Technically, I’m not even supposed to be here.

  At this hour, everyone else is still in class, lined up in front of their screens, bracelets angled just right, eyes calibrated so they don’t trigger any useless alerts. I cut across the main hall the second the bell detonated. I didn’t run. Just walked fast. Fast enough not to think.

  I took the exit toward the transit platforms instead of my next lesson.

  I waited for the bite.

  The sharp buzz on my wrist.

  The automatic reprimand.

  Nothing.

  My bracelet simply logged the movement.

  ROUTE LINK CONFIRMED

  Campus NOVAHELIX: VY-2 → Sector VY-3 — SKYPLAZA NODE

  For most people, VY is just a code on a map.

  Veyra says it used to mean “Value Yard.”

  Now it’s just where they park the people they’re not sure what to do with.

  That almost feels worse.

  Because it means nobody objected.

  Or that someone, somewhere, decided my absence was acceptable.

  The train pulls out with a metallic chirp that’s way too cheerful. I move closer to the window.

  And I see it already.

  Before I even step off the carriage.

  VY-3 rises around SKYPLAZA like a life-size model. A huge white mass with organic lines, smooth and unbroken, like the building grew here instead of being constructed. The roof rolls in a perfect double curve, a circular shell catching the light and throwing it back up toward the sky.

  Fountains fire between the structures, jets syncing to something I can’t quite perceive. Water sheets down into shallow pools, bordered by shrubs trimmed into careful shapes, too precise to be accidental.

  Delivery drones trace slow routes above everything, silent and disciplined. They pass over terraces, hanging gardens, circular meditation decks where still figures sit facing the void.

  Even the bathrooms are visible from the train, white modules built into the facade, marked by soft icons. Smart toilets. Nothing here looks like it was allowed to improvise.

  White dominates the exterior, but it doesn’t hurt the eye. It’s broken by living walls, full-grown trees threaded through the architecture. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe. Green everywhere, disciplined, contained, certified.

  A green mall.

  A place that breathes exactly the way it was taught to.

  When the doors slide open, the air changes.

  Warmer. Drier. Loaded with familiar, not-quite-natural smells: perfect coffee, caramelized sugar, brand-new fabric. An optimized version of comfort. I step out with everyone else, pulled into the flow.

  SKYPLAZA

  The name glows on the main archway without screaming. Thin letters, sunk into the structure itself.

  Inside, everything is open. Layered terraces. Circular levels. Glass bridges. Above it all, a curved dome filters the light into permanent late afternoon. The sun has been positioned exactly where it flatters the most glass.

  It’s eleven twenty-nine.

  I take a few steps.

  The floor has just enough grip to nudge my stride. People move without hesitation, even when it’s obvious they have no real reason to be here. Screens are everywhere but never loud. They sit at the edges of vision, waiting.

  You might like this.

  Recommended for your profile.

  Something brushes over me. Not a look. Something else. A quiet reading.

  My bracelet pulses. Steady.

  Too steady.

  “Pretty impressive, right?”

  I flinch.

  Maya’s here.

  Of all the people I could run into, it’s her.

  The girl the GPU called out in the hallway that first week. whose desk I’d accidentally crashed. I freeze for a fraction, and so does she. Random chance, but it feels almost obscene.

  She appears on my right, as if the crowd itself dropped her into place: crossbody bag, jacket a size too big hanging off her shoulders, pant cuffs wrinkled over white sneakers already scuffed. Her hair is pulled back in a hurry, a dark strand falling across her forehead, not styled for cameras.

  Her bracelet shows an unusual status.

  MEDICAL CLEARANCE — DAY PASS

  Clean bracelet. Temporary permission.

  “Looks like a temple,” she says. “But for buying pointless stuff.”

  I stare at her for a second. “Maya?”

  She smiles, just as thrown. “Okay, that proves it’s not just me glitching.”

  Her gaze sweeps the space, genuinely fascinated.

  “I was here for…” She cuts herself off. “Actually, I wasn’t. I had time. I took the train.”

  My eyes drop to her wrist without meaning to.

  We look at each other again. The pause feels wrong here. There’s nothing logical about this. Just two trajectories crossing in entirely the wrong place.

  “You’re supposed to be in class,” she says.

  “So are you.”

  She lifts one shoulder. “Medical appointment. They let me out early.”

  I nod. Random chance feels almost obscene in a place like this.

  We start walking together without exactly deciding to. The flow accepts us, shifts its lines around us.

  “Feels like an Olympic stadium,” she murmurs. “But for consumption.”

  “Here, even doing nothing is on the schedule,” I say.

  Her attention comes back to me.

  “So while I’m comparing shoes, someone’s comparing… me?”

  “Exactly.”

  We keep moving. Paths adjust around us, people slowing or speeding up for no reason we can see.

  “Did you pick your university yet?” she asks, trying to sound casual.

  The question lands too perfectly.

  Like the building fed it to her.

  I shake my head. “Not yet.”

  My bracelet hums, just enough for me to feel it.

  CHOOSE UNIVERSITY: REMINDER ACTIVE — MAX [23:59]

  Maya grimaces. “Seriously. Like your whole life’s gonna disintegrate if you take twenty-four more hours.”

  She stops by an interactive map.

  SKYPLAZA rearranges itself in zones: leisure, prestige, social correction. The colors shift depending on who’s standing in front of it.

  “So what are you here for, then?” she asks. “If you’re not buying anything and you’re not choosing anything.”

  I open my mouth.

  Then I freeze.

  Across the atrium, near an info column, a boy lifts his hand.

  Not to wave.

  Not to shout.

  Just enough to mark his position.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Aren.

  I recognize him immediately. A head taller than me, broad shoulders, controlled movements. The faint scar on his left eyebrow glints under the dome’s light—a subtle echo of a past decision. Too normal, though. Neutral hoodie, standard sneakers, loose, easy stance, like any random student from a central sector.

  His bracelet is blinking softly. Correct color. Familiar icons.

  I lock up.

  Last time I saw him, down in VY-4, there was no bracelet on that wrist. Just bare skin and an old independent device strapped higher up, where the system never looks.

  That isn’t what hits me first, though.

  The timing is wrong.

  The data on the bracelet refreshes half a beat off. Like a perfect recording playing back at 0.97 speed.

  Aren meets my eyes.

  And smiles.

  Not a reassuring smile.

  A smile that says, we don’t have much time.

  Skylumes drift overhead.

  Indifferent.

  For now.

  Aren closes the distance, cutting through the flow without ever bumping anyone. He glances at me, then at Maya.

  “Who’s the civilian?” he asks, not slowing down. “You decide this would be more fun with a human shield?”

  Maya blushes before she can stop it. “Excuse me?”

  My jaw tightens. “She has nothing to do with this. It wasn’t planned.”

  “Exactly,” Aren says. “Nothing more comforting than a surprise variable in the middle of a GPU node.”

  His gaze flicks over her in a single, efficient scan: bag, Day Pass tag, clean bracelet, breathing a little too fast.

  “You get that you just dragged someone with an actual official future into a place that eats futures for sport?” he adds, dry. “Unless the plan really is to throw her at the first checkpoint and run while they’re busy.”

  Maya glares at him, cheeks burning. “I’m right here, you know. I can hear you.”

  “Unfortunately,” Aren says.

  “We don’t have time for your stand-up,” I cut in, my voice coming out harder than I mean it to.

  He holds my gaze for half a second, then sighs, like he’s temporarily accepting everyone’s incompetence, shoulders relaxing slightly.

  “Fine. We skip the explanations.”

  His fake bracelet pulses. A ghost interface slides over my HUD.

  A single point starts blinking on the internal map of VY-3.

  MEET:

  LOCATION:

  Researcher in Centre. Officially reassigned. Unofficially refuses to forget what she saw.

  “I need to drop something off to a Watcher,” Aren says. “Dr Sael. She doesn’t move. She can’t. Places like this café scan every bracelet that crosses the threshold.”

  He taps his own wrist, where the fake bracelet keeps broadcasting a little too perfectly. “If I walk in, they see the fake in under a second. You’re the one who still looks real.”

  I reach into my pocket, fingers brushing the Nullnode plate, more out of reflex than anything else.

  “You don’t need that right now,” Aren says before I can even raise it. “It’s just in case. When I need you, I’ll call you. Nothing more.”

  I nod, a little relief washing over me. Nullnode in hand, ready, but quiet.

  He taps his own wrist, where the fake bracelet keeps broadcasting a little too perfectly.

  “What’s a Watcher, exactly?” I ask before I can stop myself.

  Aren snorts. “Not your problem. Your problem is walking in, not getting flagged and walking back out.”

  Then he presses something else into my palm.

  A second key. Different. Gold-toned metal with silver designs etched across its surface. A USB-sized shard, humming faintly with data. Heavy. Important. Dangerous if misused.

  Maya stares at it, eyes wide. “Wait… what is that? I don’t—”

  “You’re not leaving,” Aren cuts in, tone dry but his smirk betrays him. “You’re coming with Kai. Don’t even think about bolting.”

  “I wasn’t going to—” she sputters, backing up a step, bag swinging wildly.

  “Sure you weren’t,” Aren interrupts, voice amused. “But if you were, congratulations, your plan just got vetoed. You’re stuck being my sidekick slash audience slash comic relief.”

  I glance at her. She’s completely lost, shoulders hunched, blinking like someone tossed into a movie halfway through.

  “Guess I’m… uh… volunteering,” she says, dragging her words like she’s wading through molasses.

  Aren’s smirk widens. “Exactly. Welcome to the Nullnode side of life, civilian. Population: you.”

  Parallax swallows SKYPLAZA’s noise like a sponge.

  The moment I step over the threshold, the sound changes texture. The atrium’s murmur gets filtered, flattened, turned into a distant hush behind the glass.

  Inside, everything feels softer.

  More controlled.

  The light shifts from clean white-gold to something warmer, almost amber, making every drink glow in its cup. Thin lines of light trace along the ceiling, moving in time with music so low it sits more in my ribs than in my ears.

  The walls are covered in matte panels where slow images loop: close-ups of hands around mugs, blurred silhouettes laughing in silence, aerial views of cities that don’t exist. Muted blues. Warmed sepias. Neutral enough not to bother anyone. Engineered enough to nudge heart rates down.

  Tables have touch surfaces built into them, all of them active. A small indicator glows at every seat: green for free, yellow for “analyzing,” blue for “regular.” Sometimes one flares red for a heartbeat before calming down again.

  Half the customers have their bracelets raised near their faces, lighting their features from below with a cold glow. The other half pretend not to care what anyone else’s number is doing, eyes hovering a little too long in the space where everyone’s overlays sit.

  FluxPulse hums in the background like an artificial heart. Tiny feeds open and close over tables. Drink choices turn into posts. Comments slide by, barely there.

  FIRST SIP — MOOD CHECK: 3.9 → 4.1

  Trying the new synth-chai. Jury’s still out.

  Sometimes a feed closes with a small, discreet thumb icon. Recommendation saved to profile.

  The air smells like strong coffee, heated milk and vanilla sugar, cut with something sharper from the synthetic syrups. The machines behind the counter breathe out steam in steady cycles. A neat sign by the bar reads:

  AVERAGE SERVICE TIME: 3:12 MINUTES

  SATISFACTION: 4.6 / 5

  “Every table in here is a scanner,” Aren says quietly behind me. “You sit, you hand everything over. Posture, heart rate, drink choice. They call it comfort.”

  He stops right where the flooring shifts texture, a soft boundary line.

  “I don’t cross this,” he adds. His fake bracelet pulses, just a fraction off. “You do.”

  My HUD throws up the shortened profile again.

  TARGET:DR NAREEN SAEL — WATCHER

  The Scientist Who Doesn’t Forget

  “You go in, order something nobody remembers five minutes later, find her, drop this.” Aren presses a small data capsule into my palm. It’s cool, almost too light. “You don’t stay longer than twenty minutes. Cross that, Skylume flags you as potential regular, and the GPU starts a nice little trail.”

  Maya studies the sign, the polarized glass, the ghosted silhouettes inside.

  “What about me?” she asks.

  “You stay off the meeting,” Aren says. “Find a table near the entrance, pretend to scroll, and don’t go anywhere near her.”

  His tone is flat. His eyes aren’t.

  I swallow.

  I step into the scan zone.

  A soft chime flashes at the edge of my vision.

  ENTRY LOGGED — BRACELET: CLEARANCE:

  Maya comes through right behind me. A second vibration.

  ENTRY LOGGED — BRACELET:

  “Great,” she mutters. “Now they officially know I skipped my medical appointment to drink overpriced foam.”

  She nudges her bag under the table, accidentally covering a small sensor. The indicator flickers, then stabilizes.

  Inside, those same matte panels loop slow images, hands, silhouettes, impossible skylines. Every table surface glows faintly. Every seat has its tiny monitoring light. FluxPulse keeps beating. Feeds. Posts. Micro-comments.

  A server intercepts us before we make it three steps.

  Not human.

  He’s wearing a black apron and a perfectly crisp shirt. His movements are a little too smooth, like someone shaved off all the hesitation. The tiny delays between his words and his smiles are exactly the same every time. His eyes catch the light like there’s extra glass in there.

  His bracelet reads:

  SERVICE NODE — PRIORITY: CUSTOMER FLOW

  “Welcome,” he says with a programmed smile, just enough teeth to be friendly, not enough to be threatening. “Would you prefer dome light or a quieter spot?”

  My mouth opens, mind jumping straight to back wall, near exit.

  “Quieter,” Maya answers before I can. “Near an exit, if you have one. We can’t stay long.”

  The server’s gaze flicks over our bracelets, taking in the data.

  “Of course,” he says. “Estimated stay: twenty-two minutes. Perfectly reasonable. This way, please.”

  He leads us between tables.

  My HUD scrolls through Dr Sael’s preferences again.

  Back wall. Near exit. Medium visibility.

  We pass a woman sitting alone, maybe mid-thirties, hair scraped back, eyes red from tiredness. Her score blinks 4.3

  If anyone knows how to appeal a score drop after a GPU audit, please DM.

  Further in, a group of students laughs over a slowly rotating close-up of a latte, foam spiraled into impossible patterns. My HUD notes it on reflex.

  New drink: SKY-FOAM LATTE — trending in VY-3

  

  Maya leans a little closer to me.

  “So? What’s she supposed to look like, your Watcher? Witch with extra brain cells?” she whispers.

  Aren’s description replays in my head. His voice had that tired, annoyed edge.

  Look for someone who never finishes their coffee. She spends more time watching the exits than her cup. And she’s got that thing in her eyes, like she’s debugging software you can’t see while you’re talking.

  Now I sweep the room.

  At the back wall, there are three candidates already.

  One woman in a light clinic jacket, tablet beside an empty mug, too official.

  Another with her back to the wall, eyes locked on the door, but her bracelet glows 5.8And one more, quieter shape. Hood down. Salt-and-pepper hair pulled into a loose tie. Thin glasses. Hands resting flat on either side of a still-full cup.

  She isn’t checking FluxPulse.

  She isn’t watching the other customers.

  She’s studying the dome’s reflection inside her drink, like she’s waiting for something to surface.

  Maya shifts in her seat.

  “She’s already clocked you,” she whispers. “I don’t know how. But she has.”

  “I don’t see her,” Maya murmurs. “They all look… normal.”

  “That’s the whole point,” I say under my breath.

  The server stops.

  “Here,” he says. “Table C-17. Dome view. Fast access to the north exit.”

  I follow the line of his arm.

  C-17 is two tables away from the salt-and-pepper woman.

  Close enough to hear her if she speaks.

  Far enough to pretend I’m not looking.

  “I’ll let you scan the menu,” the server adds pleasantly. “Your bracelets will remember your preferences for next time.”

  He turns to me.

  “Node recommendation for your profile today: moderate-temperature hot drink, medium sugar. It’s been a stressful morning.”

  I flinch.

  “We’ll… see,” I manage.

  The server tips his head, smile unchanged, and moves off to another table.

  Maya drops into her chair with a soft thump.

  “Okay, this is officially the creepiest place I’ve ever had a drink,” she says. She lifts her bracelet. “If I don’t post anything, do they think I’m dead inside?”

  I don’t answer.

  My eyes slide from my interface back to the woman at the wall, and then to my HUD.

  It hesitates for a heartbeat, then overlays a slim line of text above the salt-and-pepper silhouette.

  MATCH PROBABILITY: 72% → 81% → 89%

  POSSIBLE: DR NAREEN SAEL — WATCHER

  The woman doesn’t move her head.

  But her eyes shift to me.

  Exactly as the percentage hits eighty-nine.

  She doesn’t smile.

  She tilts her cup, just barely, like she’s tuning an antenna.

  My throat tightens. My palm is slick around the capsule. Every cell in my body wants to look away.

  For one second, I’m completely sure.

  I didn’t find her.

  She acquired me.