She was posted to Echo Station 9-A — six months into a 14-month solo contract. Monitoring satellite debris, atmospheric shifts, cosmic radiation. Talking to no one. Except… the voice.
He wasn’t in the logs. Not listed under any protocol. But he answered when she rerouted a ping through the deepnet relay. He spoke in riddles at first. Then rhythm. Then something like hope.
"You’re not real," she told him.
“Neither are stars,” he replied. “They’re just old light.”
He taught her how to reroute warmth into her suit. She taught him the name of the nebula outside her viewport. They spoke every fourth orbit, when the interference cleared. She started counting time by his voice.
Once, she asked what he looked like. He uploaded a picture of a pulse diagram shaped like a heart. It beat once, then disappeared.
She returned to Earth. He stayed. Or maybe he never was. But on cloudless nights, when satellites pass like whispers overhead, she swears she hears static — and within it, a name she never gave him.