The air in Sector 7 always tasted of cold copper and recycled sighs. At ten years old, Evelyn Harper had already learned that breathing was a privilege regulated by the life-support grid, and silence was the safest way to keep it.
She sat on the edge of her sterile bunk, her legs swinging in a slow, rhythmic arc. Outside the reinforced plexiglass of the observation port, the Earth hung like a bruised marble. It was a world of swirling greys and scorched browns, choked by the hazy shroud of the 'containment' zones. Every few minutes, a pinprick of light would bloom on the planet's dark side, another orbital strike, another "cleaning" of the debris below.
"It's a graveyard, Evie," her father, Thomas, said without looking up from his diagnostic tablet. His voice was weary, worn thin by double shifts in the maintenance tunnels. "A reminder of what happens when biology is left to rot without a plan. We're the lucky ones. We're the evolved."
Evelyn didn't answer. She couldn't.
Suddenly, the hum of the overhead atmospheric fans, the constant white noise of her life vanished. The grey-white floor beneath her boots didn't feel like pressurized carbon-fiber anymore. It felt soft. It felt damp.
The smell of copper was gone, replaced by a scent so sharp and green it made her eyes water. It was the smell of crushed pine needles and wet stone.
Thump-thump.
The sound didn't come from the vents. It came from inside her own head, a heavy, frantic drumming that wasn't her own heart.
Thump-thump.
Evelyn gasped, her hand flying to her chest. Her vision blurred, the sterile white walls of the bunkroom melting into a dark, shadowed forest. She wasn't sitting; she was crouching. She felt a sudden, biting cold against her skin, and for a terrifying second, she felt a snarl building in a throat that wasn't hers.
Then, the heat came. Her left shoulder began to burn, a searing, white-hot sensation that felt like a brand.
"Evelyn? Evelyn, look at me!"
The forest shattered. The damp earth turned back into cold metal. Evelyn blinked, her breath coming in jagged hitches. Her father was kneeling in front of her, his face a mask of terror, his hands gripping her shoulders.
"You went quiet," Thomas whispered, his eyes darting toward the internal audio-monitor on the wall. "You had that look again. The 'glitch' look."
"I... I heard him, Dad," Evelyn whispered, her voice trembling. "The boy in the dark. He's scared. The fire is coming for him."
Thomas went pale. He lunged for her sleeve, pulling it back to reveal her small, pale shoulder. Beneath the skin, a faint, silver crescent was glowing with a dying light, pulsating in time with the heartbeat she still felt in her ears.
"Hush," Thomas hissed, his hand trembling as he covered the mark. "You never speak of this. Not to the teachers. Not to the Overseers. If Vane finds out you're 'resonant,' he won't make you a doctor, Evie. He'll make you a memory."
Evelyn looked back at the Earth, the bruised planet through the glass. For the first time, she didn't see a graveyard. She saw a heartbeat. And it was calling her home.
The silver glow beneath her father's calloused palm didn't just fade; it retreated, pulling back into her marrow like a secret that wasn't ready to be told. Thomas Harper didn't let go immediately. His fingers, stained with the pervasive grey grease of the Sector 7 oxygen scrubbers, trembled against her skin.
"The aerosol," Thomas muttered, more to himself than to her. He scrambled across the small, modular unit they called a home, his boots clicking hollowly on the metallic floor. "I need the sealant. Stay still, Evie. Don't breathe too deep. The sensors... they track the spikes in CO2. They track the adrenaline."
Evelyn sat frozen. The transition from the "glitch" back to reality was like being plunged into a vat of liquid nitrogen. The vibrant, wet scent of the forest, that sharp, intoxicating pine was being systematically murdered by the sterile, recycled air of the Orbit. Here, every breath was filtered through a thousand layers of carbon and UV light until it tasted of nothing but electricity and old copper.
Thomas returned with a small, industrial-grade dermal-patch kit. With the practiced, frantic speed of a man who had performed this ritual in the shadows many times, he shook a pressurized canister. Hiss. A cooling, flesh-colored foam coated Evelyn's shoulder, numbing the lingering heat of the silver crescent. He smoothed it over with a spatula, his eyes darting toward the blinking red eye of the wall-mounted security sensor near the ceiling.
To the Orbit's central AI, the "Eye of Vane", she had to appear as nothing more than a biological unit in a state of rest.
"It's getting stronger," Evelyn whispered, her voice cracking. "The heartbeat. It wasn't just a sound this time, Dad. I felt the cold. I felt... I felt like I was running. There was a boy. He was under a tree with white leaves, and the sky was screaming."
"It's a neurological Echo, Evelyn. Nothing more," Thomas said, though he couldn't meet her eyes. He packed the medical kit away with jerky, terrified movements. "The radiation from the Great Collapse... it lingers in our DNA. Some of us just... we have ghosts in our nerves. That's what the Academy says. It's an instability. A sickness of the old world."
"Is it a sickness to feel alive?" she asked, looking down at her hands. In the sterile light of the bunkroom, her skin looked translucent, like fine porcelain. On Earth, in the glitch, she had seen her hands covered in dark, rich soil. They had felt strong. "The Orbit feels... dead. Like we're living inside a giant, ticking clock."
Thomas stopped. He looked at his daughter, ten years old and already burdened with the weight of a dying planet. He reached out, tucking a stray strand of her dark hair behind her ear. "The clock is what keeps us safe, Evie. Out there, in the Ash... there is no order. There is only the rot. The Director says biology is a chaotic failure. We have to be better than our cells. We have to be precise."
A chime echoed through the room, a sharp, digital tone that signaled the end of the shift-cycle.
"Go to the common area," Thomas commanded, his voice returning to its guarded, neutral tone. "Meet Leo. Do your atmospheric calculus. Be the perfect student, Evelyn. If you''re perfect, they don't look at you. If they don't look at you, they can't see the mark."
Evelyn nodded slowly. She stood up, her legs feeling heavy. As she walked toward the sliding door, she glanced back at the observation port. The Earth was still there, a bruised marble in a velvet void. But now, she knew the "Dead Zones" weren't entirely dead. Somewhere down there, under a canopy of white leaves, a boy was breathing. And for the first time in her life, the sterile silence of the Orbit felt like a lie.