He pulled up the raw feed from Node 14, the silent one. Last packet: 02:13. Thirty seconds of infrasound recording before the node went dark.
Singh sat up. Zone 7 was the old manganese mine—supposedly sealed after the border realignment three years ago. Thermal shadow meant something had moved through recently enough to leave a heat trace, but not recently enough to be active now. Something big. Something with a thermal signature that didn't match vehicles or people.
> Welcome back, Singh. We were starting to think you'd noticed.
Drainage Swansea