Speaker 1: The feet snaps alive with an engine Calf and Carter
shouting they are regone. The unit three is gone. Fear
sit behind station. Operate a four x nine's teeth away
and notice its under paperweight, present and heavy. He sets
his palm on the console and listens. Hollow's voice comes
and clipped and wet with static. Carter repeat, Carter, say again,
what do you see? Hollow's breathing punctuates every sentence. Operate
a four x nine answers with magic cadent and no overstatement.
Identify the vehicle, Carter provide position, dispatch hold on all
non essential transmissions. He taps the laminated protocol card on
his chest, then reaches for the Ovarie key and finds
it cold. That's more. Failure tightens his hands the openings
that can show the convoy idling on the shoulder, light
revolving a fog that eats sound. This is the concrete problem.
Ambulances have stalled, radios fail in a defined dead zone,
and units disappear from channels while the light still spin.
The operator must treat bandiment as policy or as threat.
He chooses procedure. First. He glances at ramos across the bank.
Ramos types with one finger and says multiple misses on calls.
Northbourne convoy two miles from overpass camera show doors a jar.
Ramos's voice is flat. He pushes a log file to
the operator and points a look. Time marks a dark
smere on asphalt. The operator pulls the Kafero side feet
onto the largest monitor and enlarges the frame. The screen
shows a stopped ambulance framed by halgen blur. A door
hangs open, A stretcher sits half inside the dark vehicle.
There is no body. The operator's breath shortens. He says
sends statuster, Intel marks in voluntary abandonment broadcast limited advisory.
Ramos hesitates, then nods. The room smells of burned plastic
and old coffee. Hollow cuts through the static. This is hollow.
Squad leader dies. He went to check the east relay.
I heard him call. Then something took the feed. He screamed,
and then Hollow stops. A cough comes through his mic. Dies.
I can see it. It's walking between the rigs, and
then he was gone. Carter's voice returns, brutle. They walked
past my cap. They didn't touch me. Then Dies wasn't
there I opened the rear and the patient was gone.
The operator's jaw tightens. He repeats the relay into the
official channel with com words that compress urgency. Do you
not tempt recovery in the affected corridor? Repeat with droll
mandatory on inward attempts. He keeps his sentences short. The
directive must be heard and obeyed. The control room turns
into a reading of failures. Radio's answer with dead air.
A map flickers to life with an analog overlay. The
operator drags a cusser across the map. A gray circle
blooms and then spreads hollow. Calls coordinates. We are losing
line of sight along route nine e nits report were
radio dropouts at mile MARKUS twenty one through twenty seven.
Romo's points at the display. There's all one corridor. It's
like the signal goes flat over the strip of highway.
He hits a bottom and the archived cameras feed from
successive poles. Each camis show stole vehicles, emergency light spinning,
and in some frame scorch like marks on the asphalt,
as if a flame had licked the travel in then stopped.
The operator watches the frames in each frame narrows his choices.
Fear change the shape in the operator's hands. It becomes
a checklist in a set of commands. He writes into
the logs a Roudelta protocol referenced. He goes to the
arcave drawer and pulls a laminade a card label to
Rodelta with a red tab. He reads authoriz with roll
sector containment, no recovery. The instruction contradicts every instinct he
has trained into. Jamos says we were supposed to help.
Orders say help, this has pulled back. The operator does
not answer at first. He feels a shift from doubt
to constrained acceptance. He is an operator. His job is
broadcast continued. He slides the card into the console reader
and the system accepts it with a hollow beep hollows
which his channels. Unit Alpha are reporting disabled Unibrovo disabled.
They re not respond into manual override. Engines still run
lights on, no movement Dispatch. Advise all units to shelter
in place if they cannot withdraw safely. Squad leader dies
recorded cadence cracks into the room for breath diers. Here
I can see a silhouette. It's long it's moving slow.
It's folding through the lights like at once. The radio gone.
The operator's hands tap a steady rhythm on a warm mistwatch.
The watch answers with a soft click that mixes into
the lodron of background hum. He tries to order retreat.
The system asks for authorization. His input is to night
until he provides high level clearance. He breathes and says
keep Hollow on loop, document everything, do not send additional
ground despite personal reports. The room goes still with the
weight of containment. The operator is the station's custodian. Now
he takes notes aloud. Station operator Volksneine to archive record
all open feed's tech file with zero delta priority transfer
to secured vault. He speaks as if for citing a ritual.
Hollow replies, we don't get to leave Dyers. We cannot
leave him. Hollow's voice loses its clipped precision. The operator
hears the human line under the field voice. He answers.
Hollow orders hold. If command overrides, I will inform you
for now sand down. Hollow curses under his breath and
then reports a new observation. Carter sees a silhouette approaching
it's not in the road. It moves where there is
no pavement. I can't The signal rows with interference and
the feed stutters. The archive roadside camera flicks to the
ambulance feed. Carter's cap crouches at the frame's edge. The
camera records his hand slapping the dashboard, his fingers white.
He says, there's a person between headlights. It's taller than
any man I've known. It moves like a shadow that
drags its feet. The operator rewinds three seconds. In the
pulp frame, there is a tall, operate shape with no
clear features, but it stands too straight and too deliberate.
A minute precise sound cuts the feed, a long, low click,
like metal scraping, asphot hollow repeats. It doesn't cross the beams.
It a path in the dark between light sources ramosa
as There are scorch marks where it walks, but no flames.
The rubber in the road looks melted in stripes. The
operator issues a controlled note no recovery, archive imagery issue
local shelter, direct a VIY digital bulletin. He tries to
keep voice steady. Thus deadness keeps order in a failing system.
A new event interrupts every three minutes, a squaw, coal
drops are really go silent. Each interruption force is the
operator's hand. He feels calls with short line's name, He
says sadus. He says he uses the people he has.
Hollow and Romo's become his hands in the ground. Carter
becomes a witness. Dyas becomes a vanished coordinate their names
map the problem. When Hollow mentions they walked past my cap,
the operator as Catt at any radio work after that.
Catt answers nothing. I tried the mike. It was like
my voice. Gotti's in the operator type's voice ingestion. He
hits in the room, humslower. The map reveals the dead
zone groan in concentric arcs. The operator and struts notify
adjacents actors to sever really links into the circle. Do
not move into the affected area from the outside without
aerial surveillance. Ramo says, we have no aeril flight control
denied for noise interference. The operator robs his forehead. He
pulls open a separate monitor and cues audio logs he
placed scoth. Leader dies his last seconds of low volume.
Die is panting, get back. I see the road now
is folding dot. The clip be ends on an abrupt pitch.
Hollo says he was screaming for extraction. Then the screen
jagged off, the frequency and everything else went flat. The
operator records last coherent transmission, physical sighting, then loss of carrier.
An internal memo appears, unscreened from high command. It reads
informal type about contingency zo delta. The operator reads it
allowed to ramas and hollow, and his voice stays measured.
Ossoise containment. No recovery personnel would roll where possible. Ramo
swears we are abandoning people at there. The operator says
we are following a rule. We will not be the
cause of mass lost or repeated attempts. That sentence is
met with a low silence. Holoa replies with a short
shop line. Then record our refusal to accept bland policy.
The operator hears devidance and knows it will be archived
as descent. He clicks a record anyway. The live feed
from Cautter returns. He whispers, it's right on the edge
of the fog. It just stops near the light. I
can see a red emblem hovering above the highway like
a broken warning glyph. It blinked once and left a
pattern on the asphalt. The operator freezes the framan zooms
on a pavement. There is a circular bruise in the coating.
A dark ring, Ramo says, reminds me of a hydraulic burn.
There's no pressure pattern. It's wrong. The operator orders a
database search for similar marks. The system returns three archived
instances from previous years with matching ringburn's tied to emergency
shutdowns and sudden vanishings. The operator mutters, passn match de
a delta precursor. He stamps the incident and prepares a
restricted advisory. Hollow asks why we draw why leaf cowshulders.
The operator answers with a procedural tone. Command believes containment
preserves the larger population. We are not the rescue, now
we are the recorder. Hollow's breath sharpens through the mic.
Recorder doesn't carry people out of the dark corridor, says
A die as is out there. He was a father.
The operator pauses, speaks plainly. Hollow record dies his last position.
We will not receive orders to recover without a signed
authorization from field command. Document refusal. If you still intend
to move holocuses softly, I can't leave him. When his
voice sounded like that, the operator applies, then you are
not authorized to move. You will be recorded. A few
attempt on authorized action. The line goes quiet for a
full minute. The operator thinks of the protocal cord on
his chest. The camera feed from the comfy shows a
so wet moving between the ambulances. In one clip, camera
crew member exits and steps toward a door, then vanishes
in mid step. The operator sees the motion frozen. When
the fee collapses into static, he leans forward. Carter, do
not leave the cab, close the doors, turn off non
essential lights. Seal Vince. Carter says, if I turn lights,
if they might come inside if I keep them on
the may his voice stops. Hollow interjects, Carter, do it, now, Carter,
do it. The operator feels a shift doubt, turns interfere
and then into force compliance. He is ordering lives by
chip of policy. He repeats commands solely. Now Carter obeys.
The operator types the command for shutter and place and
hits broadcast. Then the live really from Carter Rooker's something else.
A silhouett approaches slower than walking, but deliberate. It pauses
at the edge of headlights for two seconds. The image
is clear, nothing like a face, no limbs defined, only
an impression of height in a long torso. It leans
as af listening. Hollow says, it stands between lights like
a scene. Romo says, the scars on asphalt look fresh now.
They are not heat They are pressure ridges. The operator
tries an override to order retreat for the convoy. The
system requires a hand sign clearance. His input is denied.
He bangs on the console with a fist and forces
his force quite so it does not sever his role.
All channel's record no further movement into the circle. The
fee pixelates and then collapses. When the feed snaps back,
a new variable piers. A red emblem hovers above the highway.
In the frame, it is small, the size of an
adult hand in the foreground, but in the recorded image
at floats above the asphalts sixty feet away. It turns slowly.
It pulses once the audio registers. It is a low
frequency to run that raffles the glass. Carter growns in
the line. Hollow says. The emblem hummed, and then everything
around it Stealt engines kept idling, but radios dropped when
it blinked. A head voice like paper through a tinkin
romos types and pulls up three prior instances of the
emblem from older archives. Each time network steer the emblem's
appearance experienced system failures and withdrawal orders. The operator writes
emblem confirmed. He stamps the time code and instructs the
system to lot the footage behind elevated clearans. The rooms
ry them brafed into small and faster temper hollow demands.
We try extraction. Eye will not just take a log
entry and go home. Operator fox nye answers, if your
tenh extraction, you will be recorded into authwise that will
be the official record of command orders. Otherwise we will comply.
Bile Moles looks down at his hands. We can patch
in a man drone with a thermal sensor. Maybe we
can get our ID with our ground exposure. The operator
nods and calls maintenance prepare drome launched thermal only, no
visual feed unless operator clears it. Do not route drone
over the emblem. They set the drone to scout the perimeter.
Allo's voice changes. He says, if dyes is gone, we
need to know how he left, if he was taken.
We need to know the mechanism. The operator replies, we
only document. We do not engage until we have authorization
to engage. Hollow snaps back. Documenting doesn't bring men back.
The operator hears the anger. He also hears the practical truth.
The station cannot risk a cascade of losses. He orders
the drone anyway under a low priority work order. Ramos
raaks the drone with a passive thermal array and launches
it along the high way shoulder. The drowne's feet transmits
a faint outline. The emblems ring glows cooler than surrounding asphalt.
The drone passes over scorch marks, and then the thermal
signature flattens near the emblem. The operator watches and says,
no human heat signatures near the ring. Nothing visible. Hollow says,
but Jevy's boot prints were there. I saw them in
the camera, caught whispers. I saw footprints leading into the
fog and nothing leading out. The operator logs both. Then
the climax arrives in the Convocama cut a film silouet
stepping directly between the ambulances toward the overpass. Hollow screams
they were gone, they were gone. A squad leader's voice
shulls through Dye's last clear sentence. Someone pull them back,
and then static. The operator punches the archive button. He
attempts to override the containment director to order retreat. The
system rejects the command and returns an error, referencing zero
delta with higher command lock. His fingers hover over the
authorization pad. He hears a pounding at the heart and
feels a hard animal tightening behind the sternum. He tries
again and receives the same denial. Feed resolves into a single,
unresolvable image, the silhouett and the red emblem reflected in
the ambula's glass. Then the camera dies and the screen
blooms white with horizontal scan lines. For a full minute,
nothing moves in the control room. Hollow's breathing is a
ragged percussion, Carter's mcwrecor's metallic clicks. Ramos keeps typing and
muttering descriptors into the lock. The operator returns to voice
and reasserts the official language. All units outside the circle
are to hold positions. All units inside the circle are
currently unsalvageable. Record and archive. Await command. He presses record.
He knows what he is doing for serving, the transmission
becomes the only intervention the station can guarantee. Holla says
you for telling me to stand and watch them be taken.
The operator answers, no, I'm telling you to survive. If
you move now, you risk losing more. If you stay alive,
you stay able to help. Later, the line goes quiet
again after the collapse of the feet. The operator of
an unofficial advisory over an arrabane frequency, he reads a
short protocol aloud. If your vehicle stalls in the effected corridor,
do not exit seal entries, turn off non essential power.
Monitor this frequency for emergent instructions. Await aerial clearance. Do
not approach any emblem or mock on the asphalt. He
says the word slowly, the way one records a dying signal.
Polo listens and replies, I will record dires as lost chords.
If command opens, a recovery a move with restraint. If
not a state, the operator hears resignation morph into a
different resolve. He marks the lock motion shifts recorded from
fear to acceptance to guard it resolve. The final frame
doc have show a single red embum floating above an
empty highway. The emblem pulses once and then folds into static.
The operator places his fingers in the laminate cart and
whispers into the open mica simple instruction that is also
an entreaty. Anyone hearing this stand by for further instructions.
Monitor the frequency, do not attempt an authorized entry into
affected sectors. He hits safe and wrote the file to
the secure vault. He leaves the frequency open for anyone
who might still be there. The last sound the room
catches before the line goes into low lupintouonas hollows quiet
dires was a good man. The operator answers, but not
with words. He restores the log, locks the card, and
pushes the lighted panel to stand by. The room returns
to its slow hum outside. The highway remains lit by
idling lights and fog. Inside. The operator keeps the record.
He has not saved the convey He has preserved a
warning and made a decision to make procedure the wall
between the living and the unknown. He slides the seerro
delt card back into its drawer and marks the incident
closed for the morning. Shift. Romo stands and moves to
the fee bank to loop the archive frames and turn
evidence package. Holo signs off with a clipped wherry line,
I out check the perimeter alone. The operator replies, document everything,
do not move without authorization. Hollow does not argue. He
hangs up. The operator watches the archive Demblom pulls and
the monitor. Then he closes the main console and leaves
a single line in the channel monitor the frequency for updates.
The final paragraph closes on the concrete action that sets
the tone going forward. The operator routes the archive file
to the secured vault, locks the station doors, and leaves
the frequency open. Of the broadcast looped into a low
static tone. The despatch console lit up with a continuous tone,
and as civilian voice shoved into the speak of their
ambulance is stopped in the bridge. People are trapped, Someone's hurt.
Station operated. Foy X nine moved his hand from the
laminated prote coal cod and listened. Suspicion tightened his jaw.
He had felt the tension before, and it guided every
decision he would make that night. Hollow's line came in
thin and clipped. Carter say again, Location Carter's reply broke
into static and the phrase everyone in the hub already
knew they were gone. Unit three is gone. The problem
declared itself in those words. Responders would disappearing mid rows
and radios when deadwood they had last been counted forksnine
did not raise his voice. He cleared his trot and
riddineer screen a string of Jeff Piece pings, then blank
tiles where iicms had mapped seconds earler. He tapped the
console with two fingers and pulled open a knockout dash
camp feed. The hub smelled of stale coffee and sanitizer.
He ked an administrative uplink and got an automated directed
back maintained current channels avoid unauthorized intervention. He read the
director aloud once, then once more. Because his suspicion made
him listen for hidden instructions between the green text lines,
Hollow spoke into his hen Hell Carter, what's your visual?
The line jittered, I can see head lights. They stopped.
I stepped out. They walked toward the shoulder. Then Hollow's
voiced in and cut the feet kept coughing evidence. The
dash count showed responders walking toward a low red glow
at the roadway edge. The glow was not like from
a vehicle. It was a flat pulsing field that sat
on top of the affault, like a wet stain lit
from wooden four ax nine felt the first shift suspicion
moved to urgency. He pulled up the convoy routing and
tried to patch an alternative units he who Hollow rewrote
the nearest unit southbound, do not enter the shoulder. Repete,
do not enter the shoulder. He heard morals, a civilian
collar on line tree sobbing and asking for instructions. Morals,
set your hazards and turn off external lights four x
nine said, the words chosen fast to form a narrow
survival rule. He could hear the sound of traffic pressing
at the call. In the background, horns, people shouting, a
child's muffled cry. Carter's dash cam jump frames the camera
sheher responders walking into the pulsing red, and then the
framed tearing into a smear of static in a repeating
emblem that crawled over the image, a simplified ice set
inside a segmented a long glyph. Hollow's voice tried to
describe what he saw the boots go up to the knee.
Then the road looks wrong like wet paint. Then nothing, Carter,
report your unit status. The reply was a string of
repeated tones and then faintly Carter's saying they were gone.
They were gone. The phrase landed again and four x
nine's head like a nail. The fee forced the next
emotional shift. Urgency tilted into disbelief, then into force compliance.
Four x nine caught central protocol and kept the line
open while he cussed checked maps. The automated administrative uplink
answered were calm, bureaucratic raising, maintain channel integrity, prioritize personnel data,
do not authorize field maneuval without express central approval. Four
x nine felt hunger and a cold calculus in the
same moment. He tied the query into the overide terminal
and the system ejected it with a soft beap. He
breathed long a measure, then spoke on light air, this
is station operator four x nine. All civilian collars within
the affected corridor. Extinguish external lights, disabled vehicle signal functions
remained inside vehicles unless otherwise instructed. His voice was even
he had rehearsed commer intonations and simulations, but this was
not a drill. Coals multiplied. A woman named Mores described
to headlights around her car and people pounding on hoods
to get drivers to switch off. We turned off the headlights,
she said. A man screened from the shoulder, and then
he was just pointless. The headlights went out too, and
then the men were gone. Her sentence is snapped. She
caught his name Forks, then repeated orders slowly and used
the Missess Mora's surname often to keep his sturdy. He
used names because names stabilized callers against panic. Hollow issued
real time observations. Dashcamp shows respond as vanish, the jap's
dots freeze and then disappear. The red pulse shows on
thermal as a low frequency band. Hollow's words were short
and technical. He cuffed once and then kept talking. Carter.
Carter respond The line produced only the same loop of
ti tones and that last word going like a recording.
An external event arrived a convoy that had refused the
initial route, pinged in. The lead unit transmitted a shaky
video from a roof mounted camera. The convoy's captain said,
we were crossing the dead's ooned to reach the bridge.
We read the closest We have to move hollow anzward.
Do not cross, map dead zones, repeat, do not cross.
The captain argued, We can't just leave people, he said
four x nine felt his suspicion hardened into decision. He
sent a life fee to the captain and overrode non
essential uplinks. If you cross, you will not be recovered.
Stand down and mark position. Wait for instruction. He added
quieter for himself. If you disobey, you stop being a
unit on any map. We can't send help if you
go missing. The captain's voice went thin and quiet. The
chapter deepened with the arrival of a scratched DAKM clip
four x nine queued upon the second monitor. The image
was rainwarped low contrast. He watched a respond to step
into a pulsing red band and turned to look back.
The responder's helmet reflected nothing. The man lifted his hand
and then flinched, as if seeing something physically present. He
reached out, fingers curled, and then his body slumped forward.
The camp stayed steady. No figure grabbed him. The respond
to his boots remained on asphalt until the image shattered
into a repeating emblem, and the recording terminated At the hub.
Voices rose and fell. Forks nine and Hollow traded clip
lines that expose a split in loyalties. Forks nine's central
protocol refuses authorization. We can't move assets without direct approval.
Forksnen said, hollow, your feed shows the emblem. The emblem
pulses where units vanish. Mark it as an exclusion. Tell
civilians to power down external lights, tell them to locked doors.
Hollow shop back. The people will panic. People will blame
us if we order them to stay put while others
try to save people. Forks nine answered with a sequence
of short lines. We save as many as we can
by staying alive. We follow survival rules. As citizen named
Rise called in to argue with neighbors under street lamp,
he wanted to leave and drive four hex As nine
used his name often in reply, Raise, do not drive,
turn off the lamp. If you gather under light, you
will draw the pulse. Rayse argued, we can't just hollow
interrupted Rise with a factual relay on camera evidence shows
gatherings under light are correlated with vehicle disappearances. The exchange
turned into a confrontation as the crowd murmured in choice
to split the neighborhood. Another external event occurred, a convi
that disobeyed The director sent a short panic transmission. Hollow
tried to patch it. Carter shouted in the background, keep moving,
keep moving. Then the video glitched. The convoys image sued
a van pulling onto the shoulder. Then the camera frame
compressed and smeared into white. A moment later, the lion
went silent. The hub registered three unit that comes going
dark simultaneously. Four x nine. Felt the rentilt in terms
of responsibility, he allowed mark those units missing, update the archive.
He sent the procedural tag and watched the map right itself,
with gaping holes where lias had been counted. Minutes before,
a mid chapter manny cleffinger came. When Hollow's microphone fullward.
The sound not in any protocol, A low mechanical warble
undolayed with the repetitive analog beep. Hollow breathed and then said,
Forks nine, the emblem just spread across the highway map.
It moved like a scan line. Forks then leaned forward.
He could see the emblem's pulse sensing with interior lights
the control room for escence began to blink in time
with the recorded symbol. He tapped his watch its second hand, hesitated,
then jumped the hub, felt instrumentally compromised. Fox nine authorized
the broadcast override. He had one live audio window wide.
He swallowed and spoke the direct if he hoped would
save people all citizens on affected corridors. Extinguish external lights,
disabled vehicle signals, remain inside vehicles, avoid congregation under street lighting.
Await further instructions through this channel. His voice was flat, precise,
with control pauses. He repeated each clause and used names.
When colers spoke to hold them. Morales answered, crying but obeying.
Lights off carl locked razors. Group argued, but then a
woman in that group said, do it now. She switched
off the lamp and the group dispersed into the shadow.
Her name was Anna Fork's nun logged it and told
Hollow note compliance at Sector three. Anecdotal safety improvement observed.
Hollow carpe The Sector three dokened fewer pangs of movement.
The exchanges were functional and sparse. A surprising reveal arrived,
a recorded clearance from central protocol that automatically retracted authorization
for any rescue through the corridor and appended a justification
code containment priority if fal said we were at all
non essential assets protecting for structure nos do not engage
in specified anomalies. Carter's recorded voice had been transcribed into
the file as evidence a breathy report, and then a
last clip phrased that central protocol cited as proof of
contagion risk. Forksman read the line and felt anger flare.
He punched the console and then exhaled. The reveal changed
how he understood earlier events. Institutional modis now included containment
beyond immediate rescue. Another external event a neighbor free. He
showed a small group under a lamp, refusing to leave.
They argued, Ray shouted, we have to move them an answer,
we were safer here. Together, the group decided to huddle.
The lamp stayedlet Hollisfeed showed the emblem hover in the
map and then expand. A car in that street blinked
headlights despite the directive. The emitted pulse hit the asphalt
and the group pollsed. One man reached switch off the car,
but his fingers trembled. He fumbled keys. Someone else yank
the cord and the headlights cut. For a short span,
nothing happened. Then a passenger in the car pointed and
screened a portion of the asphalt under the lamp. Gained
a watch shen and a responder of boots appeared where
no one had been standing. The group watched the boots,
and then the boots went empty. The group went silent
and began to obey by action not order. The climax
arrived as the convoy that had crossed the map dead,
soone transmitted a final frantic clip. The convo's footage showed
the pulsing emblem across the shoulder and then the responder, Carter,
stepping into it to grub a civilian. He gripped the
men's jacket and pulled, saying hold on. The man yelled
car to turn toward the camera, eyes reflecting the red
pulse like a flat film. Carter reached, then his body softened,
as if a sudden hydraulic failure had set his joints loose.
He did not scream, his handswd from the jacket. Hollow's
line broke into static, and then an audible intake four
x nine issued one command that would become the chapter's
decisive rule, do not go to the shoulder, do not
follow the figure, do not attempt rescue across the pulse.
The command left him with a taste of metallic regret.
He had watched an entire unit step off the map
before and could not accept repeating the losses. His decision
resolved the hub's immediate conflict between protocol obedience and human rescue.
After the climax, the fallout was immediate in tone and concrete.
In consequence, communities that obade the blackout reported fewer vanishings.
Districts that resisted reported more. Race's Street after the lamp
was switched off, received two more calls, but no disappearances.
The convoy remained missing. Central protocol of dated the Archiacter
include repeated emblem sightings and seeded the hub procedural language
about containment and exclusion. Hollow's last transmissions recorded a calugh
and the repetition of a single sentence, They were not
taking anyone back. They were not returning units. He suffocated
the phrase with speed and then silence. Four x nine.
Wrote the events into the log with precise actions and
time stumps. He recorded who obeyed and who disobeyed. He
named Morales, rays Anakarta, and the convoy captain in the
same paragraph, so that the arkave linked names to choices.
He noted the emblems wavefrom and how the control room
lights had pulsed in time. He cataloged the rule that
had saved some streets extinguish external lights, disabled vehicle signals,
avoid congregation under lamp posts, do not cross matt dead zones.
He caused the file and tacked it for distribution to
regional nodes. The final beat was concrete. As dawn tried
to bleed through the horizon four x nine saw the
emblem's pulse sync with the hub primary indicator light. He
took the headset off, set it gently on the console,
and keep the archive terminal to finalized the recorded feed.
The emblem flashed and the archive thumbnail as a red cliff.
The console wrote arcau Dead's own protocol, and then the
hub light sensed once more with the recorded pulse and
cut to black. The last line of the recorded transmission
was not a promise or ply It was a directive,
an instruction filed in a government tone that citizens might
follow or if they heard it. The chapter ended on
that recorded command, not on reflection and the console went dark.
Emotion route Suspicion guided FORKSNN at the start and pushed
him to a vride passive compliance, emotion shifts suspicion, urgency, resignation,
and then urgency determination controlled grief. The shifts played out
in his hands on controls, in the clip exchanges with Hollow,
and in the decisions he recorded. The chapter resolves the
hub's immediate conflict. The Hub chose to issue survival directors
rather than weigh for authorization that would not come. The
archive contains names and actions now and the dead zone
sit on maps where units once drove. Final image is
of pulsing red gliff and the console. As the lights
cut out and the recorded line ends of the precise
safety rule being broadcasted, the console burst into life with
an engine stutter and a voice clipped by static. There
we gone, Unit three is gone, Suspicion tide in station
operated four x nine's jaw. He slid his palm over
the laminated pro colcote and counted the seconds out loud.
To steady his hands, he listened olo's linpinged between breath
and radio gravel. The room smelled of warm plastic and nozon.
The map displayed low degrid of white roads and ridpins
that refused to answer. Within that first minute, the problem
made itself plain. Responders were disappearing from that nothing in
the system would say why. Fors nine kept his voice
flattened slow, with his suspicion shaped every movement. He tapped
the headset boom until the radio returned a thin mechanical hum.
Hollow regiunus status repeat, Unit three location, He said. His
pauses lengthened only when the input did not come. He
did not raise his voice. He moved through. Actions were
out attempt handshake, mark logs, preserved, turn stemps. Each small
procedural act was a test of whether the infrastructure still
behaved like it used to. Paula answered breathy in close.
Carter reported a bridge northbound. He Unit three responded, then nothing,
I got a call. Ambulances stopped. People trap in the overpass.
Hollow's words were clipped Carter. They recon Then his night
dropped four x nine pulled up, cut his feed the
dak and spittegrany. Night rode in a headlight smear. The
image jutted and a second later collapsed into static. He
hit rwind. The frame skipped twice before failing to render
the convos taillights. He had spent eighteen years depending on
the chain, call despatch, brot rescue. The chain's links could fray,
but they seldom vanished. Mid transmission, suspicion turned to urgent calculation.
Four x nine thumbed the institutional override sequins and found
the lines he knew by muscle. He did not press
the override. He read the prohibition again. The data feel
flagged a routed exclusion and automated stand down triggered by
an upstreme authority code. He stared at the court as
if it might change his mind. Alt rays is flagging
a hold. Hollow system wedged a rote. It threw a
dead zone alert. I can't patch around it. The map
pulls a dark crescent spreading from the bridge like a stain.
Four x nine watched redpins go black, one but one hollow.
What does the civilian say? He asked. He kept his
voice procedurals so others could match it and not misinterpret
a trimmer. A woman came on the line, who voice
slaughtered between suborn shock. There are ambulances stopped in the bridge.
People are trapped, someone's hurt. Her words contained immediate stakes
and a demand for action. Fork's nine motioned and watched
Hollow work the field. Mike, hatch me to cut her
if you can, he said. Hollow hesitated The catch and
is an elation became a sentence that hesitation became fear.
Emotion shifted from suspicion to fear. When alive dash and
feet that had been following the unit seventeemed an an
kneeling figure beside the road, and then frame by frame,
the figures silhouetteunraveled into scannine noise. Forks now found the
protocol caught again. He read aloud to steady himself. True
as priority civilian extraction, do not enter rules. Reading was
a ritual. The words were anchors. When the map failed
to anchor people, Hollow reported a block frequency to two
field units. Race says stand down, Rays says, do not
push into the dead zone. Hollow, but Carter counted those
lights stopped moving, and then his audio flattened. Here they
were gone. The ranas in Hollow's voice came like an
exposed cable. Forks nine felt his mouth clip around the
next sullables. He would not allow panic to rode into
the broadcast. He pulled up the institutional patch meant for
unusual signal loss. The override required authorization a security cascade.
The cascade demanded a code held by an adjudicating no
coal protocol node nine no nines loctured and incoming automitted
injunction stamped with an agency seal. He could not read
Foley latters missing under static. The injunction eroded authority away
from local directors to an emergent programmatic rule no roading
into specified dead zones. That director was an emotional rendered
as machine logic, and it took precedence rais on the
line hollow. He says he saw convoslow. He ordered a withdrawal.
When the jets started flipping to zero, he says, unit
to Reestracker blinked out at zero nine two two. Ray's
voice arrived, tall and brief. Do you have access to
the override? He asked, Raise questions that asked for options
Forksnaine pulled his mouth into a thin line. He had
to make a decision that would change how the day
moved forward. He read the override steps again aloud and
pulled to each verification suspicion had guided his first moves.
Now second shift appeared from fear to anger. Anger was
practical a shortened deliberation. Let raise your call sign, he said,
his caden sharpening authorization. Check watch your status on the
bridge perimeter. He demanded clarity, because Anger wanted a target.
Raise answered quickly. We have three units in staging two
kilometers south. I ordered a probe. Probe's solemnity when dead
when it entered grid tile zero alpha. I am standing
by station operator. His answer contained a split authority wanting
to act. An authority told to wait. Carter was there.
Carter called, they were gone. We lost him. Raise's voice
did not break, but the syllables drew tight like a drumwire.
Hollows might click to station operator. Civilian online says, there
are injured in the bridge. They were losing blood. People
are moving toward the median wecan Hollow stop. The sentence
cut four x nine heard the habitual coughin silence. The
absence of punctuation in Hollow's break became another event. Four
x nine did the arithmetic of risk. He cost checked
the dead zone polygon against no insense of footprints. The
dead zone covered cellular towers and gay piece nodes. Radios dropped,
dash cams went to noise. The systems of streame injunction
insisted on withdrawal. The directive rushnal was blank. No officer
on the map had the legal power to override the
emergent patch. The code had already delegated authority to something else,
a procedural routine that trueish human units as expendable inputs.
He found a spare channel and looped a strict down broadcast.
He would not send field commands. He would send instructions
for civilians. If rescues could not enter, civilians might still
make survival choices. He drafted her sentences, each a direct command.
The way of the pros call card taught him to
write emergency instructions. He felt the next immertion shift as
a decision settled. Fear sharpened into cold resolve. He could
not save Carter by ordering a rescue that the system forbade.
He could, however, give civilians a chance. Station operator, he
can't erode authority rays. If you transmit an override to civilians,
the agency will scramble the lines and we lose any
chance to coordinate legitimate rescue efforts. He had fast each
word a strike forksmen, set the broadcast chain regardless. His
hands moved with the training of long nights. Select channel,
reduce modulation, engage safety, hold lower band to analog. He
spoke the script into the mic with a procedural monitor
he had used for decades. This is an emergency broadcast.
Do not attempt to cross the bridge. Shelter in place,
seal windows and doors for weight assistance and the frequency.
Do not gather at the bridge. Repeat, do not gather
at the bridge. His voice was calm, The content was urgent, hollow,
and Rise argued under the transmission, you can't order citizens
not to go ray snapped. People will die either Carter.
He did not finish. The room filled with the short,
fierce exchange of commands and refusals. Raise listen for x
nine said cutting between them. If we force you in
its into the dead zone, they will vanish from the grid.
We will not be able to make an after action Recer.
We will lose personnel without trace. The directive forbids entry.
I'm preserving lives by telling civilians to shelter. His voice
did not cut. The decision itself contained the emotional work
anger at the system, Sir at the cost, resolved to
make the broadcast use will. Raise answered with fast, angry lines.
We are rescuers. We can't just stand by Carter's family,
he began, Hollow jumped in terrace, and Royault rays, we
have civilians bleeding a past with a collar who said.
The exchange became a short, heated argument, with four rapid
lines of back and forth, Raise demanding rescue, four x
nine insisting on system constraints, Hollow pleading for routing alternatives,
and four x nine returning to protocol. The argument paused
when the civilian collar's voice returned. She please, there is
a child under the ambulance. He's breathing shallow. Somebody help.
Her words made the argument concrete. Four x nin's fingers
clenched on the desk, he felt the room's temperature through
his palms. He looked at the map where the bridge
pinnedloaed a failing red. The emotion in the room shifted again.
Anger receded to grief, then to methodical containment. Four x
nine altered the broadcast tone and included precise instructions for
immediate first aid and a step by step shouter directive
that removed the idea of highway crossing. He u short
sentences so listeners could pass the commands under stress, apply
pressure on bleeding, use a towel, move away from the bridge,
center line, create barriers between lanes. Signal with hazard lights,
do not gather under the overpass. He did not use
improvisational language. He used a white on black scrip that
fit the channel's cadence and allowed people to act without
relying on responders. As he transmitted, he watched the live
feed attempt to hold a drum can that had been
hovering above the highway flickered, and then showed a wide
shot of stalled vehicles line bumper to bumper, people clustered
near doors. The drum feed stutted and froze on A
single framework and ambulance door hung open and a shaking
arm reached out. Then the drum fee collapsed into a
rectangle scan line noise. Hollow worked the line, ruling small
concrete updates as collos patched through. Civilian says, she's moving
the child to the shoulder, she's applying pressure. She has
a flashlight and a blanket. Hollow's voice carried details what
the collar touched, how She moved so the room could
visualize eight being given. Does concrete details shaped the third
emotional shift from paralysis to focus to action Among civilians,
people were making choices without the system. An unexpected reveal
changed the stakes. Four x nine systems loked telemetry from
a municipal maintenance since there near the bridge. The censor
recorded a minute long pulse of him for cent and
a concurrent micro voltage collapse in the power line adjacent
to the roadway. The timing aligne exactly with wind caught
his feed failed. The data set suggested a synchronized event
that knocked out multiple classes of cinsrus simultaneously. Vokestein pushed
the day to throw filter and watched the waveform. Although
frequency true followed bud jetter, the pattern implied an environmental
event rather than human mouth acence. He read the numbers
allowed for the record station operator. What is that wave form?
Ra us In for san spick voltage a concurrent with
feed loss. Patten repeats on three other notes cause a
known forks nine answered. He the words the way he
filed any technical note, clear and emotional precise. Saying them
allowed moved the team from speculation to evidence. That reveal
altered how Raisin Hollow argued. It forced them to incorporate
an external mechanism into their decisions rather than penning blame
on field protocol alone. Raise for a probe again. We
need a drawn or a remote vehicle. Send a probe
with hardened sensors. If its environmental, we can measure a
safe corridor. He spoke into the channel with the cadence
of someone trying to regain operational control. Forks nine checked
available assets. The agency had one hardened prober serve it
required authorization. The authorization ode returned a soft, unreadable denial.
The probe remained granded. The institutional chain had moved decisions
away from human discretion to a programmatic rule that prioritized containment.
Four x nine felt the protocol cord's edge under his fingers.
He could see the ark of a bureaucratic calculus preserved
the greatest number of lives by preventing exposure. For the
people trapped on the bridge, that calculus offered no consolation.
Hollow patched a new civilian through who reported deb responders
were gathering at the south entrance but not crossing. The
caller gave a name carter. He had last reported a
flash in the undercarriage lights before he vanished. The caller's
detail matched the infra sound time stamp. Four x nine
catalog the correlation and loped everything into the analog archive note.
He spoke each entry, then hit the record key. The
archive device hummed as if wrote the corruptedd feed into
a physical tip slot. He could not allow the record
to rely solely on volatile memory. An argument rose again
raised demanded the release of the pro protocol. Four x
nine refused to transmit in an author is remote. Their
back and forth lasted four rapid lines before Hollow interrupted
with a different piece of information. Multiple civilians had followed
the broadcast and sealed doors. At least three people performed
first eight steps he had instructed. This report shifted emotions
in the room toward muted relief. Concrete lives had responded
to the broadcast, and that outcome validated four x nine's choice,
even as it failed to resolve the missing responders. The
mid chapter cliff hanger arrived when a second ar revied
an aerial municipal camera returned a new frame. The frame
showed the BRIGEMDA of vehicles for a moment. Then in
the video, a single ambulance Silhuet bent and collapsed inward
on itself, as if its edges dissolved into a shimmer,
leaving a faint smerror. Wray. The frame held for less
than a second before the camera went to noise. Forse
x nine felt a mechanical nosser at the evidence vehicles
did not simply vanish. The feed suggested a localized negation
of presents acute and unnatural. He paused the archive and
replayed the frame at half speed. He treeply stripped more
of the light until only the smere remained. Hollow's voice
was thin. Station operator. We have a witness on the
east shoulder who saw tailight stin like a light going out.
He thinks he saw shape move across the roadway and
then nothing. Hollow's sentence added a human testimony to the
technical pattern. Four x nine wrote the testimony into the
log and labeled it for evidentiary retrieval. The new reveal
forced Rays to make a command decision. He moved from
a blunt demand for action to a procedural request. If
the system forbids entry, then we switched to civilian trios
only I authorized the transfer of medical supplies to coordinated shelters.
I will not risk more units for an unknown effect.
His voice steaded into a command that accepted containment. That
acceptance broke something in the room. The emotional shift from
arguing to resignation had consequences. Four x nine executed the replan.
He keyed a broadcast update that redirected ambulatory civilians toward
predetermined shelters and described clear supply transfer points. He included
instructions for those who could not move, how to improvise
the tornic with a belt, how to use hazard lights
as beacons for later identification. He kept each sentence short
and procedural. He monitored in coming calls and listened for
the names of those who had followed instructions. The civilians
complied a new scene and folded in the control room.
Hollow reidoff names that matched earlier registrates. A teacher who
had formed a human barrier around a child, a driver
who had used a towel for pressure, a construction worker
who blocked lanes with cones to prevent more people from
approaching the median. The specific actions were concrete proof that
the operator's broadcast had effect. The emotional field shifted again.
Suspicion and fear had given way to a progmatic grim satisfaction.
The system could still be made to do some good
even when its core had failed. The institutional patch locked
and automatic escalation three ires in an emergent authority had
issued a regional lockdown Society unexplained sensor collapses and recommending
population sheltering. The patches language was called and programmatic. It
recommended that operators conserved bandwidth, provide civilian directives, and archifol
anomalous data for review. Forks nine followed those instructions as
a freeding from the laminated car. He preserved the corrupt
to feed on analog date, then made a back up
to a hardened drive. He uttered each file name allowed
and salted minted data but tanstamps so that the record
could be reconstructed. In the penultimate stretch, something unexpected revealed motive.
While indexing tape, forksline discovered a buried packet in the
telemegery a legacy maintenance handshake from a contract to sub
country diruct to use her earlier. The hand chick contained
a commented flag referencing a decommission experimental sensor array in
stalled under the bridge for sound attenuation testing. The maintenance
notes recorded occasional low frequency tests. The flagged entry had
been quarantined in archevel logs because its chicksen failed modern validation.
Fox nine forward did the archive note to raise and
hollow and watch their faces in the small overhead feed.
So there's a test unit under the bridge breeze. Could
a failed test cause this? He sounded hopeful and cautious
at once four x nine answered the documented tests were
low amplitude, the wave froms we loged or higher energy,
and coincided with progressive sense of failures elsewhere. The maintenance
flag is a clue, not a cause. We cannot assume
the test created the effect. He the word clear the
way a register of files in index century. It reorganized
possible explanations without asserting any single one. Hollow relaid another
civilian up there. A woman had wrapped a torniquy and
moved to the shoulder. She reported seeing a figure on
the overpass who did not appear to be a rescue worker.
The figure wore no uniform a collar described a lean,
upright silhouette that did not move naturally. Four x nine
documented the description. The detail introduced a new variable. Something
or someone was present at the edges of the event pattern.
The climax arrived on the air, a collophone in with
a short terrified line. They were coming towards the shelters.
The collar's voice cut four x ninees. Hands tightened on
the console. He tuggled through channels and found three shelter
transmissions reporting a movement of a in light or figure
at their peripheries. The entity, if it was one, had
shifted its focus from row wist to shelter blow sea.
The dead zone was not contained by asphalt. In the
control room, Rays argued in fast, staccato lines, we should
vacuate the shelters. Vacuate them now, move people inland. Hall
accountered with eco rapidity. He can't force people out into
open areas. We ve betold them to shelter. They followed,
don't scatter them into more danger. Four x nineteen was short,
precise instructions. Shelter in place, reinforced doors, report any external
more motion only by hazard beacon to not approach the figure.
If the figure approaches were, draw to inner rooms and
block entries. The exchange included six rapid lines of dialog, race, pushing, evacuation, allow,
defend in the shelter plan, civilians calling in, and Forks
nine ordering the final conservative stance. The decision cemented the
chapter's moral and procedural endpoint. Forks nine chose the path
that preserved the traceable record and prioritized civilian actions that
reduced exposure. He knew full while that rescuers like Carter
might remain unaccounted for. He also knew that without a
readable record, the pattern could repeat elsewhere without warning. The
choice was bureaucratic and brutal. The room accepted it as
in a final sequence. Forks nine prepared the archive and
the distribution. He recorded a broadcast, labeled it with unit
names and times, and routed coppice to legacy fees that
survived the initial cuts. He sent out the broadcast update,
step by step shows of protocols, trived procedures for improvised
care supplied drop coordinates. In a final caution, do not
enter the dead zone until cleared by a verified adversarial node.
He did not invent the phrase dead zone. He used
the institutional language the system had generated to prevent misinterpretation.
Hollow read in a comming civilian update that named three
people who had survived by following the broadcast, a nurse
who used a sepelt a slow bleeding, a driver who
used his hazard light to alert a later responder, and
a teacher who moved children away from the bridge median.
Those names were concrete evidence that the transmission mattered. Four
Extein felt a small, contained relief. It arrived not as emotion,
but as the verification of effect. He closed the session
by arcurving the entire corrupted feet to both an a
log tape and an off grid note. He labeled the
tape with the station identified at the time in a
short note listing lost responders and confirmed civilian rescues. He
pushed the tape into the slot and watched the machine
cambit in place the archive. Homden wrote when the right completed,
the machine clicked and a light turn number falksnine exhaled once,
a measured breadth that marched the protocol car's recommended timing
for completion checks. The final paragraph of the session was
not a reflection but an action. Fakestein disconnected live utbound roting,
left the broadcast on a leap for those still tuning in,
and engaged the analog arkhouse lock. He hit the final
safe and the console responded by emitting a single continuous turn.
He reached out, thumbed the microphone off, and slid the
headset from his ear. The room was quieter, but not safe.
The monitors still held red pins that blink like wounds.
He removed the tape, placed in a sealed envelope, labeled
it in block ladders, and set it on the shelf
with the other physical records. He turned the overhead light
Danto Loham, left the archive taped seal and closed the
door to the control room. The last image recorded on
the analog drive was the looping toe and after the
lion went vacant and the signal cut cleanly to black.