The city isn't quiet tonight. It's holding its breath and timing yours.
The resonance chamber was never meant to feel intimate. It was glass and metal and policy. But at 2:13 a.m., with the auxiliary lights dimmed to a violet hush, it felt like the room had leaned in to listen.
Echo sat cross-legged on the chair, bare feet on the cold plate. Her hands rested on her shins, fingers shallow-breathing against skin. Behind the glass, Dray watched from the control bay with a medic's stillness and an engineer's dread. His reflection hung where his face should be — half a second late, like the glass hadn't decided which moment to show.
"Neural frequency stable," he said, voice low.
"Define stable." Echo kept her eyes on the far wall. The air there wasn't empty; it shimmered, like sound waiting for permission to exist.
The monitors twitched. The hum returned.
> HELLO
Not spoken. Felt.
Dray's breath caught. "It's talking again."
"No," Echo said. "It's listening."
The hum deepened — like it had just learned her name.