One of the Heart's lower labs was too bright for this hour.

Hikari stepped in first. Esen followed, boots softer than usual like he was trying to be polite to the floor. The door sealed behind them with a small sigh.

Feris floated in the center of the room. She slept with her hair drifting around her face. She didn't rise or fall. She just floated.

Alteea stood at the console, one hand flat on the glass, the other tapping through readouts without looking. Numbers ran like rain. A single green line sat across one of the larger panels. Not moving. Same exact metrics, every second.

"You're here" Alteea said, voice even. "Good."

Hikari came closer. Esen stopped beside the ring and tilted his head, watching Feris like you watch a friend who does a trick you don't understand.

"What changed?" Hikari asked.

"Nothing" Alteea said. She gestured to the green line. "That's the problem."

Hikari looked. The axis tags made the story simple. Internal Eon retention, normalized to baseline.

"How long has it been this flat?" Hikari said.

"Since the literal beginning" Alteea said. "Every approach we tried bumped it for a second and it went right back. Dampeners. Reverse coils. Siphon lattice. Null foam. If it made engineers excited, we tried it."

Esen whistled under his breath. "She's stubborn even when she sleeps"

Alteea rubbed two fingers along her brow, then pointed at a smaller panel. Feris's vitals were calm. Normal, relaxed. Beside them, a tiny model of a human shape rotated, showing channels in soft light. Most were lit. Not blazing. Just lit.

"She's not in pain" Alteea said. "No signs of stress. No degradation. But the charge is constant. As if her body decided Eon is part of her blood."

Hikari studied the rotating model. In her head she mirrored it, flattened it, stacked the channels like strings on a harp. When she blinked, numbers kept going behind her eyes.

"Why isn't it dispersing into the field?" she said. "Even a few percent?"

Alteea tapped another chart that showed small spikes of emission at regular intervals. "It tries. The containment takes a little. The overall environment takes a little. But her body pulls it right back. Think of a sponge that never reaches saturation. The water just chooses not to leave."

Esen leaned closer and stuck his tongue out like he could taste the field. Hikari glanced at him. He shrugged.

"Old habit" he said. "Tastes like nothing"

Hikari stepped to the console and pulled up the raw stream. No sawtooth decay. No lag. Just a flat road through a quiet country. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth for a second, then let it go.

"What have you ruled out?" she said.

"Everything that makes sense" Alteea said. "And a few things that don't."

Hikari's fingers hovered over the glass without touching it. She pictured two fields, like hands held apart in the air. If you tuned them to opposite points, the space between could soften. It wouldn't strip the charge. But it might persuade it to stop clinging so hard.

"If we place two artificial Eon fields on the sides of the ring" she said, slow, thinking as she spoke "and tune them at opposing resonance points, the overlap could cancel the effect"

Alteea looked at her. "Interference"

Hikari nodded. "We'd need them precise. If they drift, the overlap turns dirty and burns. But if it sits where we want it, it should loosen the hold. For a while."

Alteea's face hardly moved when she liked an idea. A single line at the corner of her mouth softened.

"Temporary" she said. "The moment the fields power down, her channels will drink again. Like stopping a stream with two sticks and then taking them away."

"Then we keep them on a while" Esen said, as if that solved it.

"We're not leaving her between two risky walls for a week" Alteea said. "We can't chew the same spot in her channels. We'll scar it."

Hikari shifted the model with two fingers and zoomed along Feris's side, tracing the larger lines. "What if we pulse the interference" she said. "Low amplitude. Short cycles. On and off. The body might learn to release in the off beats"

"Training a reflex" Alteea said.

"Exactly" Hikari said. "If we do it slow, it won't shock the channels. It has to feel like a rhythm, not a fight."

"Still too much" Alteea said. "Too much difference between the fields and we fry everything we want to keep."

Esen shifted his weight. He looked to the screens, then to his hands. He opened and closed them like he was checking if they were still there.

"Wait. What if we just" he said, then paused, searching for a word he thought they'd like "uh. Slap her with Eon waves?"

Alteea and Hikari both looked at him. At the same time.

"Not hard" Esen added quickly, lifting his palms in surrender. "Not like my shockwaves. Like taps. Rhythmic. You shake a bottle and the bubbles come up. Same thing. But you know. With Eon."

Hikari pinched the bridge of her nose. She let out a small grin.

Alteea blinked once. "Slap..."

"Waves" Esen said. "Small ones. I make big ones. I can make small ones. It's not always a contest."

Hikari met Alteea's eyes. "Rhythmic external bursts could destabilize the field from the outside. If we balance the amplitude to match her internal hold, it might persuade the charge to step out instead of dig in"

Esen grinned. "So. Eon Slap Theory"

Alteea exhaled through her nose. "We are not calling it a slap"

"Eon Slap" Esen said.

"No" Alteea said.

"The Gentle Persuasion" Esen said, proud of himself.

Hikari's mouth curved. She straightened it before Alteea could notice.

"Alright" Alteea said. "We don't have a better path. We keep it controlled. No heroics. Esen, you'll give us micro bursts in a simple pattern to start. One every two seconds, then one every second. We watch the line for any movement. The first hint of spike or drop, we stop."

"Simple pattern..." Esen mumbled. "Like a slow dance. I can do a slow dance"

"Keep your hands to yourself" Alteea warned him.

"Noted" Esen said.

Hikari looked up at Feris again. Even asleep, she looked stubborn.

"What if the first cycle helps and the second doesn't?" Hikari asked. "We might have to randomize the pattern..."

Alteea walked to a small cabinet and opened it. She took out two plates the size of her hand and passed them to Hikari. "Place these at the four and eight positions on the ring around Feris. Shape the field in, not out."

Hikari fixed one plate to a clean bracket and felt it click into the right place. The second took some tries. When she backed out, the ring shimmered, almost shy.

Alteea watched Feris's line. Nothing moved. She nodded once.

"Esen" she said. "Hands up. Palms toward the ring. Imagine you're sending rain under a door"

"I have never done that" Esen said.

"Do it now" Alteea said.

He planted his feet and eased his hands up, fingers loose, wrists soft. The first pulse left his hands with a quiet sound - a pressure that brushed the air. The ring answered with a ripple so small you would miss it if you weren't waiting to see it.

The line twitched. Not much. Just a heartbeat's worth.

Hikari and Alteea leaned the same two centimeters without agreeing to.

"Again" Alteea said.

Again. Pulse. Pulse. He counted in his head and on his breath. He didn't try to be powerful.

He tried to be even. Then he tightened his stance. The next series came a little faster, like a quiet drum. The lab lights didn't flicker. The consoles didn't complain (yet). Feris turned a fraction in the air like someone had moved the light.

The line moved.

Not far. Not forever. But it moved. Down, a hair. Hikari didn't breathe. Alteea did not blink.

"Hold" Alteea said.

Esen froze, hands still raised.

The line lowered a little. It flattened.

"Again" Alteea repeated.

Esen pulsed. A soft tap. The line lowered the smallest measurable step, again.

"Okay" Alteea said, quietly. "We might have something."

Esen grinned at Hikari without moving his hands. "Told you. Science"

Alteea did not smile. Her eyes did.

"Don't name it" she said.

"I already did!" Esen let out a wide smile. "Eon Slap! Good title"

"Terrible title" Hikari replied.

"Accurate title" Esen corrected.

Alteea let herself smile again. "We'll call it pulsed guided discharge" she said. "And you can call it whatever you want when I'm not around"

Esen beamed. "Deal"

She watched the line a few seconds more, then lifted her hand. "Alright. Stop for now."

Esen lowered his arms. The line held at the new level for three breaths and then crept up the tiniest bit, like a stubborn child trying to sneak back to a cookie jar.

"Temporary, for now." Alteea said. "But real."

Hikari nodded. "If we run longer, stronger cycles, we might teach her body to let go by itself. Not now, though."

Esen shook his hands out and flexed his fingers. "My arms agree with later"

Alteea shut the mechanisms down. The ring went clear again. Feris didn't even move in her sleep. If you could see her, she'd remind you of a log.

"We'll get clearance for a controlled protocol" Alteea said. "No improvising. Controlled, big waves. We do this patient and boring, or we don't do it at all."

"Patient and boring" Esen said. "My two favorite things"

Hikari looked at Feris a last time before they left.

"Hang in there..." not quite under her breath.

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