The storm had passed, but the city hadn’t noticed.

Across the fractured skyline of Westline, the domes glowed with a faint, unnatural luminescence—remnants of the digital surge still bleeding into the real. Machines that hadn’t powered up in years hummed quietly in the dark. Vents sighed with phantom air.

And deep below the industrial ring, buried beneath layers of rust, forgotten cables, and static-choked silence, something moved.

The node was old—one of the first relay bunkers ...