On Juno’s bench, the first withdrawal worked.
No one cheered. The volunteers were not connected, and the anchor stood cold beyond the engineers’ table. A recorded contribution from the operational trial passed through the reserve model, met its agreed ending point, and disappeared when the independent operator opened the input.
The reserve carried the short gap.
The neighboring model anchor had already been sharing the load. Its indicator rose, accepted the transfer, and remained steady through the interval Juno had marked.
Eli looked at the time strip.
“That is what we wanted?”
“That is one condition,” Juno said.
She reset the apparatus.
