Three weeks after the Fall, every phone in the country vibrated almost at the same time.
Daniel was in the kitchen when it happened.
His moved a few centimetres across the table.
Lina’s sounded from the living room.
His father’s vibrated beside a cup.
Snap.
The spoon he was holding fell onto the plate.
“Again,” Lina said.
“Static.”
His father picked up the spoon as though the word were enough to settle the matter.
Daniel looked at the screen.
PUBLIC NOTICE.
GOVERNMENT OF SPAIN.
There was a link underneath.
The television interrupted the programme no one was watching.
A woman appeared against a blue background.
There was no music.
No images of fragments.
Only a table, several microphones and a sentence at the bottom of the screen.
NATIONAL REGISTRATION AND EVALUATION PLAN.
“The Government of Spain has approved an extraordinary, phased procedure to register and evaluate the physical phenomena detected since the Fall.”
Daniel’s mother came out of the kitchen, drying her hands.
“What does that mean?”
No one answered.
The woman continued.
“From today, members of the public will receive appointments by age group and area of residence. Evaluation will be compulsory and will take place at designated centres throughout the country.”
Hospitals, sports halls and municipal buildings appeared on screen.
Queues.
Tables.
New equipment installed alongside medical supplies.
“The aim is to identify anomalous responses, protect those affected and consolidate data that until now have been collected using different protocols.”
His father stopped pretending he was not paying attention.
“Compulsory,” he repeated.
The word lingered in the room for a few seconds.
“Studies carried out over recent weeks have confirmed the presence of an unknown form of energy associated with the fragments and certain phenomena recorded in living beings.”
The woman paused.
“From this moment, scientific teams will use a common provisional designation: Ether.”
Daniel looked at Lina.
She kept her eyes on the screen.
Ether.
For the first time, it had a name.
Not an explanation.
Just a name.
“Appointments will be sent out progressively. We ask members of the public to respect their assigned order and not attend the centres without an appointment.”
Lina’s phone vibrated.
Then Daniel’s.
Both looked down.
LINA RODRÍGUEZ.
DANIEL RODRÍGUEZ.
Same centre.
Same time.
Their mother read over their shoulders.
“I’m coming with you.”
“Mum,” Lina said.
“I’m coming with you.”
Daniel put his phone away.
There did not seem to be any room for argument.
The centre occupied two sports halls connected by a covered corridor.
Three weeks earlier, the building had taken in the injured.
Now it was taking in everyone.
A queue moved beneath signs held up with adhesive tape.
STATION 1 — IDENTIFICATION.
STATION 2 — HISTORY.
STATION 3 — SAMPLES.
STATION 4 — DETECTION.
STATION 5 — PROVISIONAL RESULT.
Each person wore a white wristband with a number.
Police officers controlled access.
Medics took vital signs.
Technicians moved sealed boxes between stations.
There were no cameras.
No journalists.
Only hundreds of people trying to act as though it were an ordinary medical check-up.
“Identification,” a clerk requested.
Daniel handed his over.
The man checked the screen.
“Daniel Rodríguez.”
“Yes.”
He typed.
“First evaluation.”
Daniel nodded.
The clerk looked at Lina.
“Lina Rodríguez.”
She handed over her identification.
The man read further.
“Previous preliminary evaluation.”
“I came three weeks ago.”
“Those records will be added to your file. Today we’ll repeat the measurements using the national protocol.”
Lina gripped the strap of her bag.
“Why?”
“Because three weeks ago every centre was measuring different things.”
He handed back her identification.
“Now we’re trying to make sure everyone measures the same thing.”
He gave them two wristbands.
“Follow the white line.”
The line ran across the floor and split into several colours at the first hall.
Daniel followed it with his eyes.
“This looks like an airport.”
“At airports you know where you’re going,” Lina said.
They moved on.
At the second station they answered questions Lina already knew.
Have you observed air moving without an identifiable cause?
Yes.
Has it happened more than once?
Yes.
Does it increase in stressful situations?
Lina hesitated.
“Yes.”
Daniel received another form.
Have you caused any unusual physical phenomenon?
No.
Have you noticed any bodily changes since the Fall?
No.
Have you been in direct contact with fragments?
Not that he knew of.
He ticked the box.
They handed in the documents.
A gentle current swept through the corridor.
Several sheets lifted off a table.
A technician pressed both hands down on them before they could fall.
“Nair.”
The young man ahead of them closed his eyes.
Daniel recognised the dark hair and glasses from the way Lina went still.
Nair turned.
Saw Lina.
He recognised her too.
“You were here the other day.”
“And you sent the forms flying,” Lina replied.
Nair looked at the table.
“I’m still perfecting my entrance.”
Lina barely smiled.
“I’m Lina.”
“Nair.”
Daniel watched them both.
Lina pointed to her brother.
“He’s Daniel.”
Daniel held out his hand.
“Hello.”
Nair shook it.
“Hello.”
It was that simple.
No revelations.
No sense that the meeting was going to matter.
A technician opened a door.
“Nair, station four.”
Nair let go of Daniel’s hand.
“Back to the machine that never fails except when it does.”
“That inspires confidence,” Daniel said.
“It’s part of the treatment.”
Nair went in.
The door closed behind him.
Lina looked at Daniel.
“You like him.”
“He’s said two sentences.”
“You like him.”
Daniel was about to answer.
A gust made the station sign tremble.
Both looked towards the door.
“Yes,” Daniel admitted.
The samples took less time than Daniel expected.
Blood.
Temperature.
Heart activity.
A scanner passing over his arms.
Everything normal.
At station four, normality ended.
The room was divided by transparent panels.
In the centre was a small capsule inside a sealed box.
The fragment was no bigger than a thumbnail.
Dark.
Irregular.
Several sensors pointed at it.
“Did that fall from the sky?” Daniel asked.
The technician adjusted a strap around Lina’s wrist.
“It’s an isolated sample.”
“You haven’t answered.”
“Yes.”
Lina looked at the box.
“Is it safe?”
“There is no direct contact. Its use is experimental and exposure lasts less than thirty seconds.”
“That’s not a reassuring answer either.”
The technician did not pretend it was.
“If you want to stop the test, raise your hand.”
She connected two sensors.
A graph appeared on the monitor.
“Breathe normally.”
Lina gave Daniel a look.
“That phrase again.”
“You’ve already got experience.”
The technician activated the equipment.
An inner shutter opened.
The fragment remained still.
The signal did not.
A line crossed the screen.
Disappeared.
Returned stronger.
The technician leaned towards the monitor.
Another line began to oscillate beside it.
The air in the room changed.
Daniel felt it on his face.
A lock of Lina’s hair lifted.
She closed her eyes.
“Lina,” Daniel said.
“I’m fine.”
The technician watched the values.
“Don’t try to contain it.”
“I don’t know how to do either.”
The current circled the chair once.
Then weakened.
The shutter closed.
The lines fell.
The technician saved the record.
A code appeared on screen.
AE-01.
Lina read it.
“What does it mean?”
“A pattern match.”
“With what?”
“One of the seven frequencies that recur in the data.”
Daniel pointed to the number.
“Is the one a measurement?”
“No. It’s the order in which it was catalogued. It doesn’t indicate power, risk or ability.”
“And AE?”
“A provisional identifier.”
Lina looked at the screen again.
“Does it have a name?”
“Not an official one yet.”
The technician printed a sheet.
“Station five will explain the result.”
When they came out, Nair was waiting, leaning against the wall.
He held an identical sheet.
Lina looked at the code printed in the corner.
AE-01.
Nair followed her gaze.
“I suppose we send forms flying the same way.”
Lina studied her own result.
“I suppose.”
Nair raised the sheet.
“At least I know now that the one doesn’t mean I’ve won anything.”
“They explained that to us,” Daniel said.
“To me too. Twice.”
A door opened on the other side of the corridor.
“Darian.”
A young man came out of the room.
Tall.
Dark hair.
A way of walking that made others move aside before he asked.
He carried his result folded once.
SE-03.
He did not look worried.
Or satisfied.
He looked around the room as though he had already understood something the others were still trying to make sense of.
His eyes passed over Nair.
Then Lina.
Finally, Daniel.
They did not linger.
Darian continued towards the exit.
Daniel watched him for a moment.
“Do you know him?” Nair asked.
“No.”
And it was true.
Before Daniel was called, the adjoining door opened.
A man came out with a sheet in his hand.
Daniel managed to read two lines as he passed them.
AFFINITY: NONE
CLASSIFICATION: INERT
The technician accompanying him closed the file.
“Evaluation complete.”
The man folded the sheet and left.
They did not repeat the test.
No one checked the equipment.
The result was valid.
“Daniel Rodríguez.”
Daniel stood up.
Daniel’s test began the same way.
The same chair.
The same sensors.
The same fragment behind the glass.
Lina and Nair waited on the other side of the door.
Daniel rested his hands on his legs.
“Ready?” the technician asked.
“Not particularly.”
“That’ll do.”
The shutter opened.
Daniel studied the fragment.
Waited.
The graph remained still.
The technician checked a connection.
“Again.”
He closed the shutter.
Restarted the equipment.
Opened it again.
Nothing.
Daniel looked at the screen.
“Is it working?”
“Yes.”
The technician changed one of the sensors.
Repeated the test.
The line stayed flat.
A second technician came in.
“Problem?”
“No reading.”
She checked the fragment.
Then the monitor.
“Use the control sample.”
They replaced it.
Daniel waited again.
Nothing.
“Is that good?” he asked.
Neither answered immediately.
The second technician opened his medical history.
“Normal vital signs. Normal samples. No reported incidents.”
“It already says that on the form,” Daniel said.
“We need to check.”
They repeated the measurement for a fourth time.
The result did not change.
The technician wrote in the file.
RESONANCE: 0
PATTERN: —
RESULT: UNCLASSIFIED
Daniel read the three lines.
“Unclassified?”
“There is no match with any recorded frequency.”
“So I’m inert?”
“No. If you were, that’s what it would say on the sheet.”
“Because I haven’t got anything?”
The technician looked at the monitor.
“Because we haven’t detected anything.”
“It’s not exactly the same.”
“No.”
Daniel waited for a longer explanation.
None came.
“So what now?”
“We’ll keep the sample and repeat the evaluation if the protocol requires it.”
“When?”
“I can’t give you a date.”
The technician printed the result.
The printer was beside the open door.
Darian was passing along the corridor when the sheet came out.
RESONANCE: 0.
The second technician repeated it quietly as she checked the file.
“Zero. No pattern. Unclassified.”
Darian slowed.
Only for a moment.
He looked through the opening.
Daniel was still watching the monitor.
He did not see him.
The corner of Darian’s mouth lifted slightly.
Then he kept walking.
When Daniel came out, Lina stood up immediately.
“What did they tell you?”
Daniel handed her the sheet.
She read.
Nair did not try to look over her shoulder.
“Zero,” Lina said.
“Very round.”
“Dani.”
“I’m fine.”
Lina looked up.
Daniel recognised that expression.
The same one his mother had worn when he came back from the sports hall.
“It doesn’t say there’s anything wrong with you,” she said.
“Or anything good.”
“It says they don’t know how to classify it.”
Nair looked at the sheet when Lina lowered it.
“Most people will see the zero and call you inert.”
“But that’s not what it says,” Lina said.
Daniel folded the sheet.
“I doubt they’ll care.”
“No one knows how to classify anything lately.”
Nair pointed to his own code.
“They give some of us letters to disguise it.”
Daniel looked at him.
“It works pretty well.”
“Thank you.”
Lina breathed out.
For the first time since Daniel had come out of the room, her shoulders dropped.
“We have to go to station five.”
“There’s more?” Daniel asked.
“There’s always more,” Nair said.
They walked together.
There were no further tests at the last station.
Only information.
A woman placed three folders on the table.
“These results are provisional.”
She pointed to Lina’s and Nair’s codes.
“AE-01 identifies a common frequency. It doesn’t define what you can do or how much control you have.”
Then she looked at Daniel’s sheet.
“Unclassified means exactly that. There is no official assignment.”
“Are there more zeros?” Daniel asked.
The woman took a second.
“There are incomplete and incompatible results, and cases that need to be repeated.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It’s the answer I can give you.”
She kept a copy of each document.
“You’ll receive a notification if we need another evaluation. Until then, don’t try to trigger phenomena on your own.”
Nair raised a hand.
“Does breathing count?”
The woman looked at him.
“If you lift a table when you breathe, call the incident number.”
“All right.”
They left the centre.
The queue now stretched around the corner of the building.
People of all ages waited with their appointments open on their phones.
A little girl asked her father if the test hurt.
A man went over his form for the third time.
Two soldiers unloaded another piece of equipment.
On an outdoor screen, the codes appeared one below the other.
AE-01.
AU-02.
SE-03.
IG-04.
NE-05.
SY-06.
VO-07.
A warning underneath.
CATALOGUING ORDER DOES NOT REPRESENT POWER LEVEL, RISK OR HIERARCHY.
Daniel read it.
“Someone’s had to explain that too many times.”
“People turn any number into a competition,” Nair said.
Lina studied her sheet.
“It still doesn’t tell us what we are.”
“People with very bad luck when it comes to paperwork,” Nair replied.
Daniel smiled.
Lina shook her head.
“I have to get back to my parents.”
Nair put his result in his backpack.
“I’m heading for the metro.”
He looked at Daniel.
“See you, Zero.”
Lina’s eyes widened.
Daniel looked at his folded sheet.
Then at Nair.
“See you, One.”
Nair smiled.
“Fair.”
He walked away.
Lina waited until he was several metres off.
“You’ve only just met him.”
“And we’ve already got nicknames.”
“You like him.”
Daniel started walking.
“Maybe.”
Lina caught up with him.
“Dani.”
“I’m fine.”
“I didn’t ask you that.”
Daniel looked at the paper in his hand.
RESONANCE: 0.
For the first time since the Fall, something had tried to measure him.
And found nothing.
He did not know why that bothered him.
Or why part of him felt the machine had made a mistake.
He put the result in his pocket.
“Let’s go home.”
That night, figures filled every screen.
More than a million appointments issued.
Thousands of evaluations completed.
Seven recurring patterns.
Hundreds of results still unclassified.
Centres open in every autonomous community.
Scientific teams comparing data without rest.
The term Ether appeared in headlines, discussion programmes and messages.
Some people said it as though it had always existed.
Others refused to use it.
In protected laboratories, small fragments triggered signals on new monitors.
In hospitals, codes began to accompany files.
In temporary centres, technicians repeated a phrase over and over.
The number is not power.
The code is not an identity.
The result is provisional.
In an office in Madrid, several folders were placed on a table.
HUMAN INCIDENTS.
ALTERED WILDLIFE.
FRAGMENTS.
NATIONAL REGISTRATION.
A woman turned the last page of a report.
“The centres can’t depend on provisional coordination.”
Opposite her, a man checked the figures.
“The authorisation has arrived.”
“Full authorisation?”
“With parliamentary review and civilian oversight. But yes.”
The woman put down the report.
“Then it starts tomorrow.”
“It’s already started.”
He slid a folder towards the centre of the table.
There was a name on the cover.
STATE ETHER AGENCY.
A.E.E.
The woman gazed at the initials.
“We still don’t know what we’re organising.”
“That’s why we need to organise it.”
She opened the folder.
The first page showed a map of Spain covered in dots.
The second, the seven codes.
The third, a list of exceptional results.
One of them had only three lines.
RESONANCE: 0
PATTERN: —
RESULT: UNCLASSIFIED
The woman turned the page.
Outside, the city remained lit up.
Three weeks earlier, no one could name what had changed the world.
Now they had a word.
Ether.
They had codes.
They had records.
And they had just created an agency to decide what to do with it all.
But giving something a name did not mean understanding it.
Daniel Rodríguez slept with his result put away in a drawer.
Lina Rodríguez remained awake looking at her own hands.
Nair checked that his bedroom windows were closed.
Darian held his sheet up to the light, remembering a zero that was not his.
None of them yet knew what those codes would come to mean.
Or how much they would change their lives.
Registration had begun.
CUT TO BLACK.