Twenty-three hours after the first wave. The city had that jittery quality of something that had survived a punch and was waiting to see if a second one was coming. News called the previous night's deaths "isolated incidents." Fourteen isolated incidents that happened simultaneously at 11:47 PM across seven neighborhoods. Coincidence, they said, because saying anything else would mean admitting the footage of Entity manifestations wasn't deepfake or mass hysteria but something that required re-negotiating what real meant.
The substation smelled like coffee no one was drinking and the particular kind of tired that sleep won't fix. Arden stood at the wall where they'd mapped the forty-seven homes from last night. She'd drawn red X's through thirty-three addresses survivors. Fourteen remained unmarked. She didn't have the heart to mark them yet. Marking them would make the math permanent.
Her phone buzzed. Text from Conductor.
