WEBVTT 00:00:04.269 --> 00:00:07.269 The following transmission, designated Testimony 00:00:07.269 --> 00:00:10.410 of Artisan Technomonk Pell Orane, Sanctified Maintenance 00:00:10.410 --> 00:00:13.189 Guild 3 Delta, has been cleared for conditional 00:00:13.189 --> 00:00:15.869 release by the Department Vox Communicatus and 00:00:15.869 --> 00:00:19.370 the Ordo Sanctarum Turrum. Listeners are advised 00:00:19.370 --> 00:00:22.230 that exposure to post-resonance material may 00:00:22.230 --> 00:00:25.390 cause auditory hallucinations consistent with 00:00:25.390 --> 00:00:28.210 remembered frequencies, emotional resonance with 00:00:28.210 --> 00:00:30.929 deceased infrastructure, spontaneous alignment 00:00:30.929 --> 00:00:34.000 of breath and pulse to forbidden harmonics. A 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:36.799 renewed and deeply inappropriate sense of unity. 00:00:37.380 --> 00:00:40.280 Do not attempt to replicate the described phenomena. 00:00:40.619 --> 00:00:44.299 Do not hum along. If you begin to perceive rhythm 00:00:44.299 --> 00:00:47.079 in silence, report immediately to your nearest 00:00:47.079 --> 00:00:50.759 purification station for deharmonisation. Should 00:00:50.759 --> 00:00:53.280 your vox receiver emit tones resembling prayer, 00:00:53.439 --> 00:00:57.079 disconnect power only if it asks you to. All 00:00:57.079 --> 00:00:59.759 recovered testimonies have been cleansed, redacted 00:00:59.759 --> 00:01:03.280 and rendered doctrinally inert. Any feelings 00:01:03.280 --> 00:01:05.700 of spiritual clarity that persist after listening 00:01:05.700 --> 00:01:09.280 are to be treated as symptoms. By continuing 00:01:09.280 --> 00:01:11.599 this broadcast, you acknowledge the risks of 00:01:11.599 --> 00:01:15.420 comprehension. The city is still listening. Try 00:01:15.420 --> 00:01:25.659 not to answer. You can still hear it, you know. 00:01:26.459 --> 00:01:31.480 Not the sound they got rid of the sound. Burned 00:01:31.480 --> 00:01:34.879 it, scraped it, blessed it, until it stopped 00:01:34.879 --> 00:01:38.140 behaving like music and started behaving like 00:01:38.140 --> 00:01:41.620 an incident. More like the shape of the sound 00:01:41.620 --> 00:01:44.719 that used to be there. Like how you still feel 00:01:44.719 --> 00:01:48.099 a limb that's been removed. Like the hive reaching 00:01:48.099 --> 00:01:52.140 for something it used to have. They tell us it's 00:01:52.140 --> 00:01:55.799 just echo and the ductwork. I worked ducts for 00:01:55.799 --> 00:01:58.920 12 years. I know the difference between air pressure, 00:01:59.099 --> 00:02:02.409 feedback, and a name being spoken patiently. 00:02:03.390 --> 00:02:10.289 Ducts don't hum your name. I was assigned to 00:02:10.289 --> 00:02:13.270 Section 47 Beta, where the Saint's resonator 00:02:13.270 --> 00:02:18.590 went quiet. Officially, it ceased devotional 00:02:18.590 --> 00:02:23.569 output. Unofficially, it screamed itself inside 00:02:23.569 --> 00:02:27.349 out and taught the machines to sing and to rebel. 00:02:31.400 --> 00:02:35.120 We were told to restore normalcy. Normalcy meant 00:02:35.120 --> 00:02:38.379 scraping charred hymns off ferrocrete and shoveling 00:02:38.379 --> 00:02:41.039 what was left of the resonator into heat-rated 00:02:41.039 --> 00:02:46.120 buckets. We didn't find bodies. We found residue. 00:02:47.680 --> 00:02:50.060 Fragments of them were caught in the ventilation 00:02:50.060 --> 00:02:55.080 filters. Warm, soft, still vibrating, still trying 00:02:55.080 --> 00:02:58.699 to finish notes that no longer had mouths. They 00:02:58.699 --> 00:03:03.539 stuck to your gloves like fat. Like wax. Like 00:03:03.539 --> 00:03:07.960 guilt. We were instructed not to listen, so of 00:03:07.960 --> 00:03:11.900 course, I listened. Everything went into the 00:03:11.900 --> 00:03:15.879 bucket. Teeth, threads of vocal cord, bits of 00:03:15.879 --> 00:03:19.539 stone that refused to stop humming. The bucket 00:03:19.539 --> 00:03:22.860 signed all the way down the corridor. We pretended 00:03:22.860 --> 00:03:27.900 it was the wheels. The air feels heavier now. 00:03:28.379 --> 00:03:33.310 Not thicker. Attentive. It doesn't rush anymore. 00:03:33.530 --> 00:03:36.889 It hesitates. Like it's thinking about where 00:03:36.889 --> 00:03:40.669 it's going before it moves. We wear respirators, 00:03:40.669 --> 00:03:43.569 but it doesn't help. The air gets in anyway. 00:03:44.889 --> 00:03:49.889 You don't inhale oxygen anymore. You inhale rhythm. 00:03:52.270 --> 00:03:55.030 It settles in the lungs like a second heart. 00:03:55.090 --> 00:03:59.979 Not beating. Waiting. I remember when the overseer 00:03:59.979 --> 00:04:02.740 found one of the tuning forks that hadn't melted. 00:04:03.219 --> 00:04:05.900 He struck it against the floor to check the tone. 00:04:06.900 --> 00:04:10.199 It didn't stop ringing. Not when he dropped it. 00:04:10.319 --> 00:04:13.020 Not when it slid into a seam between plates. 00:04:13.400 --> 00:04:16.160 Not when it sank into the metal like it was being 00:04:16.160 --> 00:04:21.399 welcomed home. We welded the hole shut. The ringing 00:04:21.399 --> 00:04:25.870 continued on the other side. We've been ordered 00:04:25.870 --> 00:04:28.329 to stop referring to the incident as the choir 00:04:28.329 --> 00:04:34.430 fall. Apparently, it implies loss. The approved 00:04:34.430 --> 00:04:39.889 term is systemic reharmonisation event. Every 00:04:39.889 --> 00:04:43.730 time I write that, the ink smudges. Every. Time. 00:04:44.410 --> 00:04:48.470 Like the paper doesn't want it to be true. They 00:04:48.470 --> 00:04:51.689 say the saint's resonator is gone. Scrapped. 00:04:52.189 --> 00:04:57.620 Sanctified. Logged as a resolved asset. But when 00:04:57.620 --> 00:05:00.459 the lights flicker, I see the walls breathing 00:05:00.459 --> 00:05:04.639 again. The lines where metal meets stone glow 00:05:04.639 --> 00:05:10.040 faintly like veins. And sometimes, when the vox 00:05:10.040 --> 00:05:14.519 goes quiet, really quiet, you can hear the city 00:05:14.519 --> 00:05:18.600 take a deep breath. Like it's about to start 00:05:18.600 --> 00:05:21.899 the song over. Like it's deciding. where the 00:05:21.899 --> 00:05:27.759 first note should go this time. When I sleep, 00:05:27.879 --> 00:05:32.879 I dream of the resonance, not as sound, as agreement. 00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:39.180 Everything vibrating together, steel, bone, thought. 00:05:39.439 --> 00:05:43.480 No friction, no disagreement, no one out of tune. 00:05:43.680 --> 00:05:48.439 One perfect, deafening unity, where nothing had 00:05:48.439 --> 00:05:53.079 to be explained because nothing resisted. They 00:05:53.079 --> 00:06:00.360 call that heresy now. I call it nostalgia. The 00:06:00.360 --> 00:06:02.779 schematics were very explicit about the sacred 00:06:02.779 --> 00:06:05.720 frequencies and which ones must not be used. 00:06:06.100 --> 00:06:09.720 I still have those schematics hidden away. No 00:06:09.720 --> 00:06:13.439 one else read them. I was the one who said bring 00:06:13.439 --> 00:06:17.959 it back online just for calibration. I was the 00:06:17.959 --> 00:06:21.420 one who connected the power. I was the one who 00:06:21.420 --> 00:06:26.860 wanted unity. I wanted the hive, the machines, 00:06:27.060 --> 00:06:31.920 the people to behave. Now it remembers how to 00:06:31.920 --> 00:06:51.040 sing. And I still hear it in the vents. Vox Sanctum 00:06:51.040 --> 00:06:53.259 Gloriana is an Evil Lighthouse production.