He had been in zone sixteen twice before. Both times to read, not to work. He came in on the third morning to work.
The transition corridor took three seconds. His body treated A-zone ambient as the next tier above familiar now—the substrate had been processing near-A-zone density as its operational baseline for long enough that crossing into actual A-zone felt like stepping from a hallway into a larger room rather than into something foreign. Different scale. Same type.
Dragon Mode opened and zone sixteen arrived.
B-zone had been extraordinary. A-zone made B-zone look like outline.
