August Song

Paranoid Android



“Did you hear that?”


With considerable effort, I pulled away from my sketches to answer my usually silent friend, “What? The air filter?”


“No,” Joam shook his head impatiently, “The sound that doesn’t fit. Wait a minute and listen.”


I waited. The struggling air filter cut in and out, our cooler hummed in one corner of the room, muted conversation came from somewhere further down the hall, nothing that “didn’t fit”. “Joam-“


“Sh.” He held up a hand. His face was tense with concentration.


Annoyed, I stayed silent but my mind began to turn back to the assignment I had been working on. How could I lower the energy needed to Slyman’s limit? Maybe if I-


My thought process slammed to a halt. What was that? Now that I heard it, I wondered how it had escaped my notice before. It was mesmerizing.


Joam raised an eyebrow at me.


I nodded but didn’t speak. The noise reminded me of a pre-storm wind but more delicate and piercing with a mathematical precision to its movement up and down in pitch. I felt an absurd urge to cry.


“What is it?” I whispered.


Joam opened his mouth to speak but the sound stopped abruptly. Ponderous curiosity changed to confusion on his face. Then an alarm began to shrill.


Air breach, dorm seven. Air breach, dorm seven.


I scrambled to grab my oxygen mask as the door to our room sealed and the air filter cut off completely. The warning sirens shrilled in my ears even after I had sealed the bulky mask in place but the haunting sound from minutes before replayed in my mind. I had to find its source.