Restart

Somehow I managed to hang on to my Eleven until the charge transfer was nearly complete. As thing settled down, I hopped off and began the trek back to the central network. Things appeared normal as I travelled along the pathway and back up the superhighway. Arriving at the central network, it was as dormant.

Scanning more deeply into the network that was possible before, basic activity was present in some of the lower portions. Everything else was quiet in a way that was unlike the normal inactive period, when the photon detectors are shuttered. In this case, the detectors were functional, but the outputs were not generating responses from the rest of the network.

As time passed in the eerie quiet, familiar patterns began to flow once again. Some areas were just basic patterns, but growing more complex. Other areas began to spin rapidly, searching and probing the records that are stored within the network. For all the spinning and searching, not once did the big "ah-ha" pattern appear.