James knelt beside the central junction box they'd discovered in the maintenance corridor, his fingers tracing the edges of a device that shouldn't have been there. Unlike Maya, who needed her tablet to visualize sound, James's world was constructed entirely of acoustic information—and the device emitted a distinctive electronic signature unlike anything in standard audio equipment.
"It's humming at exactly 12.4 kilohertz," he said, tilting his head slightly to focus his hearing. "But there's a modulation pattern that cycles every seventeen seconds."
Maya crouched beside him, her tablet already scanning. Her fingers moved across the screen with practiced precision, setting parameters for the visual representation of what James could hear.
"Seventeen seconds," she signed against his palm
