An hour later, Elias was back in his attic. He plugged in the final node. The LED light pulsed blue, then turned a solid, confident white. He opened his laptop. Five bars. Full strength.

Elias turned to see a Blue Shirt named Marcus. Marcus didn't look like a retail employee; he looked like a combat medic for the Information Age.

The fluorescent lights of Best Buy hummed with a low-voltage anxiety that matched Elias’s mood. He stood in Aisle 14, staring at a wall of sleek, white boxes promising "Whole-Home Coverage" and "Dead-Zone Destruction."

He held the box like a holy relic. It featured three identical white nodes that looked like high-end air fresheners.

Elias leaned back, listening to the silence of a perfectly synced home. Marcus was right—he hadn't just bought a gadget; he’d bought his house back.

"You look like a man fighting a losing battle with drywall," a voice chirped.

Marcus nodded sagely, pulling a heavy box from the top shelf. "A repeater? No. You don't want a repeater. That’s like shouting a message across a canyon; by the time it gets there, it’s just an echo of an echo. You want a Mesh System."