The lock completed at two feet.
Not the full simulation—not the unending constructed reality that the Dead Eyes could build given sufficient lock time and uninterrupted focus. A partial lock. The Resonance had been degrading the precision of the Dead Eyes throughout the approach and the lock that completed at two feet was built on compromised targeting rather than clean acquisition.
Gorr felt it—not the simulation itself, the beginning of it, the specific quality of his perception shifting at the edges as the Dead Eyes began inserting unreality into his experience. Not yet overwhelming. Present.
He sustained the Resonance.
The frequency running at two feet produced the deepest disruption it had produced in the fight—the equilibrium effect severe at this proximity, Mark's spatial sense significantly compromised, the ground and the distance and the position of Gorr's body all carrying the unreliability that the Resonance introduced at close range.
Mark's lock held through it.
