The Zero Signal, part 11: Eight Minutes of Silence

The Zero Signal, part 11: Eight Minutes of Silence

First the fluorescent light above the stairs went out, then the light by the entrance, and after that the street lamps that had just turned on. Through the open tower doors, dusk still showed outside, and a narrow strip of grey light stayed on the metal railing.

Lea stopped talking in the middle of a sentence.

Beside the four of them, a service display glowed. A second ago there had been no countdown on it, but now, under the name of the experimental synchronisation system, new lines appeared:

REMOTE RESET RECEIVED. PHASE 1. EMERGENCY STARTUP. POWER INTERRUPTION ACTIVE.

Under that came: FULL ACTIVATION IN 08:00.

The number changed to 07:59.

“Second blackout,” Tami said, tucking her fingers into the sleeves of her green hoodie. “That is really not a coincidence.”

Viktor pulled out his phone, turned on the flashlight, and pointed it at the stairs. Then he opened the camera for a quick check: the picture was sharp, and the battery was still fine.

“These two things work without the network too,” he said, and switched the light on again.

Denis looked through the entrance, where a car on the street was slowing down. A person came out of the house across the road with a phone in front of their face and stopped by a dark lamp.

“Mom is going to think I ignored her messages again.”

Lea was still reading the next line. Service route: go down the marked stairs, continue through the straight corridor, enter EMERGENCY CONTROL.

“We already found proof that someone started the blackout on purpose,” she said. “But this is the first clear sign that the blackout is part of the system’s emergency start.”

“And who reset it?” Tami asked.

There was no name and no explanation for phase one on the screen. But small emergency lights were still glowing by the stairs.

“We go together,” Lea decided. “If the lights go out or the way is blocked, we turn back. The entrance is behind us.”

This time Denis did not argue. He stepped away from the door and waited while Viktor lit the first step.

Down below, the air was colder and smelled of damp concrete and dust. Their shoes scraped on the stairs louder than Lea wanted, so while she checked the route marks she also counted the steps of the others behind her.

At the lower landing, the arrow turned into a straight corridor. Viktor’s phone lit the floor in front of them, while emergency lights lined the wall in a greenish glow.

Then a shadow ran across it.

It was tall, stretched over two lights, and gone at once. They did not see a face, clothes, or anything else that could show who it was.

Denis stopped so suddenly that Tami almost bumped into his jacket.

“Did you see that?”

Lea nodded, but only darkness stayed in the side alcove.

Viktor tilted his head. He felt nearby radio, Wi-Fi, and mobile signals as pressure from different sides, and now the strongest pressure was near the alcove. When he tried to separate the different feelings, his forehead tightened uncomfortably.

“It’s stronger there,” he said.

Denis turned his body.

“Wait,” Viktor added. “I don’t know what the source is. There could be equipment there. I can’t tell if there’s a person.”

“Not even the one who sent the reset?”

“Not that either. I can’t feel names or messages.”

For a moment they listened, but no footsteps came. Still, an alarm was already sounding in broken bursts from the corridor, and Tami pulled her headphones lower around her neck as if they were in the way.

“We have the route. The shadow does not have one.”

They kept going straight. Lea looked back once more, but they did not step into the alcove. If someone showed up in front of them and blocked the way, they would have to turn back; for now, the corridor was open.

Above the open door, EMERGENCY CONTROL glowed, the same name as on the map.

Inside, the display showed a countdown of 06:40.

The control room was smaller than a classroom, and its independent display lit up the wall with enclosed controls. The alarm on the other side gave off a sharp sound that bounced off the ceiling.

Denis noticed there was no big button that said SWITCH OFF.

“Of course,” he muttered. “The easy version sold out.”

Viktor switched off his flashlight and kept the phone ready in his pocket for a photo. Then he leaned toward the diagram.

Lea could have seen faint turquoise threads near the current, but this time she was looking at labels, not through covers. None of them needed to guess what was inside.

“A,” she read. “STARTUP REQUEST.”

The same label was on the diagram and on the available insulated handle. B was marked SYNCHRONIZATION ENABLE, while C, about a meter farther along the same wall, was labeled STARTUP COMMIT. The last place was H: TIMING HOLD.

Both B and C were protected by locked covers. Between them was a sealed clear window for the relay, and behind it a marker slowly changed position.

Lea pointed to the heading of the diagram.

“Interrupt emergency startup. Not a full shutdown.”

Together they read the instructions: first A, then B during the OPEN interval, and finally C during the next OPEN, while H was being held.

Wrong order would send A and B back to READY. The automatic startup would continue, but no time would be added, and C needed a separate manual action; it never worked by itself.

“So tearing everything off at once is not the plan,” Denis said.

“It isn’t,” Lea replied.

H was an insulated touch pad carrying a small, limited current. The diagram showed a timing latch and a warning: if the hold ended too early, C would lock again, while A and B stayed interrupted.

“I can manage that for a while,” Lea said. “Just H. Not anything else at the same time.”

“I’ll silence the alarm,” Tami offered. “Otherwise we won’t hear the relay at all.”

Denis studied the open path to C. There were no cables, boxes, or barriers he would have to pass through.

“I’ll go there. One short skip, only when the cover opens.”

“And I’ll check the labels and the relay,” Viktor added. “Normally. I can’t find the controls with my power, and I can’t read the system with it either.”

The countdown showed 05:30.

They did not open any cabinet, and they left the door and the walkway clear. Lea waited until everyone was in place, then put her hand on the insulated handle at A.

After she used it, the marker changed to INTERRUPTED and the cover at B unlocked with a soft click.

The ceiling stayed dark. The countdown kept going.

Tami focused on the alarm cover. At first the sound only got softer, but when she pushed harder, it almost disappeared from the wider space around her.

In the silence that followed, Lea heard the rustle of her own jacket. The relay clicked. Or maybe it was the cover at B?

“Now,” Tami said.

Lea’s hand moved toward B.

“No,” Viktor said.

Behind the clear window, it was still not OPEN.

Her hand stayed hanging above the control, and Tami looked at Viktor in confusion. His next words reached her in a muffled way, as if he were standing behind closed doors.

Her ears were ringing.

“What?”

The boy pointed at the marker and then shook his head. Tami swallowed. She wanted to say she had heard it, but the click mixed with a whistle that nobody else could hear.

“I can’t tell those sounds apart,” she admitted. “I thought I could.”

Lea pulled her hand away from B.

“Okay. So we have not used it yet.”

It was not a scolding, but Tami still felt heat in her cheeks. When she narrowed the field, the sharp alarm filled the room again for a moment. She had to make a smaller space just around its cover and keep the relay and Viktor’s place outside it.

It took longer than she wanted.

Meanwhile Denis stepped back from C and, instead of jumping in ready, stayed with both feet planted firmly on the floor.

“Just tell us what you actually see,” Lea asked Viktor.

He nodded and waited through a full cycle. A double click sounded, then a pause, and the window showed OPEN.

“Two clicks. Now I see OPEN,” he said. “That’s not a guess.”

Lea checked where he was pointing, but by the time she was ready, the marker had changed back again. She left B untouched.

The display now showed 03:20.

“At the next confirmation,” she said.

The next wait was worse than walking in the dark. The relay marker stayed closed, and the display said sequence check, but the falling numbers did not tell them when the right pause would come.

Denis watched Lea’s hand and wanted to ask if they should try something faster. Instead, he checked his one meter of free path again.

“When I get to C, I wait for your hand,” he told Viktor.

They agreed on a raised hand signal, because Tami still heard badly after strong use, and the others could also miss a spoken word in the noise.

Lea kept her fingers still for now, but she knew H could not be held during the whole wait. Redirecting a small existing current was not the same as creating more when her strength ran out.

“I start H only after B,” she repeated. “If I say I can’t keep it, nobody touches C.”

“And if I miss the approach, I stop,” Denis added. “I can’t do a second skip.”

Viktor did not take his eyes off the window. The first movements of the mechanism still did not confirm opening, so he did not call it success.

Then the double click came.

OPEN.

He raised his hand.

Lea used B during the visible pause. The marker changed to INTERRUPTED, and the display showed H REQUIRED.

C stayed locked.

The countdown now showed just over a minute.

At the touch pad for H, she saw a faint turquoise thread. She placed her finger on it and redirected a small amount of current into the timing latch. She did not add anything new; she only changed the path of what was already there for a moment.

H switched to HELD.

C unlocked.

“I’m holding,” Lea said. “My hand is starting to shake.”

Denis stepped forward and made only one short skip from the movement he had already started. A tiny part of the step disappeared, and in the next moment he was standing by C, about a meter from where he had been.

The floor seemed closer for an instant, so he stopped, planted his feet, and did not try to skip again.

“I’m here.”

Tami kept the small field around the alarm. She could see Lea’s shaking fingers, but she caught only pieces of the words, so she focused on keeping the silence from spreading to the relay.

Viktor waited.

Another double click. The marker turned to OPEN.

Viktor raised his hand.

Denis used the insulated handle at C.

00:45.

The numbers stopped.

Above them, the display flashed STARTUP CANCELLED. POWER INTERRUPTION ENDED. STANDBY MODE.

The alarm fell silent even without Tami’s field, and the ceiling lights came on. H returned by itself to IDLE, while A, B, and C stayed INTERRUPTED.

Lea pulled her finger away. Her hand was shaking, and a dull pressure sat at her temple. Tami stopped suppressing sound, but the ringing in her ears did not go away.

Denis let out a slow breath.

“Forty-five seconds more,” he said.

“Not more,” Viktor corrected. “The rest.”

This time Denis did not argue.

A moment later, the information page unlocked, but it was not confirmation of a full shutdown. The system remained active in standby mode.

Viktor pulled out his phone and took a photo of the screen, then opened the saved shot and zoomed in. He waited until the others stood beside him; Tami read over his shoulder, and Lea held her shaking hand with the other one.

On the photo and on the display, it said:

STARTUP CANCELLED. SYSTEM ACTIVE: STANDBY MODE. PERMANENT SHUTDOWN NOT CARRIED OUT. NEXT STEP: OPEN STANDBY MENU > PERMANENT SHUTDOWN > REVIEW CONSEQUENCES. REVIEWING CONSEQUENCES WILL NOT SHUT DOWN THE SYSTEM. WARNING: PERMANENT SHUTDOWN MAY END THE ABILITIES LINKED TO THE SIGNAL. EFFECT ON INDIVIDUALS IS NOT VERIFIED. FINAL CONFIRMATION REQUIRED.

They compared every line. The shot was readable and saved directly on the phone, so they did not need to pull it from the network.

“Reviewing consequences does not mean switching off the system,” Viktor summed up from the line.

Tami pointed at the warning.

“But shutting it down might take our powers.”

“It might,” Lea said. “The effect on individuals is not verified.”

Denis shoved his hands into his pockets. A little while ago, he had wanted everything to stop. Now he imagined an ordinary step with no skip after it, ever again.

Nobody opened the next menu. They left the final confirmation untouched.

“First we get out of here,” Lea said.

They went back through the same corridor and did not turn toward the alcove or look for anyone. Tami walked between the others so she would not miss anything just because she had trouble hearing, and on the stairs Viktor waited for Lea.

Outside, the street lamps turned on again, but daylight had not fully faded yet. Someone shut the entrance door across the road, and cars at the crossing started moving slowly.

They tried to send short messages to their families: they were together, they were okay, they were late. For some of them, only the sending mark stayed on the screen, and nobody took that as proof it had arrived.

Lea leaned her shoulder against the tower wall. Her hand was still shaking a little. On Viktor’s phone, the photo stayed open. They had stopped the startup, but they still did not know who sent the reset, what phase one really meant, or who the shadow belonged to.

Denis bent toward the screen. This time he was not looking at the stopped time.

He was looking at the last line.

FINAL CONFIRMATION REQUIRED.