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Welcome to A Bedtime Story. I'm Matthew Mitchell, and tonight's story is titled The Echo in the Alley, Part 2 of this week's series: The Frequency of Forgotten Things.

Juno found Felix in his usual habitat: a garage that looked like a graveyard for television sets and microwave ovens. The air smelled of solder and old ozone. Felix was currently hanging upside down from a rafter, trying to adjust an antenna that looked like it belonged on a lunar lander. He dropped to the floor with the grace of a startled cat when Juno slammed the door behind her.

"You really need to work on your entrance, Juno," Felix said, rubbing his shoulder. "Most people use the doorbell. Or at least a polite cough. I almost dropped my favorite wrench."

Juno did not have time for pleasantries. She pulled the obsidian disc from her jacket and slammed it onto a workbench covered in copper wire. "I found this, and it talked to me," she panted. "It told me the bridge is going to fall at midnight. And I heard my own voice, Felix. Not like a recording of me now, but a recording of me later. It sounded like I was in the middle of a very weird Tuesday."

Felix looked at the stone disc, his eyes widening behind his thick glasses. He reached out to touch it but pulled his hand back as if it were hot. "That is an echo stone," he whispered. "My grandfather used to talk about these. They do not record sound in the way a tape does. They record probability. They capture the vibrations of things that are likely to happen."

"How is that even possible?" Juno asked, leaning over the workbench.

"Think of time like a giant piano," Felix explained, waving his hands enthusiastically. "Most of us only hear the notes being played right now. But a stone like this can feel the vibrations of the strings that are about to be struck. If you hear an echo, you are hearing a future that is trying to happen. But if you change the vibration, the whole song goes out of tune."

Suddenly, the garage door groaned. A shadow stretched across the floor, long and jagged. The man in the gray coat was standing in the doorway, his silhouette framed by the streetlights. He did not look angry; he looked bored, which was somehow much more terrifying.

"Give me the disc," the man said. His voice was a sound that belonged in a basement or a tomb. "It is not a toy for children to play with. It is a necessary calibration for the city. Some things are meant to break so that other things can be built."

Juno grabbed a heavy wrench from the table. "I do not think so," she said, her voice trembling but determined. "The bridge is full of people. You do not get to calibrate them into a disaster."

Felix was already moving toward a control panel on his workbench. "I am sorry about the static, sir," Felix shouted, "but I really hate being told what to do!"

He hit a switch, and a massive electromagnetic pulse rippled through the room. The lights flickered and died, and a series of old radios began to scream with static. The man in the gray coat hissed and covered his ears, the high-pitched frequency clearly causing him physical pain. He staggered back, his form flickering like a bad television connection.

"Run!" Felix yelled, grabbing Juno’s arm and pulling her toward a small window at the back of the garage. They scrambled through it, landing in a pile of cardboard boxes just as the sound of breaking glass echoed behind them.

They ran through the maze of alleys that crisscrossed the industrial district. The city felt different tonight, more menacing, as if the buildings themselves were leaning in to listen to their conversation. Juno felt the disc vibrating in her hand. It was getting warmer, pulsing with a rhythmic thrum that matched her own heartbeat.

"It is reaching its peak," Felix said as they paused for breath behind a row of rusted trash bins. "The event is locking in. We have to get to the bridge and find the transmitter. If someone is planning to bring it down, they are not using explosives. They are using sound. They are going to play a note so perfect and so loud that the bridge simply forgets how to stay together."

Juno looked at the massive iron structure of the bridge in the distance. It looked solid, but she knew that even the strongest things had a breaking point. "How do we stop a sound we cannot hear yet?" she asked.

"We give the stone something else to think about," Felix said, his eyes gleaming. "We create a counter-frequency. I have a portable amplifier in my backpack and enough wire to bypass a small power plant. We are going to go up there and give that bridge a reason to stay standing."

They saw a black car parked near the pedestrian entrance of the bridge. Two more men in gray coats were standing guard, their eyes scanning the darkness. Juno realized they could not just walk up the main path. They would have to climb. She looked at the towering suspension cables and the dark water below.

"I really hope you are good at climbing," Juno whispered.

"I am great at climbing," Felix replied, "as long as I do not look down. If I look down, I generally become a very terrified statue. So, let's just keep our eyes on the top, shall we?"