The grid did not sing the next morning. It stuttered.
I was in the control room before sunrise. Yuki was already there, her face illuminated by the error logs scrolling rapidly down the main screen. The usual steady green line of the Horizon grid was jagged. It spiked, dipped, then recovered. Then spiked again.
"It's the shard," Yuki said. She didn't turn around. She knew I was there. "It's integrating slower than expected."
"Is it dangerous?" I asked. I stood by the window. The sky was still dark. The lights of the visitor's base were visible in the north. They were steady. Ours were not.
"Not dangerous. But inefficient. The feedback loop is sending power back to the deep, but the deep is sending it back to us."
"A echo," I said.
"Yes. A resonance echo. It's confusing the automated
