“Shut up! We can hear you!” a disembodied voice called over a wall.

  In the shock of his triumph against the surround sound, Cooper couldn’t tell which wall it had called over. He sped from wall to wall, trying to detect its source, which had since fallen silent, with the enforcement sirens. Though infractionary, he called back, not shutting up as per a direct order of the Circuit. Another infraction couldn’t hurt him more.

  He imagined in his broad frequency band specializing in horror that on the brink of capture, really more saved than caught, they could leave him behind in retribution for inflammatory noncompliance.

  Really, they might chase him down just to hide when he needed them to find him! They were doing it right now! Cooper hollered, unwilling to capitulate. He grabbed a wall, slithered up, and clung to the rampart, searching.

  “Where are you? Can you see me?” Cooper waved from the lookout at the top of the wall.

  So close to salvation, he wasn’t going to give up. He repeated the words again and again, increasingly breathless each time. Nobody answered, not even an echo from one of many reflecting surfaces available for reverberation. He felt like a dust mote at sea.

  “Cooper…Cooper…Coooooooper…” a soft voice called behind him, or was it by his side?

  He snapped his head back and forth, fighting to get a fix. Whenever it seemed to be coming from one direction, it then came from ten or more others. He failed to zero in on its fluctuating angle, but the range was clearer than crystal. It called so close to his ears.

  “That’s me! I’m here!” Cooper shouted from the depths of his lungs.

  “Cooper…Coooooooper, you’re there…” the disembodied voice answered.

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  “Do you see me now?” Cooper squinted into the fog, suspense building.

  “Coooooooper, do I see you now…” the voice asked without an answer.

  “Yes, here! You should be able to see me!” he stood as tall as he could.

  “Yes, there, I should be able to see you…” it half-echoed back at him.

  “See? I’m giving it all up now? Like you told me to? Or else?” Cooper whined, “You should come out and catch me! Why are you hiding still?”

  “Why are you hiding still?” that echo copied him exactly this time, its pitch suddenly lower, tone turning dark.

  It scared Cooper. He bobbled as he lost his balance. Grabbing air, he teetered and fell off the wall. Luckily, he landed light. Having gained nothing else through his inane, impulsive, unlawful adventure, his motor skills had at least improved.

  Straightening, he rotated in traveling circles, hoping for the voice to speak again. Something bothered him about it. He could swear on his remaining soundness of mind that four men had stormed out of their rover to run him down, but the voice, the voice was so plainly female.

  “Is anyone there? Anyone actually there?” Cooper nagged.

  In a jiffy, he had understood that nobody, nobody else, had spoken to him at all. Supposing that to be true then, only the sound surrounded him truly.

  “Up and over!” another voice spoke, proving his theory wrong.

  At the command, a small sparrowlike drone lifted above an adjoining alley. It hovered over the maze, lasered onto the subject, swooped down upon his forehead, scraped his skin for a sample, swerved out of his line of sight, zipped away from his reflexes, zoomed skywards, analyzed the sample makeup, reported the results to the operators, whirred back over the wall.

  Cooper gaped at the flying object. Blood dripped out of the sample scrape, off the tip of his nose. The analysis could possibly serve him. It might explain his escapade. He waved the drone closer.

  The sparrow, as he styled it, fluttered as delicately as its namesake. Suddenly, a needle flicked from its undercarriage, glistening, connected to a loaded ampule. Whatever the snake was seeking to spit from its fang, Cooper wasn’t metabolizing it.

  On the offensive, he batted the sparrow into a compact death spiral. It regained altitude, targeting him again. It kept flying at him! He kept backing away! It flew, but didn’t strike, because the Circuit did, silent and sidelong at a junction.