A signal appears.
A real person carries something true: a memory, contradiction, gift, fear, pattern, or possibility they may not recognize as remarkable yet.
Operating procedure / the engine
The Method
The Worms find the substance. The Nerd finds the mutation. One process, two kinds of attention.
The Worms go down.
They listen, investigate, and stay with the material long enough to find the story underneath the first story.
The Nerd decodes it.
Curiosity locates the anomaly and asks the question that changes everything: what would this become if it got loose?
A transmission returns.
The source remains human. The transformation becomes horror, science fiction, audio, screen, publishing, lore, or another form the signal demands.