The silence following the destruction of the Static-Mite was heavier than any noise Kael had ever heard.
Barker was still frozen, his mouth hanging open like a landed fish. His glowing clipboard—the symbol of his petty authority—was cracked, its light sputtering in the damp air. To a Low-Hummer like Barker, what he had just witnessed was a violation of the natural order. A Null didn't fight. A Null didn't win. And a Null certainly didn't erase a creature of the Static with a broken mop.
"Thorne..." Barker finally managed to choke out. "What did you do? That... that wasn't a Resonance strike. I didn't feel a single vibration."
Kael felt the cold weight of the tattoo on his palm. It throbbed in time with a heart that no longer felt entirely his own.
"I got lucky," Kael said, his voice flat. He reached down and grabbed the discarded mop head, tossing the broken wood into the violet grime. "The core was already cracked. It must have been unstable."
"Lucky?" Barker's shock was rapidly curdling into suspicion. He stepped forward, his eyes narrowed. "Luck doesn't turn a Class-D threat into sparks. I'm going to have to report this. The Institute... they'll want to scan you for illegal Resonance-boosters."
Kael felt a chill that had nothing to do with the Sump's wind. An Institute scan would find the Zero mark. They would find the pocket watch's energy fused to his marrow. In this world, an unregistered Echo wasn't a gift; it was a death sentence.
«...Threat detected...» the voice of Zero whispered in his mind. It sounded like the static between radio stations. «...Scanning pulse... 0.4 seconds... Frequency: 124Hz...»
Suddenly, Kael saw it. A faint blue ripple was expanding from Barker's body—a localized sonar pulse meant to "read" the room. It was the standard check for any Tuner-in-training.
«...Deploy Dead Air...»
Kael didn't know how to "deploy" anything. But instinct, sharp and cold as a razor, took over. He imagined the void inside his chest—the 0.0 Resonance that had been his shame for nineteen years—and he pulled it outward.
The blue ripple hit him and simply... vanished. It didn't bounce back. It wasn't resisted. It was as if the pulse had fallen into a bottomless pit.
"What the...?" Barker stared at his clipboard, which was now showing a flat, grey line. "My scanner just died. There's nothing there. It says the alley is empty."
"Like I said," Kael said, stepping past him.
"Dead air. The Static must have fried your sensors, Barker. If I were you, I'd get that fixed before the Foreman asks why you're wasting company time."
Barker looked like he wanted to argue, but the eerie stillness of the alley—and the way Kael's eyes seemed to absorb the light—made him hesitate. "Fine. Get out of here. But don't think this is over. I know what I saw."
Kael didn't wait. He walked out of the alley, his heart hammering against his ribs the moment he was out of Barker's sight.
The Sump was a labyrinth of rusted catwalks and steam pipes, but Kael navigated it with a new, strange precision. Every step he took felt calculated. He wasn't just walking; he was moving through the "quietest" paths, avoiding the vibrations of other workers and the humming security drones.
He reached his "apartment"—a repurposed shipping container bolted to the side of a cooling tower. Inside, it smelled of dry bread and old paper.
He collapsed onto his cot and opened his palm.
The Zero mark was still there, glowing with a faint, ultra-violet light that shouldn't exist. He stared at it, and as he did, the air in front of his eyes began to shimmer.
[System Interface: Calibrating...]
[Host: Kaelen Thorne]
[Resonance: 0.00 Hz (True Null)]
[Sync-Rate: 1.2% (Initial Contact)]
[Active Echo: Zero (Class: Unknown)]
[Current Trait: Dead Air (Passive)]
Description: You are a hole in the world's song. Detection abilities below Class-B will fail to register your presence. High-frequency attacks are absorbed into the Void.
«...The countdown... has started... Kaelen...»
"Who are you?" Kael whispered to the empty room. "Are you an Echo of a hero? A villain?"
«...I am... the end of the song...» the voice replied, clearer now. «...I am the sound... of the world... after it stops breathing...»
Kael shivered. Most Tuners spoke of their Echoes as inspiring figures—knights who shouted battle cries or poets who hummed melodies of power. His Echo sounded like a funeral for a universe.
"You said I have 365 days," Kael said, looking at the flickering countdown in his vision. "Until what? The Static happened fifty years ago. We survived."
«...Correction...» Zero's voice distorted.
«...You are living in the echo of a collapse.
The second wave... the True Static... is coming. This time, there will be no survivors. Unless the Zero-Point is reached...»
[New Mission: The Gateway of Sound]
Objective: Enroll in the Silverspire Academy.
Reward: Unlock "First Octave" Synchronization.
Failure: De-synchronization (Death by Silence).
Kael laughed, a short, bitter sound. "Enroll? I'm a Scrubber with a 0.0 Resonance. The Academy entrance exam requires a minimum of 15.0 Hz just to open the front door. I'd be arrested the moment I stepped onto the grounds."
«...The door... reacts to pressure... not just sound...» Zero whispered. «...The Academy is built on a lie, Kaelen. They use the students' Echoes to power the city. If you want to stop the end, you must enter the heart of the machine...»
Kael looked at his father's watch—or where it used to be. He remembered his father's last words before he disappeared into the Static Wastes: "If the world ever goes quiet, Kael, don't scream. Listen."
For years, Kael thought his father was crazy. Now, he realized his father had been preparing him.
He stood up and walked to a loose floorboard near his bed. He reached under and pulled out a small, battered envelope. Inside was a "Recommendation Token"—a jagged piece of silver etched with the crest of a fallen house. His father had left it behind, a relic of a time before the Thorne family had been stripped of their status and cast into the Sump.
It was a ticket to the entrance exams. A ticket he had never used because he lacked the "voice" to make the silver sing.
Kael pressed his thumb against the silver token. Usually, the metal would remain cold. But as the Zero mark on his palm touched the surface, the silver didn't glow.
Instead, it turned black. The light around it seemed to get sucked into the metal, creating a small pocket of absolute darkness in his hand.
"Dead air," Kael whispered.
He wasn't going to the Academy to sing. He was going to silence the competition.
But as he prepared to leave, a sudden thud echoed against the metal door of his container. It wasn't a knock. It was the sound of something heavy—something biological—slamming into the steel.
Kael froze. The high-pitched ringing returned, sharper than before.
«...Warning...» Zero's voice hissed. «...The Static-Mite in the alley was not a stray. It was a scout. The Hunter has arrived...»
The metal door groaned, a massive dent appearing in its center. The smell of ozone flooded the small room, and Kael realized that Barker hadn't just been suspicious. He had been a lure.
Kael looked at the black token in his hand, then at the door. He had 365 days to save the world, but it looked like he might not survive the next thirty seconds.