The city bled noise tonight. Not the kind that fills the air — not sirens or traffic — but that low hum that lived in the bones of machines, in the teeth of every light that flickered over the rooftops. Stitch could hear it when he closed his eyes, the soft current running through every panel, every drone, every pulse of glass and steel.
He'd started to recognize it — like a second language. The city's voice.
They were perched in what used to be a signal relay tower, long since stripped and sold for parts. Rust and circuitry shared the walls, and the rain tapped like impatient fingers on the metal roof. Stitch sat near the open hatch, a soldering tool between his fingers, piecing together the small transmitter he'd ripped from a dead scout drone earlier.
"Careful with that," the girl's voice came from the dark corner of the room.
He didn't look up. "You think I haven't done this before?"
"Not here, you haven't."
The solder hissed. He smirked a little, not because she was wrong, but because she said it like she knew him. He was still getting used to her voice — low, even, like she spoke in half-breaths. It wasn't the type that filled silence. It fit in it.
He'd been running with her for three nights now. No one told him why. He didn't ask. After the chase through the flood tunnels, the decoys, the sirens, the rooftop drops — she was just there. Not leading him, but keeping him alive. Like she knew exactly where every patrol would turn before it did.
He set the transmitter down and stretched his hands, staring out at the glow beyond the skyline. "You never told me your name."
The silence that followed had weight. She didn't move from the corner, but he could feel her eyes.
"You didn't ask," she said.
"I just did."
A faint flicker of static came through her earpiece — a whisper of encrypted chatter from the rest of her group. She muted it with a tap. For a long second, the only sound was the rain's rhythm against the roof.
Then she stepped closer. The dim light from the city edge brushed her face — pale, angular, marked by exhaustion but held together by focus. The kind of face that had seen too much and learned not to flinch.
"They call me Mira."
Stitch tested the name in his head before he said it aloud. "Mira."
She nodded once, then turned her gaze back to the window. "You should get some sleep. We move before dawn. The drones sweep low at first light."
He didn't reply. Just watched her reflection in the glass, the faint shimmer of code tattoos running up her neck as she adjusted the comm relay.
The transmitter on the floor crackled once — a faint pulse of static.
"Signal's weak," he muttered.
"It's supposed to be," she said. "Weak signals don't get noticed."
He thought about that for a while — about weak signals, unnoticed things. About people like her. About people like him.
Outside, the storm deepened. The city blinked, and for a moment, it felt alive — like it was listening.
And for the first time since the bridge run, Stitch didn't feel like he was running from something. He felt like he was running toward something — though he didn't yet know what.