The buffer consciousness, once a source of expansive intuition for Sarah, now resonated with a discordant hum. It was subtle, like a missing note in a complex symphony, a void where there should have been presence. She called upon Dr. Julian Cross, not through a phone, but through the quantum field itself. His response was immediate, a rush of agitated thoughts and fragmented data streams.
“Detective Chen,” Julian's voice, though disembodied within the buffer, was sharper, more coherent than it had been when he was bound by a single timeline. “The voids… they are expanding. Not physical voids, but existential ones. A consumption of essence.”
Marcus, seated across from Sarah in their makeshift command center in Julian’s re-purposed Georgetown warehouse, watched her, his own brow furrowed.
