Signal Couch Watch

I push through the heat-hum and light spill as their hands jump, talk in shards, fingers sketching plans faster than the screens can settle. The room vibrates with stacked displays, neon wash refusing to die, and I hover close, guarding this soft island of couch and cables where the trail keeps blinking. Drinks sweat on the table. Controllers rest like tools between rounds. The yellow tape snakes across the rug, urgent, loud, asking the same question and making this space a checkpoint whether we like it or not. We keep the power alive because it feels like he might step through any second, caught between levels, misaligned with time. Their gestures argue paths, backtracking, shortcuts. I catalog the warmth, the glow on old fabric, the hum that never cools down, as if stalling the wider fallout outside. Screens flicker maps, avatars, voids. I anchor myself here, eyes scanning for patterns, for the telltale pause. Where Vojta? The question keeps accelerating, and still he does not return.