Vienna's Graben appeared as a scar. The Plague Column, known as the Pestsäule spiraled upward in a halted storm of gratitude. This evening it was surrounded by city barricades and a palpable buzz of Serenity Sentinels, their energy fields thick that the atmosphere, above the cobblestones rippled like a mirage. Following the engraving episode Somnum had turned the location into a stronghold.
The Unquiet's response was not another assault. It was a funeral.
They named it the Requiem for Feeling.
At the designated time as the final reverberations of the Complimentary Global Calm dissolved into a anticipatory quiet throughout the city a solitary spotlight, crisp and white shot down from a rented theatre rig atop a neighboring rooftop. It lit not the gilded peak of the Column. Its shaded marble foundation—and the new rough mark of the Arousal Algorithm Devon had etched.
A silhouette emerged into the illumination. It was Thea Tove, the hotel custodian now dressed not in her Somnum uniform but in a plain black gown. Clutched in her hands was a ledger than a weapon. When she spoke her voice wasn't projected through speakers. Transmitted via a sharp targeted audio beam that sliced through the Sentinel mist like a knife, through fabric. It was authentic, untouched and distinctly human.
"Anna, seamstress, of the Wollzeile. Died 1679."
A brief silence. From concealed speakers scattered throughout the square there echoed the noise of a solitary harsh cough abruptly halted.
"Leopold, baker's boy, of the Fleischmarkt. Died 1679."
The noise of a youngster's wail suddenly stifled.
"Maria Theresia, Empress. Survived smallpox, 1767."
The crisp, distant sound of a courtier's relieved sigh, the rustle of silk.
She went on. One name after another taken from the city's death registers and survivor lists covering bubonic plague, smallpox, Spanish flu. Every name was accompanied by its sound—not a loud cry but the distinct dreadful melody of a pandemic: the moist ragged breathing; the whisper of a fervent prayer; the eerie scraping of a corpse cart, over cobblestones; the solitary peal of a church bell marking a solitary burial.
This was not an assault against Somnum. Instead it represented a retrieval of history from the Column's appreciative storyline. This did not serve as a tribute, to " mercy." It stood as a record of particular taken lives and determined endurance.
The Serenity Sentinels throbbed, their circles shining intensely.. Their frequency was intended to counteract unrest, fury or ecstatic clamor. This was a mourning ceremony. A focused, exact and deeply sorrowful recollection. The calm-field might render sorrow feeling remote. It couldn't remove the reality of the names the unsettling exactness of the noises. It was akin, to attempting to use a blanket to halt a dripping faucet.
While Thea read additional individuals appeared from the crowd assembled despite the Sentinels. They weren't agents but everyday Viennese—a history teacher, a nurse, a florist—each clutching a small personal recorder. They hit play.
The auditory environment intensified, became richer more intricate. The wail of an infant born amidst the 1918 lockdown. The crackling transmission of a public health message. The resolute noise of a loom resuming operation once quarantine ended. The scrape of a café chair sliding on the floor as a business opened its doors again after months.
This was the second movement of the requiem: not just death, but the stubborn, flawed, noisy return to life. The messy antithesis of serene peace.
The Sentinels started to emit a pitched distress tone. They were overwhelmed by conflicting information: deep grief was instantly followed by cheerful sounds. Their systems malfunctioned. One stuttered, its blue circle blinking unpredictably before shutting off. Then another.
From a balcony with a view of the Graben Hugo Hubert observed, his expression pale. He had arrived to supervise the protection of the nexus.. This… this was not resistance. It was sorrow.. Sorrow in its intense concentrated essence was an emotion too profound, too consistent for the coarse tool of indifference to break down. Grief could be dulled,. A name, on a list was undeniable.
He activated his communications. "Flavio. They're exploiting… the memorial. The Algorithm stationed at the base functions like an amplifier. It's transforming the Column into a chamber resonating with grief. Our fields are… futile. They generate empathy, not unrest."
Flavio's tone was strained. "Empathy underpins unrest. Break them up. Immediately."
However Luna Lorelei, positioned on the ground alongside her Enforcers gave a shake of her head in response, to Hugo's gaze. Her team remained motionless attentive. The noise of the cough the wail, the scraping chair—it was cutting through their conditioning reaching something ancient. The faint trace of a human fragility that existed before any rules.
Thea's voice climbed, arriving at the contemporary pieces.
"Klaus, taxi driver. Survived COVID-19, 2020."
The sound of a ventilator's rhythmic sigh.
"Fatima, intensive care nurse. Survived. 2020."
The sound of hands clapping from a thousand balconies, a raw, collective pulse of gratitude and fear.
She shut the ledger. The spotlight lingered on her briefly in the plaza. Then she raised her gaze not toward the saints but toward the shadowy sky.
She said, her tone steady "We recall the fear. Not to dwell in it. To acknowledge that we survived it. The sensation stands as evidence of life. They might persuade you to forget. We present you with the memory."
She retreated, merging with the darkness.
For a moment only the drone of the deactivated Sentinels and the collective quiet of the crowd filled the air. Then from one window, above a bakery the notes of a violin emerged, performing not a lament. A slow enduring folk melody. Another window swung open. A voice began to sing along.
It wasn't an uprising. It was a peaceful resurgence of the city's inherent clamor—its unique, heartfelt and chaotic noise. The noise of a community that had endured plagues and was now recalling that it could overcome this well.
The Plague Column stood, its gold gleaming under the spotlights. But the sanitized silence around it was gone, replaced by the living, breathing, aching sound of memory. The second nexus was not shattered. It was awake, humming with the precise frequency of a thousand specific losses and stubborn comebacks. The Requiem for Feeling had not driven out the calm. It had simply made room, in the heart of the silence, for the sound of a heart that had known breakage, and beat on.