The city had turned into a maze of dead ends.
Under the Cordon, every block was a bottleneck. The intersections were basically sieves, designed to drain the life out of you until only the most obedient ones were left. The Overseers, in those stiff grey coats, drifted through the plazas like ghosts, the metallic tap-tap of their bronze rods against the cobblestones acting as a constant, rhythmic warning. They weren't just watching what we did anymore; they were looking for any sign of a pulse.
I watched the whole mess from a high, narrow window in a squatter's tenement. Through the lens of the Clarity—that unwanted, cold hum in the back of my head—the walls and gates disappeared. All I saw was a spring wound so tight it was ready to snap. The brass had pushed everyone into such a state of panic that the whole population had become one giant nerve, raw and exposed.
It was time to give that nerve something to scream about.
I didn't head down there with a gun or a mask. I went out as a ghost. I picked a path the Clarity flagged as a "blind spot"—not because there weren't guards, but because they were so obsessed with looking for a specific kind of trouble that they'd become blind to anything that didn't fit the profile.
I made it to the first gate of the district where the suits lived.
Two Overseers stood there, eyes darting, scanning the few people actually allowed through. The air tasted like ozone and wet metal. I hung back until I spotted a high-level clerk approaching. The guy was a wreck; his hands were shaking so hard he could barely find his official seal.
I didn't try to hide. I just stepped into the man's shadow, matching his stuttering stride, step for step.
The Clarity buzzed. The guards saw the clerk's terror, and since I was right on his heels, they just assumed that fear belonged to both of us. I wasn't a threat to them; I was just another broken cog in their machine. I walked right past them without so much as a second glance.
Inside the heart of the Cordon, the vibe changed.
The pressure was higher here, but the logic was falling apart. Every petty official was so terrified of the Magistrate's temper that they'd stopped talking to each other. They just followed the last paper put in front of them. I moved through those halls as I belonged there, keeping my head down and my pace steady. I was just part of the furniture.
I found the main hub—the room where the Cordon's orders got stamped and sent out to the gates. It was a frantic, quiet hell in there, nothing but the scratch of pens and the heavy thud of wax seals hitting paper.
I didn't have to break anything.
I just waited for a messenger to set down a fresh stack of orders so he could wipe the sweat off his neck. In that one second of distraction, I moved. I didn't steal the papers. I didn't even change a word on them. I just swapped the destination stamps.
The orders for the North Gate were now headed South. The directives for the West were pointed East.
A tiny, surgical screw-up. The Clarity mapped the fallout before it even happened: the city was about to choke on its own tongue. Gates would be slammed shut against their own people. Patrols would end up blockading their own backup units. The vacuum I'd created was about to be filled by the city's own panicked, flailing limbs.
I slipped out of the building before the first runner even hit the street.
By the time I got back to the tunnels beneath the stone, the air above was already starting to crack. I could hear the distant, muffled shouting of officers realizing their routes were blocked by their own barricades. The Cordon wasn't a net anymore; it was a noose.
The girl was waiting in the shadows, her hand tight on the grip of her knife. She didn't ask if it worked. She could hear the bells changing tone.
"It's falling apart," she said, her voice low.
"They're strangling themselves," I told her, leaning my back against the cold brick. "They wanted total control, so I gave it to them. Every gate is now fighting an order that makes no sense."
I closed my eyes, feeling the Clarity start to fade, leaving me feeling hollowed out and exhausted. The city above was a storm of its own making now. The Magistrate was about to find out that his "New Order" was just a prison with no keys, and he'd built the damn thing himself.
"They'll know it was us," she whispered.
"No," I said. "They'll think it was just another fuck-up in a system that's forgotten how to tell the truth. And by the time they figure it out, the people on the streets won't be looking for a culprit. They'll just be looking for the exit."
The silence in the hideout felt heavier now—a small bit of quiet while the world above finally realized how fragile it really was.