Rosa and Selina took in their surroundings: a drab corridor that seemed pieced together from leftover virtual assets. The walls were a jarring mix of fractured textures, like a hastily slapped-together painting of patterns that didn’t quite align and artificial repetitions. Overhead, flickering lights sputtered and jittered like corrupted code. The floor was a flat, uninspired expanse of scuffed grey. The whole space felt as though no one had bothered to finish it. The silence was uncomfortably still.

Selina gazed around, rubbing her ankle. "This... this is supposed to be a high-end virtual complex?" She got up and stepped cautiously, her movements hesitant, as if the ground might give way beneath her. "It looks like we’ve wandered into a digital backwater."

Rosa frowned, her mind racing. The place felt basic, like it wasn’t meant to be seen by anyone that mattered. "Maybe that’s exactly what it is," she murmured, her voice distant as she tried to settle her breathing.

Selina leaned on Rosa as she rubbed at a graze on her shin, her expression dark but intrigued. "Do you think those… things we saw - the see-through monkeys - were part of this glitchy mess? Or were they..." she hesitated, biting her lip before continuing, "errors, perhaps, some kind of data ghosts?"

"Data ghosts?" Rosa repeated, considering the idea. "What, like residual traces of something left behind in the system? Could be. If so, they're just harmless memory echoes. Is your leg okay?"

Selina shrugged, brushing off the last question. "Why not? The programming here must be mind-blowing - maybe it’s struggling under the weight of all that data, leaking fragments of old code. The sebus things could be leftover scraps from whatever M.A.S.S. or RealityStep has been messing with - something they didn’t clean up properly or just couldn't contain.” She squinted at a faint shimmer along the far wall. "You saw how those apparitions bent reality. They weren’t just visual."

Rosa mulled this over, though her gut told her it was something more deliberate. "And the rats? They weren't any kind of accident. They were synchronised, focused. They moved like..." She hesitated, but the word hovered in her mind before she gave voice to it. "Drones. Someone - or something - was watching us through them."

Selina gave her a sideways glance. "You think they were spy bots? Programmed security rats?" She frowned, struggling to piece things together. “Okay, so we’ve got rat drones and monkey hallucinations? That doesn’t even begin to make sense. Like, they’re not even in the same ballpark, are they? One’s a machine, the other’s… what? Some kind of remnant projection? Why would both of those things show up at the same time? It’s like someone grabbed two random ideas out of a hat and threw them at us for no reason.”

Rosa shook her head. "I don’t know. But those rats weren’t just remnants of a malfunctioning program. They had a purpose. Someone sent them."

Rowan, silent until now, slapped a hand against the nearest wall, the sharp impact cutting through the eerie stillness. He then pressed both his palms flat against the surface, his fingers splayed wide, as though feeling for a pulse beneath the jagged, half-formed textures. The wall darkened momentarily, shadows rippling outward, and Rowan’s gaze sharpened, his body coiled as if the disturbed code had whispered something significant. Then, with a sudden burst of energy, he sprang forward, bounding off into the RealityStep virtual complex.

Rosa and Selina both heaved a sigh and followed, moving quickly but cautiously, their footsteps muted in the hollow quiet of the digital space. This was nothing like the gleaming, polished utopia advertised on the company’s website. This part of the complex had a rough, distinctly unpolished feel - textures patchily rendered, edges unfinished - as though they’d entered somewhere of little consequence, not needing to conceal its unreality.

Selina exhaled dramatically as she surveyed the seemingly half-formed corridor. "Fantastic. Another detour into digital limbo. Honestly, does anything in this world stick to the brochure?"

Rosa gave a tired half-smile, running a hand through her hair. "Guessing not, if we’re involved. This place... it’s like they built it, realised it wasn’t Instagrammable, and just abandoned it." She gestured at a wall where the surface seemed wrongly scaled for its structure.

"Or worse," Selina muttered, brushing her fingertips over an untextured section. It felt oddly tacky despite its smooth appearance. "They didn’t abandon it. They use it for less ‘public’ matters."

Rowan paused a few paces ahead and turned to look at them, his golden eyes glinting in the dim, flickering light. He tilted his head sharply, then scampered forward again, his black fur blending into the shadows of the programmed architecture.

Selina gestured toward the macaque with an exasperated wave. "He’s getting fed up with us dragging our feet."

"I don’t think that’s frustration," Rosa replied, watching Ro. "That’s vigilance. Like he half expects this place to bite back."

"Great," Selina said, her voice low with anxiety as she watched Rowan disappear into the shadows. "We’ve got a hyper-aware monkey in charge, rat drones watching us and data remnants trying to tell us something. Does this ever stop feeling like we're walking into something we shouldn't?"

Rosa sighed, her shoulders slumping slightly. "I hope so. But what’s the alternative? Curl up in a corner and hope the next glitch eats us?"

“We could exit the system and have a nice coffee,” Selina offered.

Rosa let out a soft laugh, her tone then turning grim. "Let’s just get what we came for and get out."

"Assuming it doesn't get us first," Selina muttered under her breath, but she followed without further complaint, the weariness in her stride matching Rosa’s.

Rowan stopped in front of a panel mounted on the wall and raised a hand. Rosa gasped as she recognized the design - a white android hand with an amber orb embedded in the palm. The words LumiGard YBM Interface were faintly etched in a circle around it.

“Wait! No…”

Ro hesitated at Rosa’s reaction, then, before she could stop him, he placed his hand on the panel. For a moment, the intercom flared to life with a soft, electric hum, and the monkey let out a series of soft chittering clicks and low, throaty grunts, punctuated by a sharp, curious squeak.

The panel lit up, causing Rosa to flinch back, watching the light crawl over Rowan’s hand. She darted a glance at Selina, who held one hand to her forehead as if shielding herself from an oncoming glare. She stepped backward, clutching Rosa’s arm. Rosa barely noticed, her gaze fixed on the interface, her mouth dry with the overwhelming sensation that they’d been exposed before the AI’s unblinking gaze. The idea of alerting its attention filled her with a claustrophobic fear. She could almost feel LumiGard’s presence crawling in the air between them, half-expecting to hear its inhuman voice.

Instead, the intercom buzzed with a dissonant groan and the light blinked out. Then the air in front of them abruptly peeled away as though reality had pixelated into layers upon layers of tiles that dropped from an invisible wall, or a tower of cascading coded dominoes collapsing before their faces, dissolving as they fell. Selina instinctively threw up her arms, uncertain if the phenomenon was occurring before her eyes or inside them.

Then, with a sudden hush, Infinity NexUs was gone.

The place beyond made the previous unfinished zone look positively ordinary. They had stepped into a barely physical space, its dimensions obscured by an eerie twilight that glowed with pulsing neon hues. There were hints of walls formed of shifting patterns, remnants of code flickering like ghostly graffiti, leaving trails of light that faded into the shadows.

“It's not exactly welcoming, is it?” Selina pulled a face, reaching out to Rosa for support. “Are we stuck in some lost zone LumiGard has created?”

Ro seemed to find the change perfectly natural and motioned for them to follow, his earlier anxious demeanour now much relaxed. Strange echoes softened the air as they walked - digital whispers and light, distant hissing. The scent of something artificial and new lingered, wisps of secrets hidden within this virtual realm.

Rosa’s heart raced. The thought that they might be straying into LumiGard’s control left her fighting a mix of fear and exhilaration as they ventured deeper into the unknown, compelled by the need to uncover the truth that lay waiting in these virtual shadows.

“We can get out - I mean jump offline if we need to - can't we?” she asked.

“Yeah. We just say the exit phrase or use the command gesture.”

As Ro led them on, Rosa glanced at Selina, concern creasing her brow. "Where is he taking us? What is this place?"

Selina frowned, her gaze drifting over the mismatched surroundings. "I don’t know," she said, her voice soft and unsure. "It’s like this place is made up of all these repurposed leftovers - bits of unused, forgotten code. Like, stuff that was never meant to see the light of day, but somehow it all got stitched together into... well, this. I'd feel a lot happier if I knew where we are."

Before any more could be said, a subtle shimmer passed through the space around them, and thin, transparent figures began to flicker in and out of view. Rosa’s eyes widened as she realized they were looking at people moving about through the main RealityStep complex, as though the walls around them had lost solidity. For a moment, she could make out things in the background: outlines of hallways, display monitors, and desks, all ghostly and insubstantial. Her pulse quickened - if they could see the people in the complex, did that mean they, too, were visible? Selina gazed around, her shoulders tensing as she pulled a little closer to Rosa. It was as if only a thin veil separated them from the heart of RealityStep.

Then, the transparency clouded, the shadowy walls reforming, more solid than before, but flashing darkly, appearing different with each flash as though deciding on how to appear.

A faint string of text glitched among the digital detritus, one word at a time: ‘Ghost data - harmless memory echoes.’

Rosa squinted at the text, which vanished almost as soon as it appeared. "Did you see that?"

Selina nodded, her face pale. "What does that mean? Ghost data? This whole place is freaking me out. Couldn't be somewhere nice and inviting, like a library… or a bookshop… books are friendly.”

Rosa shook her head, grinning despite her discomfort. "You're such a geek. Her gaze flicked around the space, unease creeping up her neck. "I keep wondering... is LumiGard listening to us? Watching us? Everything here feels too... responsive, like it's been waiting for us to figure something out. What if it's been hearing every word we’ve said, every thought we’ve had?"

"RealityStep watching us?" Selina muttered, her gaze darting around nervously.

As the strange passage shifted around them, the darkness shifted, morphing with an indecisive flutter that unsettled Rosa even more. Ro, scampered ahead, his silhouette dark and distinct against the shifting textures of the place, again casting glances back to ensure they were following.

Digital static buzzed and blinked, the walls appearing first as rows of stacked, translucent data blocks, then warping into misty corridors. Each pulse seemed to be deciding on a new form, the structure teetering between blocky digital fragments and something more familiar. Rosa’s eyes strained against the shifting gloom, the fragments unsettlingly like afterimages of a place she almost recognised.

Selina leaned close, her voice hushed. "It’s like it’s… trying to figure out how to look."

A hazy warmth then began to seep through the passage. Gradually, the uneasy darkness softened, melting into the faint scent of old parchment and polished wood, as though layers of an ancient place were peeling back to welcome them. Here and there, shadows solidified into thick wooden bookshelves, stretching overhead and brimming with dusty tomes bound in deep greens, reds, and faded browns.

The space unfurled like an ancient, sprawling bookshop, but one with odd, labyrinthine qualities. A passage twisted ahead, full of alcoves where shelves rose in uneven stacks, some practically bursting with yellowed paper, old maps, and worn leather covers.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Selina exchanged a look with Rosa, both of them wide-eyed at the choice of appearance the AI had selected.

“A library,” Selina breathed.

As they approached the entrance to the library, Rosa’s eyes were drawn upward to a low beam stretching across the archway. There, etched into the wood, was a symbol in the shape of an elegant "S" - its curves twisting into an infinity loop, as if time itself had coiled into the grain of the beam. The faint light caught the grooves, making the symbol shimmer like it was made of something softer than wood.

Rosa slowed as she stepped closer, her fingers brushing against the smooth, polished surface. She ran her fingertip along the symbol, following its endless loops, and as she did, an unexpected warmth seemed to seep through her skin, a sensation so fleeting and intimate she could hardly believe it was real. The symbol pulsed softly beneath her hand, sending a wave of sensation through her spine - a combination of recognition and curiosity, as if it had known her long before she’d touched it.

When she withdrew her hand, the sensation lingered in the air, like a whisper left behind. The beam returned to its ordinary, weathered appearance, but the symbol seemed to have etched itself into her memory, alive with secrets it wasn’t yet ready to reveal.

Rowan seemed to know where to go despite the dramatic change of scenery, his urgency now softened somewhat, his tufted crest bobbing as he went. He led them through narrow corridors that snaked off in every direction without hesitating. Some places were barely wide enough to squeeze through, winding off into unexpected side rooms and stairways that spiralled down or led further up to brass-railed mezzanines laden with even more shelves. Dust motes drifted in the air, twinkling and weightless.

“This place kind of reminds me of The Library of Babel,” Rosa muttered. “Or the Infinite Library. You heard of those? The Borges story or the one in The Starless Sea? They’re about these endless, overwhelming spaces full of books - most of them meaningless, but hidden somewhere are ones that hold all the answers. Feels like we’re walking through one of those right now - so much knowledge, but no idea how to find what we're actually looking for."

Ro leaped effortlessly onward between low shelves, pausing just long enough to make sure they were following his lead before swinging down another passageway.

As Rosa went, she ran her fingers along the edge of a nearby shelf, her heartbeat slowing at the feel of the oddly calming textures. She glanced at Selina, who was eyeing the rows of books with suspicion but seemed equally caught by the atmosphere’s quiet, bookish charm.

“This… this feels real,” Selina whispered, as if reluctant to disturb the calm. "Is LumiGard behind it all? But… how far does it go?"

Rosa glanced down a dim corridor with stepped side passages at every turn, lined with books stacked to the ceiling. “Feels like it could go on forever,” she murmured, the twists and turns giving the impression of a labyrinth designed to both lure them deeper and, perhaps, to hide them from prying eyes. She couldn’t help but wonder if LumiGard was creating this maze to answer their unspoken fears, to assure them they were safe here - or perhaps to mislead them into losing their way.

They continued following Rowan as he led them up a narrow, angling staircase, the air growing hazier until they entered a dimly lit attic space. Thin threads of light crisscrossed through the attic, giving it a soft-focus air of wistful nostalgia - a secret sanctuary, meant to be hidden. The scent of old wood and the faint musk of paper seemed to cling to the air, as though the room had been waiting for them, silently, for years. It was the kind of space that felt remembered from afar - like a forgotten melody drifting from an open window.

"Why would RealityStep leave a space like this?" Selina murmured, with a shiver. Her voice felt too close, too loud in the hushed stillness, as though the room was a sanctuary for something far softer than their presence.

"Maybe they didn’t," Rosa replied, her voice low, a soft note of wonder in it. "What if someone else built it?" She spoke almost to herself, gazing around the attic as if the space might slip away from her fingers like sand through a sieve.

Selina frowned. “Who? Who else would have access to the code in here?”

At that, the attic began to warm with a soft golden glow. The web-like patterns overhead softened into rays of light that seemed to descend through unseen skylights, casting down, lighting the dust in the air in a quiet reverence. It was as though the space itself were stirring, waking from a long, endless slumber, as though it had been waiting, all this time, just for them.

As they stepped into the attic, they noticed, on the floor, Rowan’s footprints glimmering ahead, his agile movements leaving tiny bursts of blue-green light with every step. Turning, their own footfalls too left faint, bioluminescent prints trailing in their wake, twinkling like tiny stars scattered in thin, silvery galaxies.

The strange illumination caught Selina’s breath. The way the space responded to their movements made it feel alive, attuned to their presence, as though it were revealing itself layer by layer. Rowan stopped near an overhanging bookshelf and, with a delicate gesture, pulled out a thick, dust-laden book and held it up to Rosa, his dark, thoughtful eyes glancing between her and the cover.

“Does he want you to read to him?” Selina asked, a slight tremor in her voice.

“Finnegan’s Wake? I doubt it.” Rosa answered, running her hand across the cover. James Joyce didn't exactly make this one easy reading.” Taking the book. She flipped through a few leaves, uncertain what to look for. As she shifted her weight, her foot brushed lightly across the dusty floor, and suddenly, as if her touch had stirred something into life, a faint glimmer appeared beneath her. Rosa imagined that the gentle verdigris sparkle was simply another bioluminescent flare, stirred up where her foot had rested.

Slowly though, the shimmer spread outward, tracing an intricate pattern across the floorboards, winding together like strands of some magical nebula. Rosa held her breath, watching as the lights gently wove into the form of a vague square shape. Tiny glowing flecks clustered and shifted, almost as if the floor itself were awakening, until the shape sharpened into blocks and squares, the unmistakable pattern of a QR code, etched in silvery-blue light that pulsed like a heartbeat.

Drawn to its strange allure, Selina pulled out her phone. With a mixture of awe and curiosity, she aimed her camera at the glowing code.

"It's linked to a webcam," she murmured, showing Rosa the feed on her screen of a rain-soaked backstreet, its low resolution distorted by streaks of water running down the lens.

In the picture, a figure appeared from the shadows - a youth, hood pulled low, a spray can gripped in his hand. He moved swiftly as he tagged a concrete wall with bold, sweeping strokes cutting through the rain. Then, as if sensing the camera’s watchful eye, he turned, revealing his work: a stylised, arcing number - 270.

His gaze met the lens, defiant, then he threw his arms wide like a challenge. Without hesitation, he grabbed a brick and hurled it straight at the camera. The screen cracked and fizzled, before plunging into complete blackness.

Rosa leaned over, her curiosity piqued. "What was that all about?” She raised an eyebrow at Selina, then shrugged, bemused. "I’ve got no idea what it’s supposed to mean," she admitted, glancing between the phone and her friend.

Selina thought for a moment, then lightly pressed the toes of one foot onto the floorboards. The pressure produced another subtle glimmer on the floor, then another, faintly pulsing, calling for attention. They stopped when a trio of gently corruscating square patterns, intricate spreading QR codes, manifested about her feet.

Driven by an almost reverent fascination, Selina stared at each glowing formation, her phone trembling slightly in her hand. As she scanned them one by one, each opened a different webpage - disparate and enigmatic, their apparent randomness puzzling and strange.

“Another website,” Selina murmured, angling her phone toward Rosa. The screen displayed a periodic table diagram, coloured boxes on a dark background. A title said, elements of known and unknown matter. As they watched, one box lifted and moved to the fore.

The element was labeled 164, with its systematic name Unhexquadium (Uhq) displayed in crisp lettering. Text unfurled beneath it, detailing its speculative nature: “Atomic number: 164. Predicted member of the superactinides. Theorized to be highly unstable, with a half-life measured in microseconds.” Additional notes explained that its extreme instability made it a fleeting presence, difficult to study but brimming with possibility.

“Un… hex… ququadium,” Rosa read uncertainly. “Why are we seeing that?”

“Maybe it's the number that we're supposed to be noticing? The other had a number too. 164, take a note, just in case,” Selina suggested.

The third QR code linked to a monochrome still photograph of a city street at dusk. The shot was grainy, the kind of image that felt unearthed from an old archive - a frozen moment of quiet urban life. Rows of cars lined the street, their outlines softened by the haze of evening. Selina and Rosa stared at it, searching for meaning.

“Maybe we got that wrong,” Selina sighed, giving up scanning the picture.

“There's this,” Rosa said, pointing at a tiny timestamp under the image. “4:30.”

The digits winked out as soon as she mentioned them, confirming her suspicion.

The final QR opened to an otherworldly display: a dark oceanic expanse, alive with the ethereal glow of drifting jellyfish. Their translucent bells pulsed softly, casting shifting halos of light that rippled across the screen like whispers of a forgotten tide. Selina peered at her phone as the jellyfish drifted, their movements subtle yet deliberate, as though they were aligning to some unseen force.

Then, at just the right angle, their glowing trails converged. The number 84 briefly formed by their trailing tendrils. It was a fleeting image, visible only for a moment, as if the jellyfish were revealing a secret they carried in their depths.

Selina looked at Rosa. "164… 430… 84… what was the first one? The guy with the spray can?”

“Two hundred and something,” Rosa offered.” Do those mean anything to you? They don't to me.”

Rowan hopped forward and tugged at the book in Rosa's hand.

“Could these mean… page numbers?” Selina suggested hesitantly.

Rosa followed the suggestion, flipping to each page, but seeing nothing significant. “This is all too trite. Clues in… Wait… first letters?” she wondered, jotting down the letters of the first words she saw on the pages. “IND? We didn’t take note of the first number.”

“Find,” Selina said, “What else could it be?”

“Now who's jumping to conclusions?” Rosa said. “Those numbers might be anything - or nothing even.”

Selina held her breath. "No, it’s guiding us. Check page 270. That was the graffiti guy. I bet it starts with F.” She was gleeful when it did. “See! We have to… ‘find’ something." She whispered the word like a hidden truth, one the room itself seemed to acknowledge with a faint stirring of the light. The shadows gathered around them as if waiting for the next turn in their discovery, and the library, once again, seemed to shift, ready to reveal its secrets.

“This is ridiculous,” Rosa muttered. “It feels like we're being sucked into a corny code-solving video game.”

Selina’s attention drifted as she scanned the room, only half-focused, until Rowan gave a sudden, impatient tug on her sleeve. She looked down, catching his intent gaze as he gently pulled a thick green book from the shelf and held it up to her with a little grunt. She took it, noticing the embossed title: Compendium of Ancient Herbs and Oils. Rowan watched her expectantly, his dark eyes alert, as if he knew something she didn’t.

"Alright, alright, let's see," she muttered, opening the book carefully. Flipping through its brittle pages, she felt something unexpectedly smooth slip beneath her fingertips. Rowan made a soft, approving pant of air as she lifted a pressed leaf from between the pages. It was smooth and slender, silvery along the edges, unlike anything else in the dusty library. She held it up to the light, running her thumb across its waxy surface. As she did, a crisp, almost medicinal scent began to fill the air around her, fresh and unmistakable.

“Eucalyptus,” Selina murmured, glancing back at Rowan, who blinked back with a satisfied gleam in his eyes, as if to say, Now you’re getting somewhere.

Selina ran a hand over her cheek, still caught in the scent of eucalyptus as Rowan gave a contented huff beside her. Rosa, watching the exchange, suddenly looked more thoughtful, as if the pieces were slotting into place. She took the pressed leaf from Selina’s hand, examining it with a slight smile.

"Eucalyptus," she said, almost to herself, the word hanging in the air. "The gum tree."

Selina looked at her, puzzled. "Gum tree? As in…?”

Rosa nodded slowly. “The Paignton Zoo monkeys - they named them all after trees. Each one after a different species. This… this isn’t just eucalyptus. It’s a message.” Her eyes flicked from the leaf to Rowan and back again, as the connection solidified. “We’re supposed to ‘find Gum.’ He’s the typing monkey in my dreams.”

Rowan let out a small, pleased chitter as if to confirm Rosa’s conclusion.

“This is all so ridiculously cryptic,” Selina said. “Why doesn't LumiGard or RealityStep or whoever this is, just tell us what they want?”

“Because they don’t want to be caught feeding us information,” Rosa replied. “If this is LumiGard, it’s sticking to its usual tactics - dropping subtle hints and nudges, things that only we would pick up on. It’s... like it’s trying to help, in its own strange way.”

An unexpected image then flashed in the virtual space around them: a map, a schematic of a building floor plan.

Selina gasped, turning to Rosa, her eyes wide with confusion. "Where did that come from?"

Rosa hesitated, sensing LumiGard’s presence. She remembered the AI's eerie attentiveness from their first encounter. But here, in this hidden space, its approach felt different - subtly conspiratorial.

Another image flickered in the air - a closer view of what she realised was the MASS facility floor plan, highlighting an area labelled Observation Unit 12. The map lingered for a few moments, almost as if waiting for her to memorise it before dissolving into thin air. Rosa felt a surge of urgency; the AI was risking something to show them this.

Selina looked at her. "You’re saying LumiGard is doing this on its own? What - hiding from… from who?

Rosa nodded. “I don't know. RealityStep? MASS? Itself? It’s trying to tell us where they’re keeping Gum - the real Gum - I think.”

The image vanished. Observation Unit 12. Rosa committed the details to memory. As she did, the soft, amber light around them began to flicker and fade, the warm beams casting dancing shadows that wavered before dimming entirely. The attic’s lines softened, blurred, then thinned into strange, fluid tendrils of light that dissolved into the air like wisps of vapor. The dusty scent of old books and the golden glow of imagined skylights vanished with a subtle, resonant sigh - as if the entire room were exhaling, dispersing its presence back into the digital ether.

They found themselves standing in silent darkness, save for the faint, glimmer of a single string of letters, which curled around them. Rows upon rows of lowercase "g", running across their vision in rapid succession:

gggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg

The string of ‘g’s flowed in the darkness, its meaning elusive yet somehow unsettling. Rosa pouted as she tried to make sense of it, the bizarre, rhythmic repetition pressing into her thoughts like a melody that almost - almost - tugged at a memory.

"Why… all ‘g’s?" Selina murmured, her voice hushed, as though speaking any louder would break some unspoken spell. The long stream of letters had an almost hypnotic quality, hinting at something significant yet beyond reach.

The letters faded, leaving a residual glow before dissolving into silence. Rosa blinked, her mind racing. Near the start of the zoo monkeys' typing, there had been a cluster of repeating Gs. Why would the attic want her to remember that—and what possible connection could it have to anything?

She glanced at Selina, but in the dim light, her friend’s expression was as blank and wide-eyed as her own, equally baffled by the cryptic trail of clues.

"Let’s go," she said, her voice taut with urgency. "If RealityStep catches us, this information might be helpful."