Caleb, though distracted, was persistent. On the third day, he bypassed Elara's traps and stood outside Julian's door. He was holding a handheld EMF reader, and it was screaming.
"Anomalous readings," Caleb muttered, his pen poised over a notebook. "Possible illegal electrical bypass?"
Inside, Julian froze. The Moiré field was on, but it was on too high. It was generating an electromagnetic signature that was as noticeable as the data silence it was meant to provide.
He needed to cut the power, but if he did, the Oculus field would sweep the unit, and the hidden data-servers in his closet would be tagged and identified. He was trapped between a physical threat and a digital one.
The ventilation vent above his head hissed. A specific scent—cedar-wood and lime-dust—filled the room. It was a signal.
Elara, knowing Caleb had bypassed her, had run to the main electrical room. She found the main circuit for Unit 402. It was a 19th-century copper breaker, and she knew its precise weak point.
She placed a small, magnetic shunt on the connection. It didn't cut the power; it dampened the voltage.
Outside, Caleb's EMF reader went dead. He frowned, tapped it, and shrugged. "Malfunction," he wrote, and moved on to the next unit.
Julian felt his heart hammering. He had been a Silence Consultant for ten years, and for ten years, he had been the sole guardian of his world. For the first time, someone had anticipated his need and acted with a surgical precision that matched his own. The Moiré effect, he realized, wasn't just on the walls. It was between them—a pattern so complex that no scan, no analysis, could ever capture it.