The city had not had a real name in over a decade.

Now it was Sector Twelve—because that was what the Authority called it, and what the screens repeated every hour on the hour. Towering billboards washed the streets in sterile light, slogans looping endlessly about productivity and order. Drones traced mechanical paths overhead, their lenses unblinking, their hum as common as wind.

Elias Mercer had stopped noticing the sound years ago.

At twenty-four, he had been working in Data Reconciliation long enough that the glow of surveillance footage felt more natural than daylight. His shift began at sixteen hundred and ended whenever the flagged anomalies were cleared. Emotional irregularities. Unauthorized gatherings. Patterned proximity between unregistered citizens.

Attachment was considered a liability.

Elias no longer questioned that. He no longer questioned much at all.

He sat in his gray cubicle with his sleeves rolled up, tie loosened, eyes rimmed faintly red from too many nights staring into artificial light. His job was simple: review, confirm, escalate. His cursor hovered over decisions that altered lives.

That was when Subject 7-1193 appeared on his screen.

Male. Twenty-five. Repeated presence across transit hubs and rooftop access points. Marked for behavioral review.

The footage loaded in silent monochrome. The man moved through crowds without touching anyone, coat collar raised against the wind. Not furtive—just careful. In three separate clips, he paused beneath different buildings and glanced upward, as if measuring distance.

In the final frame, he looked straight into the camera.

And smiled.

It wasn’t defiance. It wasn’t mockery.

It was recognition.

Elias leaned back slowly, exhaustion pressing into his bones. He had seen thousands of faces pass across his monitor—fearful, angry, unaware.

None had ever looked back at him like that.

Protocol required immediate escalation.

Instead, Elias marked the file for extended observation. A delay. Paperwork. Time.

He told himself it was fatigue. A minor deviation born of overwork.

Two nights later, he saw the man in person.

Curfew sirens had begun their low mechanical chorus, echoing between high-rise concrete. Citizens moved quickly under floodlights, badges visible, eyes down. Elias stepped out of the transit terminal with the familiar heaviness of someone who had given more hours to a system than to himself.

“Data floor,” a voice said quietly from the shadow of a shuttered pharmacy.

Elias did not startle. He was too tired for that.

He turned.

The man from the footage stepped forward. Up close, he looked older than the file photo suggested—mid-twenties, perhaps twenty-six. Dark stubble shadowed his jaw. There was a thin scar at his brow. His coat was worn but clean.

“You flagged my file,” he said. “You didn’t escalate it.”

Elias studied him the way he studied footage—assessing posture, tone, potential threat.

“You shouldn’t approach a government employee,” Elias replied, voice flat from long practice.

“And you shouldn’t have spared me,” the man countered.

A drone drifted overhead, spotlight sweeping lazily across the pavement. Elias stepped instinctively closer to the building’s overhang, drawing the man with him into a narrow strip of shadow.