The spike didn’t fade.

It settled.

That was worse.

Danny watched the systems stabilize into a new, uglier equilibrium—one built not on automation, but on force. Hale had stopped pretending the machine was neutral. He was driving it now, white-knuckled, emotional, present.

“You see that?” Danny said quietly.

Chloe nodded. “He didn’t retreat.”

“No,” Danny replied. “He dug in.”

The clock kept bleeding.

68:57:12.

Danny rerouted the shadow net again, this time ...