The hum of the tower was the sound of boredom.
Low, steady, endless.
It blended with the faint buzz of monitors and the lazy tapping of keys.
Tower 07, northern outskirts of Shibuya Sector, wasn't exactly exciting duty.
It stood like a lonely needle above the forest, one of hundreds scattered across the continent—watching, measuring, reporting.
Inside, Toma Kurosawa sat with his feet on the console, a cup of instant coffee cooling beside him.
Across the room, his coworker Rei Kanzaki flipped through a manual halfheartedly, pretending to study the new calibration protocol.
"Hey, Rei," Toma said, spinning in his chair. "You think we're ever gonna catch anything exciting out here?"
Rei didn't look up. "Exciting like what?"
"I dunno. Maybe an alien invasion. Or the sky exploding."
"Right. Because that'd definitely improve our pay."
Toma grinned. "At least it'd break the monotony."
Rei turned a page. "If you're that bored, go fix the vending machine. It's been eating my credits again."
He groaned. "Ugh, the one true anomaly—snacks vanishing into the void."
Rei sighed. "You're hopeless."
The tower continued to hum.
Outside, the evening light faded slowly into a calm, orange dusk.
⸻
Routine Maintenance
"Alright, last system sweep before shift end," Rei said, leaning toward the console.
"Sky Layer feed stable… wind harmonics steady… nothing unusual."
Toma sipped his coffee. "See? Perfectly boring. Again."
He leaned back, closed his eyes—and that was when the console beeped.
A single, sharp tone.
Rei frowned. "Hm?"
Another beep followed, then three in rapid succession.
The main monitor flashed yellow.
[Warning: Atmospheric Instability Detected]
"Probably static," Toma said lazily.
Rei adjusted the sensors. "No… the values are spiking."
[Sector 07 – Energy Field Fluctuation Detected]
The graphs began to climb, jagged and erratic.
"Wait, that's… that's way above tolerance," Rei murmured.
"Yeah, maybe the grid's bugging again," Toma said, half-standing. "It does that after updates, right?"
"Not like this," Rei replied, her voice tightening.
"The readings just—just tripled!"
⸻
The Spike
All at once, the lights dimmed.
Monitors flickered, static dancing across the screens.
A low vibration rattled the mugs on their desks.
"Whoa, what the hell—!" Toma grabbed the console.
Rei shouted, "Switch to external feed!"
He slammed the command key.
The view outside appeared on-screen—
a live image from the tower's sky cam.
At first, just clouds.
Then a flash.
A thin fracture of light tore across the horizon, white and sharp, like someone had cracked glass across the sky.
It stretched, pulsed once—
and vanished.
The shaking stopped.
The monitors went black for three heartbeats before flickering back to blue.
[System Rebooting …]
[Data Loss: 00.8 sec]
The only sound left was the rapid beeping of the sensors still trying to make sense of what they'd seen.
⸻
The Report
Rei swallowed hard. "Please tell me you recorded that."
Toma nodded, eyes wide. "Video and readings—everything. Look at these numbers!"
He pointed at the screen. The energy graph had pierced the display limit; digits wrapped around like a broken clock.
"That's impossible…" she whispered. "Those units don't even exist in the grid system."
Toma grabbed the comm. "Tower 07 calling Central Control—urgent anomaly report!"
Static answered first, then a voice: calm, older, slightly annoyed.
"Control here. What kind of anomaly?"
Rei leaned over him. "Sky Layer rupture, approximately one second in duration! We have full visual confirmation!"
"…Rupture?"
"Sir, the sky literally—" Toma hesitated. "—cracked. I don't know how else to say it."
There was silence on the other end.
Then the voice returned, steadier now.
"Understood. Secure all data. Transmit logs via private line. Do not discuss this with other towers."
"Roger that," Rei said quickly.
The comm cut off.
⸻
Aftermath
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The hum of machinery resumed, as if nothing had happened.
The evening light outside glowed faintly through the tower windows.
Toma exhaled. "So… did we just—see something no one else has?"
Rei rubbed her temples. "I don't even know what we saw."
He tried to laugh, but it came out weak. "Maybe the world glitched."
"Yeah," she said softly, "and we're the lucky witnesses."
They sat there for a while, letting the machines calm down around them.
Eventually, Rei typed the final note into the log.
[Incident Type: Unidentified Atmospheric Phenomenon]
[Duration: 0.8 seconds]
[Energy Output: Beyond measurable threshold]
[Status: Reported / Classified]
Toma stretched, still shaken. "If the world ends, at least I'll get overtime pay."
Rei actually laughed, just once. "Idiot."
Outside, the sky was perfectly calm again.
Too calm.
A single red light blinked quietly on the main console.
[Residual Energy Detected – Source Unknown]
The two operators didn't notice.
They were already shutting the tower down for the night.
⸻
End of Chapter 1 – Part 4