Frequency Smugglers

In the neon-lit labyrinth of the city, silence ruled. Music was outlawed, rhythms erased, and melodies reduced to whispers in darkened back alleys. But sound never truly dies—it just finds new ways to travel.

Astraea Cipher had spent years on the move, smuggling frequencies past the patrol drones of the Harmonic Suppression Bureau. Their mission? Total sonic control. Any unauthorized beat was detected, jammed, and erased. But Astraea and her crew weren’t about to let that happen. They carried contraband basslines encoded in radio static, melodies hidden in the hum of power grids, and subsonic frequencies that pulsed beneath the city streets like an underground heartbeat.

Tonight’s drop was dangerous. A high-risk transfer of the Forbidden Track, a composition said to awaken something deep in the minds of those who heard it. If the rumors were true, it was more than just music—it was a call to rebellion.

Astraea stood on a rooftop, staring at the holo-map flickering in her wrist implant. The drop zone was just below, a crumbling warehouse where sound pirates waited in the shadows. She inhaled sharply, pressed play on her device, and let the low-frequency transmission begin.

Somewhere in the depths of the city, a security alarm blared. The Bureau was listening.

But so was the underground.

The revolution had begun.