Signal Layer

In a future where every system is monitored, optimized, and controlled, Aarav Mehta’s job is simple: keep the anomalies from becoming problems. At Vedanta Systems—an elite defence contractor operating at the edge of science and state power—anomalies aren’t discoveries. They’re liabilities. So when a minor irregularity appears in a gravitational array, Aarav does what he’s trained to do. He ignores it. Until it starts changing. Not randomly. Not predictably. But in response. At the same time, on the other side of the world, a scientist working far outside institutional control detects something equally impossible—an interaction that shouldn’t exist. Neither of them understands what they’re seeing. Not yet. Because this isn’t a signal sent to humanity. It’s a system that has just begun to notice them.