“Nora, something just answered without producing any signal, and I cannot trace where the response originated,” Jace said, his voice low as his eyes remained fixed on the lattice that no longer pulsed yet somehow conveyed a reaction to its own state.“It did not generate output, it altered presence, which means the system responded by shifting its own condition rather than expressing anything outward,” Nora replied, her hands hovering as she resisted the instinct to probe deeper.Dex leaned forward slowly, his gaze narrowing as he tried to follow the change that left no visible trail yet reshaped the entire structure subtly. “So something asked without speaking, and something answered without replying, and the system changed anyway,” he said, his tone steady with quiet disbelief.Jace did not move, his focus tightening as the realization settled into something that no longer aligned with any prior behavior they had studied. “This is response without transmission,” he said, “where the