The director had been revising.
Not his current monitoring work—that was running and updating continuously as it always had. His historical archive. Twenty years of Rift oscillation data, annotated in the precise handwriting that covered every margin of every document in the Division's filing system. He had been working through it since Stage 5 activated in Vael's Crossing six weeks ago: re-reading his own notes, crossing out previous interpretations, writing new ones in a different ink so the revision history was visible.
When Kai came to the Division the morning after returning, the archive was spread across three tables.
The director looked up. He did not look like someone who had been sleeping adequately.
"Three signals," he said. He moved to the primary monitoring display and turned it toward Kai. Three oscillation patterns running simultaneously in the readout: two conducted, one unmanaged. "Kael's Seat. Vael's Crossing. And since four days ago, a third."
