They ran blind through the tunnels, feet pounding against stone, breaths sharp and ragged in the cold air. Sirens echoed behind them, bouncing off the walls in shrill warning.
Kael stumbled once, nearly falling, but Mira yanked him upright before he hit the ground. Her grip was iron, her pace relentless. The circle of rebels had scattered, vanishing into side passages like ghosts.
"Keep up," she hissed. Her voice was low, but the sound still jolted Kael. It was strange to hear someone speak so freely, with no fear of punishment.
They turned a corner, plunging into a narrow shaft that smelled of rust and damp. Mira slammed her hand against a panel, and a hidden door creaked open. She shoved Kael inside and followed, pulling it shut just as the glow of drones washed over the tunnel.
The sirens faded. Darkness pressed in.
Kael bent over, clutching his knees, chest heaving. He had never run so hard in his life. Mira, by contrast, straightened calmly, listening through the walls. After a long silence, she finally relaxed.
"They won't find us here," she said. "Not yet."
Kael looked around. The room was small, lit only by the faint green glow of an old generator. Scraps of technology lay scattered across tables: broken VoxTags, tangled wires, ancient radios. Maps of Orven Prime were pinned to the walls, red lines cutting through the underground like veins.
It was a rebel den.
Mira watched him take it in. "You're wondering why we do it. Why risk death just to whisper."
Kael met her gaze. His throat ached with words that could never come. He simply nodded.
"Because silence isn't peace," she said, her voice low but fierce. "It's a cage. The Accord doesn't just stop people from speaking, they're erasing us. Language, songs, stories. Every year, words vanish from the approved lexicon. Soon, we'll have nothing left but their scripts. Their truth."
She stepped closer, eyes burning with quiet defiance. "But a voice… a voice can change everything. One voice becomes many. Many voices become impossible to silence."
Kael swallowed hard. He wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe that sound—something he had never possessed—could shatter the walls of Orven Prime.
Mira turned, rummaging through a crate. When she faced him again, she held a small device, no larger than her palm. A crude speaker, patched together from scraps.
She pressed it into his hands. "You can't speak. But maybe you can still be heard."
Kael frowned, confused. Mira explained: "We've been building a way to disrupt the VoxTags. A resonance strong enough to give people a few seconds, seconds of freedom. If we can spread it, the Accord will lose control."
She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. "We need someone who moves unseen. Someone the Accord won't suspect. Someone like you."
Kael's chest tightened. Him? A factory worker, voiceless, invisible? He wanted to shake his head, to refuse. But then he remembered the circle in the tunnels—the prayer, the poem, the laugh.
For the first time in his life, silence hadn't felt empty. It had felt alive.
Mira's eyes searched his face. "Will you help us, Kael Arin?"
He looked down at the device in his hand. His fingers trembled. Slowly, he nodded.
Mira's lips curved in the faintest smile. "Good. Then your first mission begins tomorrow."
From somewhere deep in the tunnels, a distant sound drifted through the walls. A siren. A drone's metallic whir.
And beneath it, faint but real, the echo of a human voice. Singing.