Relay Unit 93 lived in an airlock corridor ribboned between sectors, its walls stripped of time: no windows, no clocks, just 23 metres of static humming like a trapped fly. Its job was simple: pulse when someone entered. Stutter if they lied.
It still does.
Most in Block 7B call it“the Lamplighter” – a copper-tinged glow they swear has softened with age. They don’t know it once mapped veins, not shadows, or that if you sprint past, it surges, white and sudden, as though startled awake. Once, a child swore it whispered her name in Morse.
Last winter, a scavenger pried open its panel. The corridor went dark for six days.
When the light returned, Relay 93’s casing was scorched black, its designation stencil-peeled. Maintenance logged the incident. They did not touch it again.