Fatal Signal

You answer the catwalk light with one quick flash from the ridge. For half a heartbeat nothing happens. Then the return comes not as a signal but as sound: a rifle crack that bounces off the quarry walls and folds the silence into itself. Stone chips jump beside your hand. Whoever watches the tower is not checking identities before they fire. The second shot is closer, and by the time you drop away from the ridge your view of Hollow Pine is gone. You never learn whether the signal was meant for a truck, a buyer, or a warning. You only learn that in this network, being seen is the same as being chosen.