Selene stopped trying to look at the whole.
That was the mistake everyone else made—seeing the lattice, the core, the city-scale system and assuming meaning lived in its size. She let that go. Instead, she narrowed her perception until the rest of the chamber dulled, the voices behind her fading into background noise, the hum of the factory becoming a single, steady note.
She followed the flow.
Shard-energy moved in cycles, not lines. That much was obvious once you stopped treating it like power generation. It surged, slowed, echoed, then returned—not randomly, but in timed intervals that repeated no matter which sector fed into them. Selene traced those rhythms, one after another, letting them overlap in her mind.
Minutes passed. Maybe more. She didn't speak.
Elena noticed first, shifting her weight but saying nothing. Noel tried not to fidget. Elyra leaned against a pillar, watching Selene with quiet interest instead of impatience.
