Jeremiah Clark loved clean numbers.
Not because he was a nerd. Not because he cared about math.
Because clean numbers meant clean stories.
And clean stories meant people stopped asking questions.
He stood inside a mobile Command post parked under the transit deck, one level above the chaos. The deck's shadow cut the heat, but it didn't cut the noise. Sirens echoed off concrete. The Frequency hum threaded through everything like a second heartbeat. Sometimes it rose sharp enough to make his molars ache.
He didn't flinch.
He was tall, built like a man who'd spent years learning how to stand still under pressure—broad shoulders under a dark field coat, collar up, hair cropped close, jaw shaved clean. No visible armor. He didn't need it. People moved when he spoke without the plates.
A drone feed hovered in the air in front of him, projected from a wrist console. Three angles of the curb line. A tight shot of a storm drain puking mites. Another shot of the crowd stampeding. A third shot—zoomed in—on a kid in a black hoodie.
Hands in his pockets.
Hair in his eyes.
Doing nothing.
Until the stroller moved.
Jeremiah watched that clip again. Twice. Then a third time, because it annoyed him how subtle it was.
No gesture.
No dramatic push.
Just the wheel hub shifting like the world had been nudged.
A tiny action. A tiny problem.
The kind that turned into a big one if you let it sit.
A woman in a Public Affairs vest hovered to Jeremiah's left, tablet in hand, lips moving silently as she drafted the first statement. Her eyes flicked up to him for approval the way dogs checked for permission.
He didn't look at her yet.
He looked at the numbers running down his screen.
BREACH: CONFIRMED
LEVEL: 2 trending 3
CIVILIAN DENSITY: HIGH
CASUALTY FORECAST: UNACCEPTABLE
ADJACENT FLAGS: 47
ARREST QUOTA: 300 (initial)
Three hundred.
That was just the first hour.
Jeremiah's mouth didn't change, but something in him loosened anyway.
There it is.
The machine's hungry part.
A Command officer stepped into the post, visor up, sweat running down the edge of his temple. His eyes were too wide. Too human.
"Compliance," he said, voice rough. "We've got pushback on the curb line. Crowd's calling it a setup. They're filming everything."
"They always film everything," Jeremiah said.
The officer swallowed. "They're saying you—Command—raised Frequency too fast. People started dropping. They're blaming us."
Jeremiah finally turned his head to Public Affairs.
The woman stiffened like he'd pulled a gun.
He spoke calmly.
"Blame civilians."
"Yes, sir," she said instantly.
She started typing faster.
Jeremiah looked back at the officer.
"Do we have clear footage of the first drain popping?"
"Yes."
"Do we have clear footage of civilians pushing into the curb line after warnings?"
"Yes."
"Do we have footage of protest leaders calling people forward?"
The officer hesitated. "Not clean."
Jeremiah's gaze sharpened. "Then make it clean. Pull audio. Cut it with the surge. Show faces screaming, show signs, show the drain. Stamp the timecode. Run the line: civilian agitation increased exposure vectors."
The officer nodded like he was taking gospel.
Jeremiah didn't care if it was true.
He cared if it worked.
He moved his thumb and the feed expanded. The curb line split into multiple windows. One showed a Command shield wall pushing forward. Another showed a CRS element moving through the smoke.
White uniforms.
Collars.
Black muzzles on two of them—Dogboxes—snouts out like mechanical shame.
They moved like they were breathing through a straw.
One of them—Plug role, Black-Tag by posture alone—took a mite swarm straight to the chest and didn't even scream. Just locked down, shoulders braced, and let the Frequency Operator behind him wash the lane.
A hero, if you cared about that kind of word.
An asset, if you worked for Jeremiah.
A woman in medical scrubs stepped into the post, face pinched, eyes tired. Not an officer. Not a cadet. Someone who'd seen too many people turn wrong.
"Exposure tags are piling," she said. "We can't process clean checks at this rate."
Jeremiah didn't look away from the hoodie kid clip.
"Then don't process," he said.
She blinked. "Sir?"
"Tag broader," Jeremiah said. "Adjacent doctrine. Anyone within the first perimeter window gets held. Anyone who touched anyone who touched the curb gets held. Anyone who interfered gets held."
Her mouth tightened. "That's… a lot of people."
"It's a lot of potential spread," Jeremiah replied. "We're preventing a cascade."
He let the lie sit there. Smooth. Professional.
Then he added the truth, quiet enough that only his own people heard it.
"And we're restoring order."
Public Affairs cleared her throat. "Sir, do you want the word 'quota' in the statement?"
Jeremiah's eyes flicked to her like she'd stepped on a landmine.
"No."
Her shoulders hitched. "Understood."
He watched her delete it.
The officer from earlier shifted, uncomfortable. "The crowd's getting violent."
Jeremiah nodded once, like that was expected.
"It's supposed to," he said. "Fear makes people loud. Loud makes them sloppy. Sloppy makes them easy to process."
The officer's face tightened. "We're talking about civilians."
Jeremiah looked at him now. Really looked.
The officer flinched like he'd been slapped.
Jeremiah spoke like he was explaining a policy memo.
"We're talking about a district that has to stay standing," he said. "We're talking about Breach escalation. We're talking about Armed who think they can freelance in public and disappear into crowds. We're talking about the next week."
He tapped his wrist console. The number 300 glowed.
"Quota week," he said. "We don't stop this here, we'll be pulling bodies out of drains for months."
The officer's mouth opened.
Closed.
He nodded. He didn't like it. But he nodded anyway.
That was the difference between people who survived Command and people who got eaten by it. You didn't have to agree. You just had to comply.
Jeremiah pinched the hoodie kid's clip and expanded the metadata.
SUBJECT: MALE / TEEN
LIKELY ARMED: YES
ABILITY TYPE: TELEKINETIC INTERFERENCE (LOW OUTPUT)
THREAT BAND: C (pending)
STATUS: ADJACENT DETENTION
TRANSFER RECOMMENDATION: CIC SCREENING
CIC.
Containment Intake Center.
The post didn't smell like the street. It smelled like cold coffee and ozone and disinfectant wipes.
Jeremiah liked it.
He spoke into his mic.
"Confirm custody on adjacent subject," he said. "Do not process in-field. Secure and move."
A voice crackled back, filtered and bored.
"Copy. He's cuffed."
"Good," Jeremiah said. "Keep the drone on him until he's inside transport."
"Already done."
Jeremiah watched the live feed of the alley gap.
The kid was pinned to a column, face blank even with his wrist twisted up behind him. He looked… annoyed. Not scared. Not angry. Like someone had interrupted his day and he hated that more than the pain.
Jeremiah narrowed his eyes.
That calm was a problem.
Calm meant control. Control meant planning.
Planning meant revolt, eventually.
Public Affairs leaned in, voice careful. "Sir, do we mention the Chokers in the statement?"
Jeremiah didn't blink.
"No."
She nodded fast.
Of course you don't mention them.
You don't put white uniforms and collars on the evening feed when you're trying to sell safety.
Jeremiah watched as the second Command officer raised the cuffs.
The kid's shoulders tensed, just a hair.
Jeremiah waited for panic.
It didn't come.
The cuffs snapped shut.
The kid's head tilted slightly toward the drone, like he could feel the red dot through his hair.
Jeremiah smiled without showing teeth.
"Interesting," he murmured.
The medical woman's voice cut in again. "Sir, we've got another bulge. Bigger. Two blocks down."
Jeremiah's eyes slid to the next feed window.
The street grate down the line was swelling like the concrete itself was breathing.
People near it didn't notice yet. They were too busy screaming at the shield wall, too busy shoving, too busy filming.
Jeremiah spoke into comms, calm as ever.
"Containment, shift Frequency lanes," he ordered. "CRS Pull team to the second curb. I want that grate controlled before it opens."
A voice answered, strained.
"Copy. Pull team moving. Dogbox units up."
Jeremiah watched the black-muzzled Chokers jog into the smoke like ghosts in white.
Watched the crowd recoil from them.
Watched the kid in the hoodie get hauled toward a transport van.
A different van rolled in behind it—unmarked, no symbols, just black paint and quiet authority. The kind of vehicle civilians never noticed until it was too late.
Jeremiah's fingers hovered over the transfer authorization.
One tap and that kid's life became a file number.
A collar.
A schedule.
A Muzzle Night.
A "Certified CRS" option if he broke right.
Or a problem if he didn't.
Jeremiah pressed the authorization.
The file stamped APPROVED.
Down on the street, the second grate finally tore free—
—and something big enough to bend the air around it started forcing itself out.