13

Jude's phone buzzed on his desk, vibrating in uneven bursts. He glanced at it, already planning to ignore it. Phone calls always seemed to carry a risk that someone might expect him to talk. Properly.

But then he saw the name on the screen. Isaac.

The blood drained from his face, his heart thudding unevenly in his chest. Isaac is dead. What the hell is this?

For a moment, Jude simply stared, the glow of the screen burning into his retinas. His first thought was that it had to be a prank. Someone's idea of a sick joke. But the phone kept buzzing relentlessly as if daring him to answer.

His hand hovered over the screen. Ignore it. Let it ring out. Something, perhaps the sight of Isaac's name, compelled him to reject the idea as quickly as it had come to him. Swallowing hard, Jude tapped the screen, slipping on his headphones as he sank lower in his chair. "Hello?" he said, his voice hesitant, almost apologetic.

"Hi, is this Jude Abel?" The voice was female, soft and polite, but carried an undercurrent of sadness that made his stomach twist.

"Yes," Jude said, gripping the edge of his desk. "Who... who's this?"

"This is Maya Lawrence. Isaac's..." She hesitated, the pause heavy with unspoken grief. "Can we talk?"

Oh no. Jude felt the heat rush back to his face, his ears burning as though someone had struck a match against them. "Oh. Right. Uh, hi. Hi, Maya. I—uh—I'm so sorry for your loss." He winced at his own words. She didn't call you to hear condolences, you idiot.

There was a brief, awkward silence. Then Maya's voice came through again, brittle but composed. "Thank you. Listen, I'm calling because... Well, I'm trying to figure out what's happening with Nova."

Jude's stomach dropped. "With Nova?" He tried to keep his tone casual, but it came out strained, almost comically high-pitched.

"Yes," Maya said. "She's... gone. Offline. And no one seems to know why."

Jude's fingers tightened around the edge of his desk. He could feel the weight of her words pressing down on him, threatening to collapse his resolve. "Oh, uh... wow. That's... I mean, that's awful."

"Awful?" Maya's voice sharpened, a note of disbelief creeping in. "Jude, aren't you an engineer at Solace? Don't you know anything about this?"

"Oh, well, I—uh—I actually work in a different area," Jude stammered, his words tripping over each other in their haste to escape his mouth. "More on the... uh... logistical side of things. Not directly with, um, Nova. You know, lots of moving parts and all that."

There was a pause. He could almost hear her eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Jude," she said, her tone slow and deliberate. "Isaac had your number here, he was going to call you before his accident. You expect me to believe you don't know anything about Nova?"

Jude opened his mouth, then closed it again. His mind raced, grasping for an answer, a plausible excuse, anything. But before he could respond, Maya's voice cracked.

"I just... I don't know what to do," she said, her words breaking into a muffled sob. "She was always there, always... helping me. And now she's gone, and I just—" Her voice dissolved into tears, raw and unrestrained.

Jude froze. He wasn't equipped for this. He could deal with code, logic, algorithms, but human emotion? Especially this kind of raw, unfiltered pain? He felt like a deer in headlights, caught between the urge to run and the inability to move. Underneath that too, there was an unmistakable sense of guilt.

"Uh, hey... um, please don't cry," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'm really bad at, uh... crying people. I mean, people crying." He cringed again as the words left his mouth.

Someone across the office looked up, their brow furrowed. Jude ducked lower, practically folding himself into his chair. "Listen," he said quickly, his words tumbling over each other in their haste to escape. "I—I can't really talk right now. Work, you know? Very busy. But maybe we can... uh... meet? Later?"

"Meet?" Maya sniffled.

"Yeah. Yeah, meet. In person. That's probably better, right? Talking, I mean. In person. We can, uh, figure this out." Jude's pulse pounded in his ears. Anything to end this call.

Maya hesitated, then sighed. "Alright. Tonight?"

"Tonight. Great. Perfect. I'll text you the details," Jude said, already pulling his phone away from his ear. "Take care! Bye!" He said, resuming a normal volume, and ended the call before she could say another word.

For a moment, Jude sat motionless, the weight of what had just happened crashing down on him. He let out a shaky breath, running a hand through his hair. Fuck.

He glanced around the office. Daman's desk was still empty, the rest of the team lost in their own tasks. No one had noticed, at least.

But Jude couldn't shake the feeling that he was one misstep away from everything falling apart. And tonight, he'd have to face Maya in person.