLLISION. The words felt heavier than anything the fourth vector had sent before. Not because they were louder or more dramatic, but because they were clear. There was no hidden meaning this time. No puzzle to decode. No subtle test buried under layers of data. This was direct. This is happening now.
The room went quiet in a way that made the hum of the machines sound louder than ever. You could hear your own breathing, uneven but controlled, and the faint tapping of rain against the glass outside. The storm had softened, but the city had not. If anything, it felt like the storm had moved inward, into the systems, into the wires, into the invisible structure that held everything together.
