The tapping of keyboards all around her. A few voices. The sound of the elevator moving through the shaft a few floors above. A phone ringing way down the hall. Someone laughs. She recognizes the voice: a face without a name. Through those sounds the more distant vacuum-sound of the city, rushing from below to fill the sky with noise. She works to separate it into discrete pieces: cars driving along the avenue, brakes squealing. Hundreds of voices braided together by distance. Sirens, suddenly, many blocks away and growing even more distant.