The words arrived suddenly and unavoidably, the way an Omnibus fills a corridor. Remembering he had pocketed it, he pulled it out and stared at it. He noticed something scribbled in the bottom corner that he hadn’t seen the first time.
Orin.
He had to go see him. But Kael had been the one to Relegate Orin to the Fray during the Unburdening—classified him as an Agent of Dissonance. A stubborn musician who had chosen Relegation over re-attunement. Kael had never understood why people would choose to keep their burdens.
He was beginning to.
Though he remembered the general direction he’d sent Orin for Relegation, there was a possibility that he had wandered The Fray, and that he could have landed anywhere over the last four years.
There was only one way to know for sure where Orin had landed. The AOD satellite. He could access the Coil’s system, and locate him within the hour.
He sat with that thought for a moment.
There was always a log of who accessed Coil systems. Especially the ones used to track Agents of Dissonance. An unauthorized query from a Harmony Strategist’s credentials–in the town he had just been assigned to review, on the same morning his report was delayed–would not go unnoticed for long.
His stomach twisted as he ran through the consequences. He knew what he’d be risking. There was a word for it that Harmonious citizens almost never said aloud. Imprisonment. Reserved, theoretically, for those who had turned against the Coil itself.
There were only whispered rumors of it ever happening. And in the Harmonious Coil, whispered rumors were rare enough to mean something.
The pain in his spine returned.
He went to his spotless desk, pulled out his tablet, and sat for just a moment on the home screen. Then he made his move – navigated the interface, found the satellite access page, and entered in his login credentials. He searched for Orin’s name.
He had settled in the forest not far from Oakhaven.
The satellite had a livestream. Kael watched as Orin sat on his porch, playing his guitar. He set the instrument across his knees and tilted his face toward the sun. No corridor. No schedule. Just a man sitting still because he chose to.
“Of course he’s playing his guitar,” Kael said to himself. His cheeks felt warm — irritation, he recognized from the Coil Lexicon of Regulated States.
He closed the feed.
He could only reach the Oakhaven city limits through Coil approved methods. After that, he would either have to walk or do something he’d never done before: drive a Private Combustion Vehicle or ride a horse. PCVs were permitted outside Unburdened zones with Strategist authorization — but they were loud and they smelled of the old world.
And horses were alive.
There was already too much he didn’t understand. His own two feet were more predictable than his other choices.
He set out from his apartment with nothing but his Coil phone, and headed for his assigned GAC.
He tapped his key card on the screen on the door of the carriage and gave his requested finger print.
“Welcome, Kael Renwick.”
The same voice. The same door. He didn’t feel welcomed. He didn’t know what he felt. He just knew he did.
“You have no assigned destinations. Please enter your requested destination.”
He keyed in the last stop on the forest side of town.
“Destination approved,” the voice said. The glow ribbon on the ceiling turned from blue to white.
The carriage moved. He sat with his hands flat on his knees, the way trainees were taught to present themselves at review: composed, purposeful. He was neither.
He kept his eyes toward the floor. He didn’t want to look at the ghosts outside. Even this short trip would have been too long to stare out at them.
When he got to the stop and got out onto the flow corridor, he hesitated before stepping off and looked around. No one was watching him.
Except the Coil. They had cameras everywhere.
His foot wouldn’t move at first. Not a conscious decision — just his body, trained, waiting for permission that wasn’t coming.
He looked at the sign. “Follow Your Flow.”
Then he stepped off.
He felt it immediately. A full-body vibration, low and persistent, like something in the ground itself objecting. A slight ringing began in his ears. He knew it would stop once he got out of city limits. He’d been the one to create the system, and its boundaries.
He didn’t let himself look back again after the first time. Looking back felt like the kind of thing that could stop a person entirely.
He set his sights on the tree line. The ringing followed him. He kept walking.
The ringing in his ears faded somewhere in the open field — so gradually he didn't notice until it was gone. The ground beneath his feet felt different without the vibration. Just ground. The sun was at its peak, and beating down on him in the open field between town and the forest.
He looked up from time to time and wondered if the Coil had sent a satellite to locate him yet. If they hadn’t by now, it wouldn’t be long.
A wave of relief hit him when he finally got to the shade of some trees. He paused for a minute, and looked back at where he had come from. He could barely make out the GAC stop from here. The grays, whites and beiges of the town looked different now. They were only interrupted by the colored directional lines of the flow corridors and the blue glow lights inside GACs in transit.
Turning back to the forest was a striking contrast. Vibrant greens all around, with pinks, purples, and blues popping out sporadically. Even the brown tree trunks had more vividness than the browns he was used to.
And the sounds. Birds were chirping. Wind rustled the leaves. It was both too quiet and too loud. His brain couldn’t decide if it was pleased with the lack of Harmony music being replaced by nature.
Yet, the wind whispers in the leaves.
The leaves under his feet began to crunch as he resumed his mission toward Orin. It was a straight line from where he left Oakhaven to his cabin in the woods. He expected that he’d know he was getting close when he heard the sound of a guitar.
He had never walked without a surface telling him where to go. There were no lines here, no haptic hum, no voice guiding him. He kept moving because the trees were ahead of him and Orin was somewhere in them. That was all the direction he had.
About five minutes into the woods, he heard something large moving. He stopped in his tracks.
A deer was making its way through the forest. When it noticed Kael, it also stopped. They stared at each other.
Kael had never seen a deer in real life. He could see its ears twitch and rotated in ways he didn’t think should be possible.
Something came over him that he recognized as fright. He had always been told that wild animals of any kind were unpredictable and dangerous. Would this creature impale me with those big horns if I move?
After what felt like a lifetime, the deer appeared to get bored of their staredown, and pranced away. Before Kael could finish blinking, it was gone.
The trembling he had felt started to subside. He took a deep breath. Keep the salt water locked up, Kael, he told himself as he started forward again.
A short while later, he heard it. The soft strumming of strings.
He was running before he decided to. He could see the roof of a house just over some bushes. He burst through them, and stopped.
The music stopped as Orin turned toward him with a start. Kael could see something was happening with his face. At first, his brow scrunched together. Then his head cocked to the side. Then, his face softened into something Kael didn't have a word for. Finally, a small smirk crossed Orin's lips.
Three of those four expressions, Kael could name. The third one stayed with him.
"Renwick," Orin sang the word like the opening note of a song. "Are you able to hear me all the way from the valley?"
“What He has spoken cannot be undone,” was all Kael could force his mouth to say before a drop of salt water broke through.
