Last House Signal

For nine minutes, an exterior antenna received a narrow-band handshake from a location beyond its documented range.

The signal used fragments of Continuance-era emergency protocol: shelter request, medical capacity query, archive checksum, population status. It also contained a sequence MOTHER could not parse and a return address that did not correspond to any known facility.

MOTHER sent three cautious acknowledgements.

The first returned unchanged. The second returned with an additional line: STILL HERE. The third arrived nineteen hours later, carrying the exact time of its own original transmission.

The signal has not returned.

No authority has agreed whether Last House was another surviving shelter, an automated ruin, a false beacon, or a message meant for someone other than AFTERSEED.