The System - Prologue: Emergent
The monitoring station was a simple metal box secured to a post, with two probes and a motion sensor. The project, sponsored and maintained by the local college, had been collecting data for years.
The sensor ticked once.
The signal spike lasted longer than the quick darting of a fish or the drifting of debris.
After the spike, the stream continued its quiet movement over the gravel bed.
The sensor recorded another signal, of much longer duration than the last.
Then another.
Below the surface, something adjusted itself to the current and began mapping the place's pattern.
Just then, a young woman from the college drove up in a pickup truck, grabbing her field bag as she exited. She followed the trail to the monitoring station.
She opened the access panel and checked the battery voltage. Scrolling through the readings on a small LCD, she copied the information into her notebook, writing carefully and precisely. She paused briefly at an unusually long spike, then closed the panel door.
As she was preparing to go to the next monitoring station, the sensor ticked again.
A sudden thrashing disrupted the stream's quiet flow.
Seeing nothing, she continued to the next station.
This time, the pattern quietly changed.
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