The vault door had barely sealed behind them when the alarms died.
Not silenced; *died*. Every light in the sub-basement flickered once, then settled into the soft, steady glow of the containment lattice floating between Laken's palms. The city's chaos (sirens, ley-line tremors, Agnetha's distant screaming) felt suddenly muffled, as though the lab had slipped into a pocket between heartbeats.
They were alone with the star they'd built.
Reed set the lattice on the central workbench. It hovered an inch above the steel, rotating slowly, casting constellations across their faces. Harold had gone upstairs to scout the second-trial portal forming over the river. Luca and Wade were calibrating the projector-rig for tomorrow's public broadcast. The vault's automatic lockdown had given them twen
