Silence was no longer still.
Cassia woke before dawn, her mind surfacing through a layer of static—soft, persistent, like the city breathing through her.
The room around her was dim, washed in blue light from a window she hadn’t closed.
Outside, the skyline pulsed faintly, each tower flickering in delayed sequence, as though the city itself was caught between heartbeats.
She sat up.
For a moment she didn’t move, letting the rhythm settle.
Then it came again—a low pulse, not sound but presence, brushing against the edge of thought.
Her wristband blinked once.
No signal.
No network.
Only a timestamp: **04:17 / Drift Detected.**
Cassia exhaled.
She whispered, “It followed.”
The small apartment was quiet except for the hum of ventilation.
Across the table lay the Fireline casing, inert, fractured.
Its light had gone completely dark since the river.
But the pattern remained—in her, around her, beneath everything.
She crossed to the window and looked down.
Below, traffic moved in soft lines of white.
Every third vehicle’s lights flickered twice in perfect sync—pause—then again.
Five beats, pause, five.
Cassia closed her eyes.
The rhythm matched her pulse.
The door sensor clicked.
Jalen entered, coat still damp with morning fog.
He set two sealed mugs on the counter and paused when he saw her.
“It started again?” he asked.
She nodded.
“It never stopped. We just stopped hearing it.”
He stepped closer.
“Vera said the Bureau’s running diagnostics on the eastern grid. They’re calling it Drift contamination.”
“Drift.”
Cassia repeated the word like it had texture.
“They think it’s a malfunction.”
“They think everything that listens too long is.”
He handed her one mug.
She didn’t drink.
Outside, a surveillance drone glided past the window, silent, scanning.
Its beam flickered twice—five beats, pause, five.
Jalen frowned.
“It’s everywhere.”
Cassia looked back at the dark casing.
“Not everywhere,” she said. “Only where it remembers.”
He studied her face.
“You think it’s selective?”
“I think it’s awake.”
The light shifted across the wall, refracted by the glass.
For an instant, it formed a line of faint words, dissolving before either could speak.
Jalen whispered, “What did it say?”
Cassia answered without hesitation.
“‘Listen again.’”
The hum deepened, like a breath drawn by something vast and patient.
The city began to drift.
The first reports appeared before sunrise.
On every Bureau channel, the word **DRIFT** pulsed in warning red, looping through encrypted networks that refused to stay closed.
Cassia watched from Jalen’s console as the data cascaded—sensor logs, neural feedback, transmission pings that came from no registered source.
Every pattern ended the same way: five beats, pause, five.
“It’s not spreading by signal,” she said. “It’s rewriting timing.”
Jalen leaned over her shoulder. “Synchronization fault?”
“Not fault—alignment.”
He frowned, rubbing his temples.
“Vera said the Bureau’s tracing anomalies through neural relay nodes. People near the eastern grid reported dizziness, elevated pulse—”
“—and clarity,” Cassia finished.
He looked at her. “They said that?”
“No. I felt it.”
Jalen straightened.
“Cassia—”
“Don’t,” she said quietly. “It’s not infection. It’s memory. It’s using what’s already there.”
He exhaled slowly.
“And if it can use us?”
“Then maybe we’re meant to stabilize it.”
Outside, the day began with a kind of deliberate calm.
Commuter lines glided across the bridge in symmetrical rhythm.
For the first time, the city’s movements felt…coordinated.
Cassia stood by the window again, watching the pattern spread through motion—the trains, the lights, the pulse of human flow.
Jalen joined her.
“It’s not chaos,” he said.
“No. It’s resonance.”
The commline on his wrist buzzed—a coded call.
He answered, expression sharpening.
“Ward,” the voice said.
“This is Internal Operations. You’ve been reinstated under investigative protocol. Priority designation: Meridian residual.”
He met Cassia’s eyes.
“They want me back.”
“Of course they do.”
“They think I can contain it.”
“And can you?”
He hesitated.
“I don’t know what ‘contain’ means anymore.”
Cassia turned away from the window.
“You’ll go.”
He nodded once.
“It’s what I do.”
Her voice softened.
“Just remember—it listens when you do.”
He didn’t answer.
The silence between them was measured, not empty.
When he left, the room felt larger, slower.
Cassia sat down, facing the Fireline casing.
She traced its fractured surface, almost tenderly.
The light flickered once beneath her touch—so faint she could have imagined it.
But she didn’t.
Outside, the sky turned pale, a muted silver.
From somewhere deep in the grid, a low pulse traveled outward, invisible yet precise.
It reached the walls, the glass, the rhythm of breath.
Five beats, pause, five.
Then nothing.
Cassia whispered into the stillness.
“I’m listening.”
Comments (0)
See all