At Pier Nine, the rusted maintenance panel gives way exactly where Dallas Fontaine left it. The cramped cavity behind it is no simple bypass. Vacuum tubes throb in a wire cage, and occult sigils have been painted over the metal like a warning someone tried to hide.

Dallas adjusts the switches. The steady thump on the broadcast line rises into a thin, coherent note, sharp enough to crawl up the walls. The red pulse in the pier seam brightens, as if something on the far side has noticed him.

From the service door deeper in the pier, a low impact rolls through the frame, not a knock but a pressure test. The hidden mechanism answers with a hungry hiss, and the room stinks of hot dust and old insulation.

Dallas sees it now, the tubes are siphoning the signal, not sealing it. The wall seam burns red, rhythmic and alive, while the door at the end of the corridor shudders once more, as if something behind it is waking up to the sound.