Atlas sat alone in the core command chamber, eyes half-closed, fingers pressed against the cold interface panel. The Weave's pulse fed directly into his core now, a constant low hum of data that most commanders filtered out. But he didn't filter. He watched.
Something was off.
The usual chaos of Choir incursions flickered across the sectors—border surges, probe swarms, reality fractures. Standard threats. But beneath them ran a different pattern.
Thin lines of energy, almost invisible, stretched between distant beachheads. They weren't attacking. They were connecting. Linking.
A binding lattice.
He opened a direct line to Clara. Her feed came through fractured, her damaged vision glitching at the edges.
"Clara. Check the secondary thread layer. Sectors 7 through 19."
Silence for two seconds. Then her voice, tight with pain. "It's there. Geometric. Perfect. They're not just pushing us. They're tying the triggers together. One activation and the whole chain snaps."
