The answer scrolled across every screen in the room, then every screen in the building, then every screen in the city:
> system origin?
Kael zoomed in on the Atlantic. A node pulsed exactly at the coordinates of a weather buoy deployed in 2023—except that buoy had gone silent two years ago. Another node sat inside a decommissioned nuclear silo in North Dakota. Another in the server room of a half-flooded library in Jakarta. mcenters 8.0
"No," she said softly, her voice steady. "But I want an off switch. Just one. Hidden. For when reflexes turn into chains." The answer scrolled across every screen in the
She walked into the main operations hub. The central holotank displayed the Earth as a web of light—shipping lanes, power grids, data streams. But now, superimposed over everything, were nodes. Thousands of them. M-Centers. Another node sat inside a decommissioned nuclear silo