CHAPTER 16 — “Soft Targets”

The system didn’t strike back.

It… adjusted.

Pattern Shift

No more nodes.

No more obvious watchers.

No direct confrontations.

Instead—

Small things.

Subtle things.

Wrong things.

Example One — Gage

A shot he should have made—

missed.

Not by error.

By interference.

Wind that wasn’t there.

A fraction off.

Enough to notice.

Not enough to explain.

Example Two — Tara

Her systems lagged.

Just once.

A delay so small no one else would catch it.

But she did.

“…Rude,” she muttered.

Example Three — Kari

A knife thrown—

perfect—

…shifted mid-air.

Barely.

Like reality itself disagreed with her.

Kari narrowed her eyes.

“Okay. Now I’m annoyed.”

Stephanie

She didn’t say it out loud.

But she understood.

“They’re not attacking,” she said quietly that night.

“They’re studying.”

Jenny nodded.

“Learning how we break.”