Seori had seen a lot of people die.
It was part of the job: EMS in Gray-3 was not a career for optimists.
But she'd also seen a lot of people live because someone got there fast enough, compressed hard enough, yelled at a node loud enough.
She'd always figured that was just what you did.
Now the System was… agreeing with her a little too loudly.
[NEW PERMISSION: EVALUATE_LIFE_NODE()][SCOPE: LOCAL (GRAY-3, ADJACENT DISTRICTS).][STATUS: PENDING ACTIVATION.]
Her uniform shirt lay across the back of a chair. She sat on the edge of her bed in worn sweats, hair half pulled back, staring at the glowing UI block hovering in front of her.
"This has to be a bug," she told her empty room.
The message pulsed politely.
[PREVIOUS PATTERN: OVERRIDDEN BASELINE TWICE UNDER EXTREME CONDITIONS.][OUTCOMES: POSITIVE.]
She knew the incidents.
Two weeks ago: the pile-up.
Baseline had flagged one driver as "low priority" because of prior health issues and low "economic contribution."
Seori had bypassed the auto-sorting, yelling at the nurse and manually rerouting a portable node.
Man lived. Turned out he was the unofficial caretaker of half his building's kids.
Last month: the blackout.
Baseline had flickered during a minor power grid hiccup.
The System had started shutting down "nonessential" life-support in a low-income clinic.
Seori had been there, physically, and had literally yanked a cable from one box to another while swearing loudly at the ceiling.
Apparently the System had been… watching.
"Creepy," she muttered.
Her tablet pinged: shift reminder.
[GRAY-3 EMS UNIT 4 – SHIFT STARTS IN 35 MINUTES.]
She scrubbed a hand over her face.
"Okay," she said to the UI. "What does 'Evaluate_Life_Node' actually do?"
The permissions window unfolded like origami.
[EVALUATE_LIFE_NODE()]– ALLOWS: MANUAL PRIORITY INPUT WHEN WORTH_FUNCTION FAILS OR TIMES OUT.– CANNOT: CREATE RESOURCES FROM NOTHING, OVERRIDE GLOBAL POLICIES, PERMANENTLY CHANGE BASELINES.– REQUIRES: DIRECT PRESENCE OR TRUSTED FEED, STRONG LOCAL CONTEXT.
"So you want me to be the tiebreaker when your math freezes," she said.
[YES.]
One word.
Neutral.
She laughed weakly.
"You're very needy for a god-corpse," she said.
No reply.
She stared a moment longer.
Then hit ACCEPT.
The world didn't explode.
A small, unobtrusive badge appeared at the edge of her UI:
[ROLE: CITY EVALUATOR (LOCAL).]
She grabbed her shirt, shoved her arms through sleeves, and headed out.