Truth didn’t arrive as a revelation.

It arrived as interference.

Amara noticed it first in the rhythm of her days — the way calls overlapped, the way messages contradicted each other, the way urgency disguised itself as concern. The system wasn’t collapsing. It was loud.

Signal buried under noise.

She sat at her desk long after sunset, office lights dimmed, only the city’s glow spilling in through the windows. Her tablet lay untouched. She wasn’t reading anymore.

She was listening.

Julian stood near the door, arms crossed, watching her with the quiet patience of someone who understood that timing was everything.

“They’re accelerating,” he said finally.

“Yes,” Amara replied. “Because...