The relay tower stood at the edge of Aurelia’s southern industrial zone, a thin spine of metal rising into overcast sky. Most of its panels had been stripped for parts years ago, leaving only the central core and a single maintenance room that still drew minimal power. Cassia liked it precisely because it was forgotten.

She arrived first, climbing the outer steps with the Fireline drive secured under her jacket. The air smelled faintly of rain on iron. Inside, the maintenance lights buzzed once before stabilizing, casting amber lines across the walls. She exhaled. Controlled isolation had always been easier than conversation.

Footsteps echoed behind her. Jalen Ward’s voice followed.  

“You didn’t pick the most subtle meeting spot.”

Cassia glanced over her shoulder. “No one looks twice at obsolete tech.”

He closed the door behind him. “Unless they’re obsolete tech investigators.”

“Then it’s poetic.”

He set a small thermal flask on the table, unscrewed the lid. “Coffee. No sugar.”

“You assume my preferences.”

“I read people.”

She took the cup anyway. “Occupational hazard?”

“Occupational reflex.”  

Their dialogue fit together like mismatched puzzle pieces—edges that shouldn’t align but did once you stopped forcing them.

Jalen leaned against the metal desk. “You said you had something to show me.”

Cassia slid the Fireline drive into the relay’s main console. “You’ll want to see this before you decide if helping me breaks another rule.”

The screen flared alive. Lines of code scrolled upward in steady rhythm, then froze. A single string highlighted itself:

**SUBJECT NEURAL REFERENCE: ELARA VOSS // PRIMARY MODEL A-17**

Jalen’s brow furrowed. “Neural reference?”

“She wasn’t running diagnostics. She was the model.”

“You mean—”

“I mean Fireline isn’t monitoring a system. It’s replicating one.”  

He rubbed his temple. “This is beyond medical jurisdiction.”

“Which explains why it’s buried under it.”  

She expanded the directory tree. Dozens of tagged profiles appeared—each one a name, each one marked *inactive.* Only one blinked green.

**VOSS, ELARA — STATUS: ACTIVE**

The green icon pulsed like a heartbeat. For a moment, neither spoke.

Cassia’s voice softened. “She’s alive. Or something close.”

Jalen stepped closer, eyes fixed on the screen. “Could be residual data.”

“Residual data doesn’t update timestamps.”

He checked the system clock. The last recorded sync was two hours ago.

“Someone’s using her access.”  

Cassia nodded slowly. “And now they’ll know we’re looking.”

As if summoned by the words, the monitor flickered. The interface collapsed into static.

**TRACE DETECTED // CONNECTION COMPROMISED**

“Disconnect,” Jalen ordered.

She pulled the drive free, hand steady. “Too late?”

“Maybe not.” He grabbed his comm tablet, blocking its signal manually. The static faded.

For a few seconds, only their breathing filled the space. Then Cassia laughed quietly—an edge of disbelief, maybe relief.  

“You realize we’re now officially accomplices.”

He met her gaze. “Then we should get our stories straight.”

They moved to the far wall, sitting opposite each other on the floor. Rain tapped the tower’s metal ribs. Jalen drew a small notebook from his pocket—paper, not digital.

“You still write on that?” Cassia asked.

“Redundancy. Can’t hack handwriting.”

“Bold statement from someone with neat cursive.”

He smiled faintly, flipping to a clean page. “Let’s start simple. When did you last see your mother?”

Cassia stared at the blank wall behind him, not the question. “Nine years ago. She told me she was taking a short assignment. I was sixteen. Hale said it was classified and that she’d write when it was safe.”  

“And she didn’t.”

“No.” Her voice didn’t waver. “But I found her signature on medical shipments after that. Same code string, same location tags. Someone kept using her credentials.”

Jalen noted something in his book. “You think she’s being impersonated?”

“I think she’s being preserved.”

He looked up. “That’s not comforting.”

“Neither is accuracy.”

Silence stretched again, long enough for the rain to find rhythm. She noticed he didn’t press further. He just let quiet exist until it stopped feeling like interrogation.

“Your turn,” she said. “Why help me?”

“Because my report was rewritten.”

“That’s not altruism.”

“It’s curiosity. Maybe conscience.”

“Dangerous mix.”

“Occupational hazard,” he echoed, and she smiled.

Hours passed in coded silence. Cassia connected the drive to an isolated terminal, running a non-networked emulator. Jalen monitored interference levels on a handheld scanner, occasionally glancing at her profile reflected in the screen.

At 0200, the emulator displayed a fragmented message:

**PHASE 3: MEMORY TRANSFER VALIDATION — INITIATE NODE REPLICATION**

Cassia frowned. “Phase three?”

Jalen’s tone dropped. “If phase two was operational testing, phase three means deployment.”

“Of what?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. They both watched as a new directory appeared—timestamped current date.

**WARD, JALEN — ACCESS PENDING**

Cassia’s pulse stilled. “They’re adding you.”

He stepped back, eyes narrowing. “That’s impossible.”

“They’re copying personnel profiles. Yours just synced.”

“How?”

“You logged the interference manually. The system traced it.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Then we’re both tagged.”

“Congratulations. You’re officially obsolete tech too.”

Despite everything, he laughed—a short, startled sound. “You find this funny?”

“I find it symmetrical.”

“Symmetry’s overrated.”

“Tell that to your hair.”

He raised a brow. “You noticed.”

“I notice everything.”

That shut him up, but the silence wasn’t cold. It hummed between them like residual static, the kind that lingers after a signal cuts off but before the next one starts.

By dawn, the rain had cleared. They packed their equipment, erasing every trace they could. Cassia unplugged the relay’s final cable.

“Where do we go next?” Jalen asked.

“Redfield was a decoy. The real data hub’s off-grid—southern transit line, under the decommissioned hospital.”

“You’ve been busy.”

“I don’t sleep much.”

“I noticed.”

She looked at him then, longer than before. “You should walk separately. If they’re tracking profiles, we’ll split the trace.”

“You trust me to regroup?”

“I trust patterns.”

“And what pattern am I?”

“The inconvenient kind.”

He smiled, small but real. “We’re building consistency.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

They exited through opposite gates. Cassia disappeared into the steady rhythm of city traffic. Jalen lingered by the tower’s perimeter fence, watching condensation slide down the metal beams. He thought of the line between caution and connection, how easily one blurred into the other.

He took out his notebook, wrote one line beneath the rest:  

*She notices everything.*

Then he closed it, pocketed it, and walked toward the tram line.

Later that morning, Cassia accessed a private node in the southern grid. The Fireline drive’s new partition contained a single audio file labeled *A-17 Echo.* She hesitated before pressing play.

A woman’s voice, faint but steady, filled the room.  

“Cassia, if you’re hearing this, they’ve begun the replication phase. Hale will know what to do. Trust only those who ask the right questions.”

Then silence.

She stared at the waveform on-screen until it stopped moving. Outside, the tram bells chimed twice—two beats, perfectly even.  

It felt like acknowledgment, or maybe warning. Either way, she smiled.  

“Guess I’m still listening.”

And somewhere across the city, Jalen Ward looked up from his own reflection in a passing train window, feeling—without knowing why—that the signal had just reached him.