The city felt different that evening.
Jessica couldn't explain exactly why, but the air carried a quiet tension that
hadn't been there before. The streets outside her apartment were still busy,
traffic lights still changed from red to green, and the distant sound of sirens
echoed through the neighborhoods the same way they always had.
Yet something invisible had shifted.
Jessica sat at the kitchen table with her phone in front of her, staring again at the
glowing map Micah had sent. The blinking lights marking the Nodes across the
plant pulsed slowly, like a constellation that only she could see.
Ellie sat in the living room building a tower out of books and magazines.
"Jess," she called.
"Yeah?"
"Do towers count if they fall over?"
Jessica smiled faintly.
"I think that's ha
