The night over Westline fractured.

What had been a dull, static sky began to pulse—faintly at first, then violently, as though the stars themselves were trying to blink through layers of interference. Hale looked up from the console just as the power grid around them surged, blue arcs snaking across the cracked asphalt.

> “Gray—systems are spiking again!” he shouted over the hum.

Gray didn’t answer immediately. She was already at the monitoring array, hands flying across the ...