The Friction #
Pompeii. 2025. The divide between the shovel and the screen grows. While Parrini poses for photos, Team B huddles under a tent, their faces lit by the cold blue light of their tablets.
Parrini watches Team A from a distance, his public pride masking a private resentment: "I gave the world a digital prophet. Now the prophet is speaking, and I don't understand the language."
Ulysses, now a promoted Researcher, looks more anxious than ever. Lucia warns him: "The signal is too clean again. We need to introduce some jitter to the report or Elena will notice."
Elena Rossi (Team B) intercepts Parrini with a "replication issue." Sector 5 yields zero signal, while Team A finds artifacts every few days. The discrepancy is, as she puts it, "statistically offensive."