From Andrew’s penultimate story “Carbon”

Hi_from_reality

Art&concept by Ol Albireo
Feel free to write your stories
and name arts.
You also can do not only write, but draw, sing, create music and sculptures.

He answered like he always does, just his own brand of sandpaper growl, to
let me know the channel was open. Rasp didn’t get his name from his voice. A
rasp is a harsh file, and he’d been very good with one.
“I’m hunting,” I told him.
»»»
“No name. No description. Just a pattern.”
»»»
Then I told him what I had.
He was offline for a few minutes. The hum didn’t change, so I left the
connection open.
“The guy you want is Sonar,” he harshed out.
“Sonar?” I said, to make certain I’d gotten the pronunciation right.
“Yesss….” he gave it a couple of beats, then: “Sonar. He hears everything.”
In the Sector, there’s no such thing as privacy, only little nodules of dead air.
Hovering, quiet as a crop duster’s clouds. Sonar wouldn’t be easy to run down—
anyone looking for him wouldn’t ever be the only one.
There’s no privacy in prison, either. A murky aquarium with no shortage of
sharks. Plenty of remora, too, but no danger from any of their kind. In that
ocean, only the moray eels are feared.
I’d studied, and I’d learned. Metaphysics and kinetics, book and body. Then
the test beds: humans. To survive, to keep proving-in, to earn. To stay honed.
So when I found Sonar, I traded for what he wanted most. Not gold, a secret
far more valuable: I told him how I’d found him.
Not the truth, of course. But a good enough story to ensure that he’d contact
Rasp when he found a new spot to listen from.

Carbon, Andrew Wachss, translated by AlbireoMKG

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