The attention spike came first.
Not loud.
Not public.
Just a subtle uptick in background noise—the kind only systems noticed.
Aria felt it before she saw it.
---
Three new monitoring threads initialized within the same minute.
Noah frowned at the diagnostics. "That's fast."
"They were already watching," Aria said. "They just stopped pretending they weren't."
---
A dormant camera node lit up.
Then another.
Legacy hardware—cheap, outdated, but perfectly placed.
"Why reactivate old eyes?" Noah asked.
"Because old eyes are invisible," Aria replied. "No one audits them anymore."
---
She traced the data paths.
They weren't collecting content.
They were measuring behavior.
Dwell time.
Micro-expressions.
Audience response lag.
"They want to know if you're performing," Noah said.
"Or planning," Aria corrected.
---
A quiet alert pulsed.
OBSERVATION STATUS: ACTIVE
No directive.
No contact.
Just presence.
"They're waiting for you to slip," Noah said.
"They're waiting for me to choose," Aria replied.
---
She leaned back, gaze unfocused.
"Eyes don't reopen unless someone's afraid of missing something."
Noah studied her. "What are they afraid of?"
Aria's smile was calm.
"That I won't do what they expect."