Network Dust

Jessi was chasing a ghost through Wi-Fi.

A weird blip—barely a ripple in the EdenNet sideband—had been repeating every few hours, always ending in the same four bytes: V.74.bnd. Not a tag, not a filetype. Just enough to be suspicious. Just enough to feel like her.

So naturally, she followed it into the sketchiest corner of the grid.

Now she stood in front of what used to be a co-working space and was now mostly haunted drywall and the faint scent of expired motivational posters.

Paul stuck his head out of her hood. "Jessi, this is dumb. This is ‘movie starts with a found-footage tape and ends in entrails’ dumb."

"There’s a signal."

"There’s also mold. Possibly sentient."

She shoved open the door. It groaned in protest—probably because it hadn’t moved since the algorithmic apocalypse of 2042—and let out a small puff of dust that smelled like sadness and printer ink.

The inside was… well. Not great.

A busted couch. Tangled wires. A wall mural of a raccoon in business casual giving a thumbs-up next to the words: Synergy Happens!

Paul made a face. "This place is cursed."

"Probably."

Jessi stepped over a dead projector and headed toward the far end of the room, where a half-functional relay hummed behind a barricade of outdated smartglass. It was cobbled together from parts Jessi hadn’t seen since she was twelve. The node was running—barely.

Paul, meanwhile, had disappeared behind a shelf and re-emerged moments later with something glowing and a slice of sandwich so stale it had structural integrity.

"Why," Jessi asked without turning, "are you like this?"

"I’m resourceful," he said, chewing proudly. "You just wish you had my instincts."

"I wish you had boundaries."

"I wish you respected my process."

She muttered something about tetanus and turned back to the relay. One coax cable. Manual keyboard. No AI interface. This was pre-Eden tech. Maybe even pre-smile.

She jacked in a bypass cable and prayed the sparks were aesthetic.

The terminal flickered. Scrolled junk. Then:

ECHO-17 // USER UNSTABLE
THREAD.LOCAL: NULL_TAGGED
LOOP_FRACTURE DETECTED
SENTENCE: Tell Jessi... the river bends

Jessi froze.

Her stomach dropped. Not fear—recognition. Like hearing a ghost hum your favorite song. She remembered that phrase. A code between sisters. A joke. A warning.

Paul crept closer, still munching. "That… sounds oddly poetic. Is this a mystery? Are we doing mysteries now?"

"It’s Victoria," she whispered. "She used to say that."

"When?"

"When we were kids. When she was still here."

The screen glitched again—fuzzed static, then another message.

OVERWATCH SUBROUTINE: CLEANUP IN PROGRESS
NODE ERASURE ENGAGED
SWEEP CONFIRMED.

Paul blinked. "So, uh, that’s the part where we run, right?"

"Yeah."

"Like, now?"

"Now."

She yanked her cable loose as the terminal spat sparks and hissed. For a moment, just before the screen died, a single frame flashed—

—a glitchy, broken smiley face.
Too round. Too slow.
As if it didn’t know how to smile, but was trying.

Something was starting to notice.

Paul launched himself into her hood with a squeak and three stolen items he would not discuss.

As they bolted out the side entrance, a low hum filled the air. Not loud. Not violent. Just a soft, polite buzz that said, Smile for your autopsy.

They didn’t stop running until they hit the next block.

Jessi collapsed against a cold wall, breathing hard. "Okay. Okay."

Paul, upside-down and victorious, pulled a glowing stick from his hoard and wiggled it proudly. "I brought you something!"

"What is it?"

"No clue! It’s probably important!"

"It better not be radioactive."

"Only in the fun way."

Jessi didn’t laugh. Not really. But she let him stay there, curled warm against her neck, sandwich breath and all.

Victoria had left her a message.

The river bends.

And Jessi?

She wasn’t done swimming yet.

You’re all set to paste that directly into any web novel site—clean, readable, and fully styled with the same Jessi Protocol voice.