I knew the day was going to be bad when the system took three seconds longer than usual to recognise my thumbprint.

  Three seconds doesn’t sound like much unless you work in a building that measures people in heartbeats and hesitation. Three seconds is long enough to notice your reflection in the glass and think, you look tired, and long enough to wonder whether the machine is thinking the same thing.

  “Don’t start,” I muttered, pressing my thumb harder, which never helps but always feels like it should.

  The console chirped, apologetic, and let me in.

  Fine. Whatever. Probably a patch.

  That’s what I told myself, anyway, because if you start your day assuming the Tower has decided to pay attention to you, you won’t make it to lunch without screaming at a wall.

  The intake floor was already awake. Not humming, but wide awake. There’s a difference. Humming is background, like breathing. Awake is alert, sharp around the edges, watching its own reflection in the glass panels.

  I dropped my bag at my station and glanced around.

  No Elarina.

  That, on its own, wasn’t strange. She’d been pulled into more reviews lately, quiet ones, the sort Administration pretends are scheduling errors. Still, the floor felt different without her, like a table missing one leg that everyone keeps pretending is fine as long as nobody leans.

  Pilon was there, though, hunched over her console, shoulders pulled up so tight they might snap. She startled when I said her name, sloshed half her tea onto the counter, and immediately started apologising to the cup.

  “It’s fine,” I said, taking it gently out of her hands before she could baptise the wiring. “Tea forgives. Consoles don’t.”

  She tried to smile. It didn’t land.

  “Did you sleep?” I asked.

  She nodded too fast. “Yes. I mean—enough.”

  That was a lie, but I let it go. We all lie before nine.

  The first few intakes were… brisk.

  Not wrong, exactly. Just faster than they had any right to be. Clients in, pressure up, extraction, release, next. No room for the soft checks, the second passes, the moments where you let a person breathe and decide whether they’re still themselves.

  Oversight likes brisk. Brisk looks good in reports.

  By midmorning, my knees were already complaining, and that’s when I noticed the second thing.

  People were leaving lighter, sure, but not cleaner.

  There’s a look people get when something important has been taken out of them without anyone bothering to see what it was. It’s not grief. It’s not relief. It’s… flattening. Like you’ve ironed a crease out of fabric that needed it to hold its shape.

  A man in his thirties stumbled a little as he stood, caught himself on the rail, laughed like it was nothing. His laugh didn’t quite belong to him anymore.

  I watched him go and felt my jaw tighten.

  “Who authorised this pacing?” I asked the console.

  It did not answer. It never does. That doesn’t stop me from asking.

  Around noon, Oversight came down.

  Not the scary kind. Not the sharp-suit, cold-eyes, you-won’t-remember-this sort. This one smiled. Knew my name. Commented on my hair like we’d chosen it together.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Ressa,” he said, warm as a kitchen. “You’re holding things together beautifully.”

  “That’s what I do,” I said. “Hold, stir, keep it from sticking.”

  He laughed, like he was supposed to. “We’ve noticed your efficiency.”

  There it was.

  I felt it settle between my shoulders, that prickle you get when someone says they’ve noticed you in a place designed to forget you exist.

  “Hard not to be efficient,” I said. “The floor’s practically sprinting.”

  “Temporary adjustment,” he said easily. “Just until we clear a backlog.”

  “Backlogs have been cleared before without rushing people out the door half-cooked.”

  His smile didn’t change. His eyes did, just a fraction.

  “We trust your judgment,” he said. “That’s why I wanted to speak with you. There are opportunities opening up. Less time on the floor. Better hours.”

  I thought of my husband, still asleep when I leave most mornings, the kids arguing over cereal like it’s a blood sport, the way my youngest insists on telling me the same story every night because repetition makes it real.

  Better hours was a dangerous phrase.

  “And what’s the catch?” I asked.

  “No catch,” he said. “Just… focus. Fewer questions. Less friction.”

  There it was again. Inventory. Counting me.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  “Of course,” he said, already turning away. “Oh — and Ressa?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’ve always been very good at understanding how things work.”

  He left that hanging like a compliment.

  It wasn’t.

  The moment that broke me came an hour later.

  A woman I recognised was brought in. Late forties, public intake stamp still fresh in her file. I’d seen her two weeks ago for a grief extraction after her sister died. Clean work. Careful work. She’d left sad, but intact.

  She shouldn’t have been back.

  “She’s not cleared for another session,” I said, flagging it.

  The system overrode me.

  Automatically.

  That’s when I felt something cold settle in my stomach.

  I watched her sit. Watched her hands tremble. Watched the Extractor spool up like it was hungry.

  “No,” I said, more sharply than I meant to. “Stop.”

  The console flickered yellow.

  Then green.

  I looked around. Pilon was staring at her screen like it might bite. No Elarina. No one else close enough to intervene.

  The woman looked up at me, eyes glassy. “They said it would help,” she whispered.

  That did it.

  I made my decision the way you make most important ones: quickly, quietly, and without telling anyone who might try to stop you.

  I didn’t pull a lever or smash anything dramatic. I nudged a stabilisation value. Half a degree off. Just enough to force a pause. Just enough to demand a human check.

  The Extractor’s hum dipped.

  Not an alarm. A stutter.

  The floor inhaled.

  Every console lit up yellow.

  “Oh,” I said softly. “There you are.”

  People froze. Oversight swore. Somewhere, a system far above us noticed a deviation it hadn’t planned for.

  I felt it then, the watching.

  Not paranoia but a strange presence.

  A camera I’d never paid attention to angled slightly downward. My console locked. Then unlocked. My name appeared on the side panel, plain text, no warning chime.

  Someone spoke behind me.

  “Ressa.”

  Calm. Pleasant.

  I turned slowly.

  “Hi,” I said. “You’ll want to recalibrate before restarting. She’s not ready.”

  “We know,” the voice said. “And thank you.”

  That was worse than anger.

  “For what?” I asked.

  “For showing us where the system still depends on people,” they said. “It’s very useful information.”

  My mouth went dry.

  “Am I in trouble?” I asked.

  A pause. Consideration.

  “No,” they said. “You’re finished for today. Go home. Rest.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “We’ll see.”

  They walked away.

  The floor resumed. Carefully. Like an animal that had learned something new.

  At home that night, Lumar noticed I was quiet before I did.

  “You break something?” he asked, passing me a plate.

  “Maybe,” I said. “On purpose.”

  He kissed my temple anyway. The kids argued about homework. Life went on, loud and real and mine.

  In bed, staring at the ceiling, I thought about the pause. About the way the Tower had listened.

  I didn’t know what I’d started.

  I only knew this:

  I hadn’t been ignored.

  And whatever was watching me now was deciding what I was worth.