"ARC has executed another strike against licensed atmospheric infrastructure," the cab's overhead display announced. "The eco-extremist collective has now been placed on the global watchlist. Effective immediately, active affiliation screening will be mandatory. Any confirmed association will result in criminal designation within Neo Opus jurisdiction."
Licensed atmospheric infrastructure.
They always emphasized the licensed part.
The driver lowered the volume but didn't turn it off. "You ever think they might be right?"
The question hung there like unfiltered air.
Two taps on the console. First mute. Then privacy glass. The partition fogged over, sound dampened to a low mechanical murmur.
"Bottom dwellers," I said, not raising my voice. "They don't know what keeps them breathing."
I lifted my company handset and keyed in the internal channel.
Cab ID 7-441A. Possible ideological affiliation. Recommend screening.
I didn't need proof. That wasn't my department.
Send.
The smog layer thinned beneath us, grey folding into something almost blue. People paid fortunes for views like this. I got it twice a day on the commute, like a teaser trailer for a life I wasn't licensed to inhabit.
Above the particulate ceiling, sunlight actually behaved like light.
My contract kept me near the edge—sometimes above it, most days breathing whatever drifted upward from below. Still better than ground tier. Down there, lungs came with expiration dates unless you could afford neural assist filtration.
Infrastructure wasn't cruelty.
It was mercy with a price tag.
The cab threaded between towers. Steel and glass stacked so tightly the horizon forgot it had ever been horizontal. Clean sky existed somewhere above the upper tiers, but most citizens would age and die without verifying that rumor personally.
Neo Opus didn't waste vertical space.
The company tower emerged where the smog thinned—balanced precisely at the atmospheric threshold, like it refused to commit to either world. A rectangular breach cut clean through its center. Transit lanes passed straight into it, swallowed workers whole, and released them twelve hours later slightly more tired and slightly more solvent.
We called it efficient.
The cab aligned with the intake corridor. The doors unlocked before we'd fully stabilized.
Another day above the surface.
The elevator filled with tailored fabric and curated indifference. Floor numbers mattered more than faces. You memorized destinations, not names.
My badge chimed against the panel.
5 — BioAtmospheric Modulation Architecture, Customer Affairs.
The man in front of me selected 15.
Upper strategy.
His shoes alone probably cost more than my monthly oxygen allowance.
Say something, I told myself. Networking wasn't prohibited. Just rare.
"I—"
His implant blinked first. Incoming call.
"Yes."
Pause.
"No. Lower levels."
Another pause. Slight nod.
"Yes. One of those days."
The words weren't for me, but they settled there anyway.
Lower levels.
The doors parted with a polite chime.
5th floor.
My floor.
The elevator sealed itself behind me and continued upward, chasing better salaries.
"Good morning, Maya," the floor system intoned.
Of course it knew my name. It knew my oxygen consumption too.
"Assignment uploaded to Desk 8. Client location: Halcyon Avenue, Sector 14. Arrival required: 1500."
Desk 8 waited exactly where it always waited. Someone had already placed the data shard on its surface—precision wrapped in brushed alloy.
Clock-in. Thumb scan. Compliance timestamped.
Minimal workspace. Synthetic fern. The real ones cost more than rent. A corporate skyline photo taken before the lower districts went grey. Beneath it, the company motto etched in tempered glass:
Stability Is Sustainability.
I straightened the chair to factory alignment and flexed my wrist. The port slid open along the seam of my skin.
Company-issued memory interface. Non-optional.
The shard clicked into place.
There's a brief moment, right before activation, when your thoughts are still entirely yours.
"Play."
The shard engaged with a clean internal handshake.
Client profile populated in layers.
Name: Adrian Vale.
Asset class: Tier-Prime.
Political insulation: sufficient.
Litigation history: minimal.
Project designation followed.
Atmospheric Column 14-B.
Vertical ecosystem chamber.
Total volume: 1.9 million cubic meters.
Biodensity index: 74%.
Soil authenticity blend: 38% organic composite.
Sun-cycle programming: temperate maritime, 11-hour light span.
Not acreage.
Airspace.
He wasn't buying land. He was buying weather.
Additional requests streamed in.
Avian corridor expansion, altitude-restricted.
Rainfall modulation—audible preference tuned to low-frequency comfort range.
Insect presence minimized; visual segmentation flagged as unacceptable.
That one almost made me smile.
The feed deepened—personality sync next. Conversational bias mapping. Political sensitivities. Approved humour thresholds. Words to avoid.
By then the compression lag started.
BAMA allocated premium neural bandwidth to executive floors. Customer Affairs received "optimized efficiency" models. Which meant cheaper shards and harder uploads.
The first spike felt like static at the edge of thought.
I let it continue.
Aborting mid-transfer auto-flagged deviation. Deviation meant review. Review meant questions.
Not worth it.
The forest architecture rendered in my mind—layered platforms, suspended root matrices, artificial sunlight shafts descending from mirrored ceilings. Water cycling upward through hidden turbines before cascading down as programmable rainfall.
It was beautiful in a structural sense.
Then the pain sharpened.
Not sharp enough to stop. Just enough to remind me which floor I worked on.
The feed concluded with a soft internal click.
Silence returned.
There's always a second—right after a shard disengages—when your thoughts feel unsponsored.
Then the ache settled properly.
Two tablets from the drawer. Corporate-approved analgesic. Swallowed dry.
Hydration was recommended.
Performance was mandatory.
Shard-time was elastic.
Executive-grade hardware condensed entire personality matrices into something that felt instantaneous—information sliding into place without friction.
Customer Affairs received "optimized" models.
Mine stretched.
The upload felt like three measured minutes of structured intake.
When my eyes opened, the office lighting had shifted to afternoon calibration.
The handset vibrated.
Transport arrival in 15 minutes. Presence required.
I checked the wall display.
14:45.
The shard had consumed nearly the entire day.
Lower floors paid in time.
I rolled my neck once, waiting for the lag to settle. Cheap compression always left a residue—like someone had rearranged the furniture in your head and forgotten the original layout.
Fifteen minutes.
Enough to appear prepared.
Not enough to resent it properly.
"Hey, Maya. Drinks after work?"
Marx filled the aisle before I saw his face. Broad shoulders. Engineered symmetry. Three centuries ago it might've meant hard labour or devotion to something physical. Now it meant discretionary income and elective tissue conversion.
Eight-floor badge clipped at his collar.
Upgrade territory.
"Sure," I said easily. "After I close this column."
You don't decline invitations that move vertically.
He leaned against my desk like he owned the surface. "Heard you're handling Halcyon."
"Customer Affairs," I corrected.
His smile tilted. "Same difference."
My handset pulsed again.
Transport arrival imminent.
"I'd love to debate departmental nuance," I said, standing. "But the client's paying for punctuality."
He stepped aside without argument.
Even the upper floors respected revenue streams.
The cab door lifted before I reached it.
For a fraction of a second, the driver's eyes met mine. Same man as this morning.
The partition fogged automatically.
Good.
If he remembered me, he'd be careful.
Strange he was still employed.
The transit cut across districts in twenty minutes and climbed another fifty stories before decelerating. Upper-tier zoning laws kept public vehicles well outside residential airspace. Exposure diluted exclusivity.
Clients paid for curated first impressions.
The tower announced itself long before arrival. A vertical column of green suspended in steel and glass, wrapped in a temporary neon lattice:
HALCYON ATMOSPHERIC COLUMN — PRIVATE ACQUISITION PENDING.
Until purchase, it belonged to us.
After that, it would belong to him.
The cab docked at the perimeter intake. No street-level congestion here. No noise bleed. No lower-tier scent drift.
I stepped out into filtered air that didn't taste recycled.
And there they were.
Trees.
Not projections. Not polymer composites.
Actual engineered trunks rising beside a white alloy fountain, leaves calibrated to a controlled breeze cycle.
I had seen them before.
Though the wanting never recalibrated.
The route unfolded automatically in my mind. The shard had mapped every corridor, but even without it, navigation here was intuitive.
Space was the luxury.
Hallways wide enough for silence. Only a handful of residences per level. No crowd compression. No oxygen ration displays blinking overhead.
Our temporary neon lattice pulsed across the entrance.
I lifted my handset, authenticated, and dissolved the projection with a series of mid-air inputs. The sign fragmented into light and vanished.
No one spends this much to be reminded it's still for sale.
The corridor settled into understated white.
All that remained was—
Footsteps.
Measured. Unhurried.
He approached from the far end of the hall as if the distance existed purely for his benefit.
Tall. Narrow build. White hair calibrated to silver, not age. Glasses reflecting more data than light. Crimson suit—deep, deliberate. White tie precise enough to suggest a stylist on retainer.
The kind of tailoring that didn't ask for attention.
It assumed it.
I inhaled once, squared my shoulders.
"Welcome to your eco-future."
The line was scripted on day one of training. We weren't encouraged to improvise during initial reveal.
He laughed—soft, modulated. Even his amusement sounded engineered.
"Rise, young lady. Show me to my oasis."
Perfect pitch. Perfect cadence. Paid-for perfection.
"Yes, sir."
I stepped aside, palm to the sensor panel. The door parted without sound. I held it for him.
Status entered first.
The interior corridor expanded into curated symmetry. As specified.
"Storage and sanitation to your left," I said smoothly. "Private quarters to your right, customized to your architectural brief."
No hesitation.
"Forward is the atmospheric column."
The air shifted as the inner seal disengaged.
Water before sight. A low, continuous cascade. Avian calls tuned to temperate calibration. Insects on minimal aggression settings.
"Is that—?" He leaned forward slightly. "Animals?"
"Yes, sir. Bio-certified. Contained flight range."
The final partition dissolved.
Stone replaced alloy underfoot. A carved path descended into vertical green. A spring emerged from engineered rock, spilling into a waterfall that fed layered basins below. Vines threaded through suspended root matrices. Light filtered from above in measured shafts.
I slowed my pace just enough for him to absorb it.
"Atmospheric column fourteen-B," I began. "Total vertical span: three hundred and eighty meters. Fully enclosed. Climate stabilized independently from city grid fluctuations."
He stepped off the carved stone and onto the first platform, testing the ground with polished shoes.
"The soil composition is a thirty-eight percent organic composite blend," I continued. "The remainder is engineered substrate designed to prevent erosion and root collapse across vertical gradients. You'll never see structural scaffolding from primary walkways."
His hand hovered near a branch but didn't touch.
"Light cycles are programmed to temperate maritime conditions, eleven-hour primary exposure. Artificial sunshafts are calibrated to mimic natural diffusion patterns. You won't experience glare, only warmth."
Above us, filtered beams shifted subtly as if responding to his presence.
"The waterfall operates on a closed-loop system," I said, gesturing toward the spring. "Water is drawn upward through concealed turbines, filtered, mineral-adjusted, then redistributed. The acoustic profile has been tuned to reduce cognitive stress while maintaining environmental authenticity."
He turned toward the cascade, listening.
Birds cut through the airspace in controlled arcs.
"Avian class is altitude-restricted," I added. "No predator species. Flight paths are monitored, but you won't notice the boundaries unless you attempt to breach them."
A faint breeze moved through the leaves. Not random. Programmed.
"Insect presence has been minimized according to your preference profile. Pollination is assisted through micro-drones operating above visual threshold."
He looked at me then, properly.
"And the air?"
"Self-sustaining within the column," I replied. "Oxygen density slightly elevated compared to standard upper-tier residential zones. You may notice improved cognitive clarity during extended stays."
He inhaled deeply.
Most clients did.
"Noise from external infrastructure is fully suppressed," I continued. "No lower-tier scent drift. No particulate intrusion. What you experience here is entirely yours."
Entirely his.
The column rose above us, green layered upon green, engineered roots gripping hidden architecture.
"This ecosystem will mature over the next eighteen months," I finished. "Growth patterns are semi-autonomous. It will evolve within its design parameters."
He was quiet for several seconds.
People always were.
I had delivered the presentation perfectly.
The wanting pressed harder this time.
And I kept walking.
The first sound didn't register as danger.
It registered as structural deviation.
The artificial sky above the column flickered. A hairline fracture traced across the glass lattice. Birds altered trajectory mid-flight.
Impact followed.
The cab didn't explode immediately. It punched through.
Metal tore through the dome at an angle that suggested calculation, not chaos. The shockwave displaced air downward in a violent column. Leaves ripped from branches. The waterfall lost coherence and became debris.
I saw the client's reflection in the water before I saw his body move.
He hesitated.
That was enough.
I grabbed him.
Not gently.
Rotation. Downward pressure. Cover.
Client Preservation Standard 4.2: Body as barrier.
The blast caught us mid-collapse. Stone collided with my shoulder. Something sharp struck my cheek. My hearing narrowed into a high, mechanical ring.
Training had never included shattered glass.
Three figures dropped from the ruptured cab before gravity fully recalibrated.
They didn't stumble.
They landed and corrected, joints adjusting in small, precise increments. Human silhouettes with movement optimized past human tolerance.
The driver stepped out last.
Same coat. Same eyes.
He looked at me the way one evaluates an obstacle.
"She's corporate," he said, not loudly. "Not our issue."
Not our issue.
I stood anyway.
There was no calculation involved. Just posture. Instinct shaped by policy.
I placed myself between them and the client.
If I survived, that would be reviewed favourably.
One of them raised an arm.
I registered the muzzle alignment before the sound.
Three shots.
Tight grouping.
Overkill is a message.
The client folded behind me. I didn't turn immediately. Turning would mean seeing the damage. Seeing the damage would require acknowledging it was permanent.
The sirens began below—vertical response units accelerating upward through traffic lanes.
A voice emitted from the client's collar implant, distorted but intact.
"Neo Opus PD en route. Airspace containment active. No escape vector available."
The modded figure tilted its head slightly. Processing.
The driver glanced at me again.
Not guilt.
Confirmation.
Panels unfolded along their backs. Angular extensions. Drone-assist propulsion ignited without visible flame. They moved as a coordinated unit toward the breach.
They didn't rush.
They exited.
The artificial breeze system continued attempting correction, pushing displaced air back into an environment that no longer held.
Leaves drifted across stone slicked with red.
I knelt beside him then.
Too late.
But procedure requires verification.
My hands were steady.
That annoyed me.
The interrogation room was neutral by design.
No shadows. No corners to focus on.
Just a table and two officers.
One human.
One augmented—optic lenses adjusting in microscopic increments whenever I shifted.
"State your name."
"Maya Ilyan. Customer Affairs. BAMA."
"You were present at the Halcyon Column attack."
"Yes."
The augmented officer's gaze didn't blink.
"Did you recognize the vehicle?"
"It was a licensed civilian transport."
"That is not the question."
Silence stretched.
"Did you recognize the driver?"
Yes.
Was it the same person from this morning's cab? I reported him. So it can't be.
"No."
The augmented officer didn't react.
His lenses narrowed slightly. Focusing. Processing micro-expression data.
"You hesitated," he said.
"I was recalling under stress."
"You reported a driver this morning."
My spine straightened before I allowed it to.
"I report irregularities frequently."
"Timestamp: 08:14. Suspicion of ARC affiliation. Same vehicle registration as the Halcyon breach."
The human officer looked down at his tablet.
"There is no record of such a report in our system."
My mouth went dry.
"I submitted it internally."
"To BAMA?"
"Yes."
The augmented officer tilted his head a fraction.
"BAMA confirms no such submission."
That landed cleaner than the explosion had.
I didn't speak.
Because speaking would require choosing between incompetence and fabrication.
"Did you or did you not falsely report a civilian this morning?" the human officer asked.
"I reported what I believed to be a risk."
"To whom?"
"My supervisor."
"Name?"
I gave it.
They logged it.
The augmented officer leaned forward.
"You recognized the driver at the scene."
This wasn't a question.
"Yes."
The word felt heavier this time.
"And you did not disclose that immediately."
"No."
"Why?"
Because I wanted to survive this interview.
Because admitting prior suspicion connects me to motive.
Because BAMA reviews patterns.
Because ARC might be watching.
Instead I said, "Shock."
The optic lenses narrowed again.
That one they didn't believe.
But it was plausible.
The augmented officer leaned back.
"Your biometric stress indicators spiked only after we referenced the morning report."
That was the first time I felt anger.
They were dissecting me like faulty hardware.
"I was in an explosion," I said evenly. "I shielded the client."
"You survived," he replied.
That wasn't an accusation.
It was data.
The human officer closed his tablet.
"There is insufficient evidence to detain you at this time."
Not innocent.
Just not useful enough.
"However," the augmented officer added, "your employer has requested full access to our transcript."
Of course they had.
I stood.
My hands were steady again.
That irritated me more than fear would have.
As I stepped toward the door, the augmented officer spoke once more.
"Corporate loyalty does not protect you from collateral classification."
I didn't respond.
Because I wasn't sure which category I was drifting toward.
Marx was waiting across the street from the station.
No suit jacket. Sleeves rolled. Casual confidence calibrated for sympathy optics.
"You look like hell," he said.
"I was in a dome explosion."
He smiled faintly. "I know."
He didn't elaborate. Didn't press. Just matched my pace when I started walking.
"NOPD won't find anything," he said after a block. "ARC wipes clean."
"You seem informed."
"I am."
The conversation stalled there, but not awkwardly. He pointed toward a narrow strip of neon below the main transit lane.
"Come on. I know a place that doesn't pretend soy sauce is heritage."
We descended one level beneath the cleaner districts, into that in-between layer where executives liked to feel grounded without actually inhaling ground-tier air. The restaurant was all glass and glare, pink and electric blue signage reflected in polished chrome. Inside, fluorescent green alcohol glowed under the bar lights like something designed for laboratory consumption rather than pleasure.
We took seats at the counter instead of a booth. That was his choice.
"Two house specials," he told the bartender. "And the gyoza."
He sounded relaxed. Even generous.
I studied his reflection in the mirror behind the bottles. Eight-floor badge still clipped to his collar. He hadn't upgraded it yet. That meant timing mattered.
"So," he said, folding his hands on the counter. "Interrogation bad?"
"Standard," I replied. "They tried to corner inconsistencies."
"And?"
"I didn't give them any."
He nodded slowly, approving the way someone approves a subordinate's efficiency.
"You always were precise," he said.
The drinks arrived. Translucent green liquid in angular glasses. It smelled faintly metallic beneath the citrus.
He raised his glass first.
"To surviving."
I met it. The alcohol burned, but not unpleasantly. It spread heat in a way that felt almost earned.
For a few minutes we talked about harmless things. Lower-floor incompetence. The optics of BAMA's press statement. How quickly the dome footage had been suppressed from public feeds. He leaned casually against the counter, shoulder occasionally brushing mine, familiar without claiming.
If I hadn't known him for years, I might have believed this was comfort.
The gyoza arrived. Steam rose between us.
He took a bite, chewed thoughtfully, then said, "BAMA moved fast."
"Of course they did."
"Internal review concluded within hours."
"That's efficient."
He wiped his mouth with a black napkin, watching me rather than the motion of his own hand.
"Asset loss at that scale demands accountability."
There it was again.
"Accountability?" I asked.
He set his glass down carefully before answering.
"I reported you."
The sentence didn't come sharpened. It came flat. Procedural.
I didn't respond immediately. I finished my sip first, because reacting too quickly would give him something to measure.
"For what."
"Potential ARC affiliation."
"You're serious."
"Very."
He leaned slightly closer, lowering his voice just enough to feel intimate rather than secretive.
"NOPD flagged your biometric spike when they mentioned the morning cab report," he continued. "The one that doesn't exist in BAMA's system."
The fluorescent lights hummed faintly overhead.
"I escalated before they could connect it cleanly," he said. "Framed it as proactive internal vigilance."
"You framed me."
"I positioned you."
That correction was deliberate.
The bartender passed behind us, polishing a glass. Someone at the far end of the bar laughed too loudly at something unfunny.
"Thanks for being my ticket up," Marx said lightly, as if discussing performance metrics. "Twelve's reviewing me next quarter."
I turned toward him fully now. "Twelve."
He smiled.
"Effective immediately."
That was the moment the symmetry shifted.
Not when he said he reported me. That was expected once the ladder appeared.
It shifted when he looked at me differently.
Not as colleague.
Not even as subordinate.
As asset.
He lifted his hand and, without asking, slid his fingers into my aquamarine hair. Twirled a strand slowly, testing texture.
I did not pull away.
Because pulling away would concede ground.
"You know," he said, studying the colour against his knuckles, "you really are ideal."
"For what."
"For optics."
His fingers moved lower, brushing the side of my neck before returning to my hair.
"Tall," he continued conversationally. "But not threateningly so. Symmetrical. Corporate-polished. Attractive without being distracting in board settings."
The alcohol sat warm in my stomach, but my thoughts remained precise.
"Your proportions work in your favour," he went on. "Enough to hold attention. Not enough to challenge it."
I felt my jaw tighten, so I relaxed it deliberately.
"And what works even better," he added, meeting my eyes now, "is timing."
He stood from the bar stool, stepping closer into my space rather than allowing distance to form naturally.
"You were in the dome," he said softly. "You hesitated in interrogation. You recognized the driver. That's narrative instability."
His hand settled at my throat.
Not violent.
Proprietary.
Thumb along my jaw, fingers resting where pulse meets skin.
"You should be grateful I'm the one who escalated," he murmured. "Someone less strategic might have made it permanent."
His grip tightened just enough to establish hierarchy.
"You're sitting next to someone from the twelfth floor now," he said. "Enjoy it."
The pressure wasn't painful, which made it worse. Pain would have justified reaction. Pain would have allowed me to push him away without appearing unstable. This was calibrated restraint — enough to remind me that he could apply more force, but not enough to invite witnesses to intervene.
He leaned in and pressed his mouth to mine.
There was no heat in it. No hunger. It felt administrative, almost procedural, like stamping a document to indicate transfer of ownership. A brief contact meant to be seen if anyone was watching, but subtle enough to be dismissed as consensual familiarity if questioned.
When he pulled back, he adjusted his cuffs with a faint, habitual precision, as if closing a deal.
"This is how it works," he said calmly. "Up there, you take what's available."
He turned and walked toward the exit without looking back, weaving through the bar's neon reflections with the unhurried confidence of someone who had just confirmed his new altitude.
The door parted for him. Light flared briefly around his silhouette, then sealed him into the district glow.
I remained seated.
The gyoza in front of me had begun to cool, oil settling into a thin, reflective sheen. The fluorescent green drink refracted overhead light into sharp artificial angles that split my reflection into fractured segments in the mirror behind the bottles.
My throat still carried the memory of his fingers.
Not bruised.
Measured.
The bartender asked if I wanted another round.
His tone was casual, already half turned toward another customer. This was a place for controlled indulgence, not collapse. People came here to flirt with proximity to the lower tiers without absorbing their consequences.
"Yes," I heard myself say.
It surprised me.
Delay is a strategy when you have no immediate countermeasure.
The second glass arrived. I wrapped my fingers around it and felt the condensation dampen my skin. My hand was steady, which annoyed me. I would have preferred visible shaking; at least that would have been honest.
My badge vibrated at my hip.
Soft. Polite. Impersonal.
I didn't check it immediately because checking would convert suspicion into confirmation. There is a brief window in any crisis where ambiguity is mercy, and I wanted a few seconds more of it.
But the vibration came again, and I knew what it would say before I looked.
Access privileges pending review.
Pending is a dangerous word. It implies process, fairness, evaluation. It disguises the fact that the outcome has already begun crystallizing above your clearance level.
If access suspends overnight, the apartment door will not open in the morning.
If the apartment door does not open, housing algorithms auto-correct downward.
Downward means filtration downgrade.
Filtration downgrade means medical flag.
Medical flag means permanent reassignment.
The logic unspooled cleanly in my head, as if I were presenting it to a client.
My breathing shortened, not dramatically, just enough that air felt insufficient in a room that was technically over-ventilated.
I pressed my palm flat against the steel counter to ground myself in something non-digital. Cool. Solid. Unarguable.
Marx hadn't threatened me with violence.
He had threatened me with gravity.
The stool beside me shifted.
It was a small sound, almost polite, the careful adjustment of someone choosing proximity rather than arriving loudly. I didn't turn immediately. I already knew the cadence of that presence.
"You look different from this morning," the cab driver said quietly.
My shoulders tightened before my head followed.
He sat one seat away, posture relaxed, coat blending easily into the dim neon wash. Without the partition glass between us, he looked less like an anonymous transport worker and more like a man who understood where to position himself in a room.
"You shouldn't be here," I said, keeping my voice level.
"Neither should you," he replied, glancing briefly at the empty space Marx had occupied.
The music pulsed faintly through the floor. Laughter flared at the far end of the bar. The world continued, indifferent.
"You were in the dome," I said.
"Yes."
Not defensive. Not proud.
"You killed him."
"Three people did," he corrected, almost gently. "Precision matters."
I swallowed. The alcohol had left a metallic residue at the back of my tongue.
"I reported you this morning," I said. "Or tried to."
"I know."
The certainty in his tone unsettled me more than denial would have.
"It didn't process," I continued. "NOPD confirmed there was no record."
"Internal systems misplace things," he said. "Especially when those things are inconvenient."
My badge pulsed again against my hip, as if to underline the sentence.
"You hesitated in interrogation," he added. "When they mentioned the driver."
"How do you know?"
"I just know."
The accuracy of that assessment irritated me.
He didn't touch me. Didn't invade my space. His hands remained visible on the counter, fingers resting loosely around his own glass. The absence of contact was deliberate, and I hated that I noticed the contrast.
"You called people like me bottom dwellers," he said. "You said we don't know what keeps us breathing."
Heat rose to my face, sharp and unwelcome.
"I didn't know who you were."
"You knew who you needed me to be."
That landed harder than accusation.
Because it was true.
I had reported him not because I had evidence, but because it aligned me with power for a moment. Because upward behaviour feels safe until it doesn't.
"I'm not ARC," I said quickly.
"I know."
No ideological speech. Just acknowledgment.
"You stepped in front of that man," he continued. "You shielded him."
"I did my job."
"Yes," he said. "Exactly."
The word lingered.
"You think BAMA protects you," he went on. "It reallocates risk."
My mind flicked back to the amber light on my badge.
Pending.
"I'm not disposable," I said, and heard the thinness in it.
He studied me for a moment before answering.
"Everyone is," he replied. "The difference is who understands it first."
Silence settled between us, but it wasn't empty. It felt structural, like standing beneath a load-bearing beam and realizing it might not hold.
Outside, a transit line hummed overhead. Neon flickered, then stabilized.
"I'm not joining you," I said, because that was the sentence expected of me.
"I didn't ask you to."
He let that sit.
My badge vibrated again.
Amber.
The panic shifted, not into clarity, but into something sharper—a narrowing of focus. The ladder I had been climbing had just proven it could retract without warning. Marx had stepped upward by converting me into leverage. The system had allowed it. Possibly encouraged it.
"You're destabilized," the cab driver said quietly. "Not morally. Structurally."
The word resonated in a way I couldn't dismiss.
Structural instability is not dramatic. It's administrative. It happens through memos and pending reviews and polite vibrations on your badge.
"Are you ready," he asked, voice low enough to blend into bar noise, "to revisit our conversation from this morning?"
The music pulsed softly beneath the layered noise of the restaurant. Someone laughed too loudly at something that wasn't funny. Glass met glass. Chopsticks scraped ceramic. The city continued its careful impersonation of stability.
My badge vibrated again.
Amber.
Pending.
I didn't look at it this time. I didn't need to. The message had already imprinted itself into the part of my mind that calculated oxygen quotas and rent ceilings.
"I reported you," I said quietly, not as accusation, but as confession. "Because that's what someone like me is supposed to do."
"You reported me," he agreed.
My reflection in the mirror looked composed. The kind of composure that reads as resilience in corporate training modules and denial in medical reports.
"I'm not ARC," I said again, softer now. Not defensive. Just stating alignment.
"I know."
"You killed a man."
"Yes."
No justification. No ideology. Just acknowledgment.
The fluorescent green liquid in my glass caught the light and split it into unnatural shards across the bar surface. I watched them scatter and thought about how easily something curated could fracture when struck at the right angle.
He didn't push.
He didn't recruit.
He simply waited.
Outside, a transit line hummed overhead. Neon flickered, stabilized, flickered again.
"I thought the system was mercy," I said slowly, surprising myself with the admission. "Structured. Necessary."
"And now?" he asked.
I didn't answer.
Because the honest version of that answer was still forming, and it wasn't something I was ready to articulate in a room full of witnesses and reflective surfaces.
My throat tightened again—not from his hand this time, but from the realization that gravity had always been part of the design.
He studied me for a long moment, not evaluating, not claiming, just measuring the shift.
Then, without leaning closer, without lowering his voice further, he asked the same question he had asked me that morning, when I still believed the hierarchy was benevolent.
"You ever think they might be right?"
And this time, the silence that followed wasn't dismissive.
It was dangerous.