Page 122 of Fractured Devotion
The variable I can’t control.
Because control was the only thing keeping me sane.
And the only thing more dangerous than loving her now… is letting her go.
I try to sleep. I do. But sleep and I were never lovers. At best, we shared a few unpleasant nights. Now, it’s just a formality. A muscle that I go through the motions of flexing. My body lies still, but my mind stays wired, backed up against walls that hum with electric ghosts.
I get up sometime past four.
The lights stay off, and I move through the darkness like it’s coded into me, my feet soundless against the floor. I cross theroom casually, my fingers brushing against the cool edge of the kitchenette counter. For no reason, no conscious one, at least, I crouch and open the cabinet beneath the sink.
I don’t know what I’m looking for. Maybe cleaning supplies. Maybe something sharp. Maybe nothing at all.
But then I see it.
Tucked behind a box of sealed protein bars, like it belongs to no one, is a drive. It’s small and matte black. Nearly invisible.
Except I’ve seen it before.
Those times when she thought no one was watching.
It’s Celeste’s drive, the one Alec gave her.
The one she never lets out of sight.
I don’t touch it. Not yet. I just stare.
Then, I move back through the dark to the living room. I grab my laptop from the side of the couch, feeling lucky I brought it with me, as I move back to the kitchenette. I flip it open and boot it silently. The screen’s soft glow spills across the counter as I reach back into the cabinet, unwrap the drive, and slide it into the port.
The folder tree populates immediately. It’s encrypted, yes, but not beyond me.
I decrypt the top layer, and inside are several directories, obscure and deeply nested. One is labeled “EchoRoot” in a naming convention that shouldn’t exist anymore.
I open it.
There, buried near the bottom, is an audio file marked only with a timestamp: 0704_REDLINE.
I click play.
At first, it’s just static.
Then a soft click.
Then a tone.
I recognize it instantly. It’s the subharmonic pattern of early Echo test signals. Predecessor algorithms to what werun now. Most of them were banned. Most were deemed too invasive, too unpredictable. But I memorized them all. Because you don’t just study the enemy. You become fluent in their grammar.
Then another soft click.
And then a tone.
And this, this tone, is one Celeste was exposed to as a child. It’s not theory and not speculation. I know because I coded a fragment of it into a test model recently. I even ran it once. On myself.
It gave me a seizure.
I listen anyway.
And buried beneath the digital scream, there’s a voice. A soft whisper. It’s almost mechanical, but unmistakably human. “Celestia… wake up.”
