Chapter Two: The Rooftop Fabricator

“They'll weave a net across the facade.” On the south plaza, thousands of spectators held up phones. Zhou's restriction was not that he could not use advanced technology. He could not leave proof outside Earth's technological lineage. He had to create a miracle in front of an entire city—and make it resemble engineering. He opened an ordinary controller where firefighters could see its open-source interface. True commands traveled through Refraction's terminal in his watch. Twenty-four swarm units rose behind a fire engine. Smoke concealed them as one group entered broken windows and seized control of sprinkler pipes. A second anchored cables to intact beams. A third mapped the trapped occupants.