The Forgotten Face, The Hum of the Necklace

The streets of the Outer Circle never slept. Every hour, every minute carried the simmering buzz of machinery, the sharp rattle of broken systems trying to work, and the faint hum of the barrier high above. The fractured pavement was lit unevenly by flickering streetlights, shadows pooling where the light couldn't reach. It didn't help that people moved like ghosts here—silent, fast, and with their heads down.

Leo knew better than to draw attention. His movements were practiced: slow and steady, the strap of his satchel pressing against his shoulder. Don't look around too much. Don't hunch over. Just keep walking. Beside him, Mike wasn't as careful. He moved in jagged bursts, his breath hitching, his fingers gripping the gray box of pills so tightly, it creaked faintly under the strain.

"Ease up Mike," Leo muttered, keeping his voice low as they turned another corner into the dark stretch of the black market alleyways. "You hug that thing any harder, and people will think you're carrying something worth dying for."

Mike hissed through his teeth as if to argue, but said nothing. The pills weren't even close to valuable—worthless Tier 1 scraps that hadn't even passed quality control before being dumped out of the manufacturing lines. But Mike still held onto them like the world depended on it. Leo supposed some tiny part of him understood why. Life in the Outer Circle didn't offer much. Even trash had its uses.

"They'll trade for it," Leo said shortly, cutting off whatever complaint Mike was working himself up to. "They always do. All people want is something. Even this."

Mike gave a humorless laugh. "Yeah, something. You're not wrong about the black market. People here would trade a dead dog for a broken battery if they thought they could get a minute's use out of it."

Leo ignored him and kept walking.

The hum came before anything else.

Something sharp and mechanical—so faint, it might've been mistaken for a distant machine among the many broken systems of the Outer Circle. But Leo knew better. He'd heard that sound before, too many times on streets like this.

His chest tightened. He glanced up briefly to scan the hazy skyline and spotted the vague, angular outline descending through the thick air.

"Drone," he muttered immediately under his breath. His hand shot out, grabbing at Mike's sleeve. "Get to the wall. Now."

They pressed into the shadows as the patrol drone glided into view, its matte black body shining faintly under the weak haze of light from the street. Its spherical scanner pulsed with rhythmic flashes of red, sweeping wide arcs across the empty street. Its movements were disturbingly smooth as it passed, a predator prowling its territory.

Leo shifted back further into the shadow of the abandoned kiosk. Patrol drones weren't some vague rumor in the Outer Circle. They were a threat everyone knew to keep away from—no chance of running, no chance of explaining. Step into their scanner beams without clearance, and you didn't get to argue.

Mike clutched tightly to the box of pills, his hands shaking badly now. His nerves were louder than the drone at this point. Leo gave him a sharp glare.

"Breathe," he whispered harshly, his tone quieter than the hum of the drone's flight. "You look guilty. Stay still."

Mike froze, his breaths uneven, but at least his hands stopped twitching for a moment.

The drone hummed faintly as its scanner swiveled, sweeping again. The red light fanned out across their corner, its pulse steady and methodical through out the area.

Then it stopped.

Leo's chest tightened further when the scanner beam flicked back toward him. The drone hesitated for half a second before its red light slowly steadied, narrowing its focus over where he crouched. He could feel its aim piercing through the cracked walls of shadow.

And that's when he felt it.

The necklace beneath his shirt shifted faintly against his chest—not in weight, not in size, but in sensation. For the first time in three years, it wasn't just an object resting passively against his skin. It hummed. Softly, faintly, but undeniably alive with movement. A low vibration thrummed through the thin layer of fabric separating it from his skin, sharp and oddly rhythmic, as if responding to some invisible force in the air.

It wasn't glowing—not yet. But Leo was certain, deep in his gut, that his heartbeat wasn't the only thing moving against his chest.

The hum pulled at something buried deep in his memory—a voice, clear and cold as the air around him. "You'll need it, Keep this safe" the voice had said years ago. 

The woman. He couldn't remember her face, not anymore. It was a shadow, blurred, like a static-filled screen he'd never seen clearly. But her voice stayed, sharp and deliberate, laced through the gaps in his memory. He didn't know if it was deliberate—if she'd forced him to forget—or if time and fear had buried the details on their own. But it didn't matter. The voice lingered. The orders were still seared into the back of his mind.

And still, the necklace hummed faintly, even as he pressed it harder against his chest, trying to will it to silence like a broken machine. His fingers curled tightly over the thin chain hidden beneath his shirt, desperate to kill whatever spark it had decided to awaken now.

The drone stuttered loudly.

Its scanner jolted as if something snagged its circuits. The red beam flickered, its soft pulse crumbling into erratic bursts of light as the drone jolted upward. A metallic screech rang out as the machine's systems flared briefly—then, just like that, it spiraled into the air, veering wildly into the haze above.

It vanished in seconds.

Leo didn't breathe until the sound of the drone's engine disappeared entirely. His grip on the necklace finally loosened, though the slow hum beneath his hand was just starting to fade. For a moment, it still pulsed faintly, beating like a second heart.

"What the hell was that?" Mike muttered, his voice trembling and uneven. He held the box of pills like a shield in front of him, as though that would somehow protect him from whatever he'd just witnessed.

"I..." Leo started but faltered. His jaw clenched tightly. He didn't have an answer—not one he could give, not one that would make sense. Finally, he muttered sharply, "It doesn't matter. We can't stay."

The hum of the necklace left him jittery as he straightened his satchel. His mind buzzed with too many thoughts at the moment, the fragments of her voice ringing faintly over everything else.