The fox-tail watermark embedded itself in the high frequencies, invisible, indelible.
Ball's in your court, fox,he'd said.
I hit upload.
Game on.
SIX
Zia
The upload bar hit 100%.
Title: ForTheEngineer_Z_Mix_v1.wav
Status: Complete.
I sat back in my chair, the silence of the loft rushing in to fill the space where Alfie’s voice had just been. Without the track playing, the room felt empty. Too big. Too quiet.
My eyes drifted back to the second monitor, to the open Dropbox folder Euan had built.
We do not require the engineer to be visible.
It was a lie, of course. I knew that. I remembered the way Alfie had looked at me in the emergency lighting of the Showbox, like I was the only signal in a world of static. I remembered the way Kit had planted his feet when I walked past, like he was physically restraining himself from orbiting me.
They wanted me visible. They wanted me close.
But they had looked at the data, my flight, my panic, my blocked numbers, and they had calculated a solution that prioritized my comfort over their hunger.
I opened the schematic again. Z_WORKSPACE_PROPOSAL.pdf.
I zoomed in on the details I’d missed the first time. It wasn’t just the "Neutral Zone." It was the cable management. Euan had drawn the XLR runs with color-coded tags. He’d specified the brand of ergonomic chair I used, which meant he’d either zoomed in on pixelated screenshots of my V-tube streams or he’d somehow contacted the manufacturer of my old setup.
He hadn’t just built a workspace. He’d built hope out of architecture.
We want to learn, not take.
My phone buzzed on the desk. Rowan.
Received the file. It’s... Zia, it’s extraordinary. You kept the rasp but removed the pain.
I removed the sibilance. The pain is his artistic choice. I just EQ’d it so it doesn't hurt the listener.
He’s listening to it now. I think he’s stopped breathing.
I stared at the screen. My heart did a strange, syncopated kick against my ribs. Four in. Six out.
Tell him the reverb tail on the bridge is still muddy on the raw tracking. He needs to stand six inches further back from the mic capsule.
Tell him yourself.
It was a challenge. A gauntlet thrown down by a woman who dissected contracts for sport.
I looked at the Exit Card sitting next to my keyboard. Laminated. Real. It was my safety net. My "pull cord" in case of emergency. If I went, and it got too much, if the biology Icouldn't smell became a weight I couldn't carry, I could leave. They had already proved they would let me run.
They had written a song about letting me run.
I picked up the card. I slid it into my back pocket.
