They didn't take my card away after the override flag appeared.
For some reason, that scared me more than if they'd locked me out of the dock and told me to sit quietly in my room until further notice. At least that would have been a clear reaction.
Instead, Null behaved like nothing was wrong.
Same hum in the walls. Same flicker in the lights. Same coffee that tasted like the inside of a photocopier.
The only difference sat on the main screen in the Office, blinking patiently.
OVERRIDE FLAG: ACTIVE
EXTERNAL REVIEW REQUESTED – ORIGIN: UNKNOWN
It was like having my name pinned to a noticeboard I couldn't see.
"Stop staring at it," Echo said.
"I'm not staring," I said, from my usual plastic chair.
"You're doing the thing with your jaw," they said. "The one where you pretend you're thinking about philosophy but you're actually imagining worst-case scenarios."
They weren't wrong.
Samira hadn't said much after the flag first popped up. She'd checked some logs, gone pale in a way that didn't suit her, and then sent us away with a "Go. Rest. I need to see if this is a glitch or a… thing."
Now it was the next not-quite-morning, and she stood at the console with her back to us, hands braced on the edge like she could physically push the data away.
"Is it still there?" I asked.
"If it disappears without a reason, that's worse," she said.
She straightened, rolled her shoulders back, and came over, carrying nothing. No mug, no folder, which felt significant.
"Okay," she said. "It's a thing."
I tried to read her face. I was getting better at that; Null had stripped away most of the performative expressions. People here didn't bother to pretend they were fine.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"It means," she said, "that an external oversight layer—above the Archive and above us—has requested a full case review."
"Of me," I said.
"Of everything you've done since your administrative death," she said. "Plus whatever you were before."
Echo whistled softly.
"I didn't know we came with warranties," they said.
"We don't," Samira said. "That's the point. Override flags are supposed to be for genuinely catastrophic anomalies: mass fraud, systemic collapses, that sort of thing. Not one dead student with a blog and three cut threads."
"Flattering," I muttered.
Samira sat opposite me, folding her hands on the table. The movement was too controlled.
"There's a protocol," she said. "I can't block it. I can request to witness it, but I can't stop them from running it."
"Protocol like… what?" I said. "A hearing? Do I get a lawyer?"
"It's closer to an audit," she said. "You go into a room, they open your file, and the system… pulls it apart. Asks questions. Reassigns tags."
"Like an exam," Echo said.
"Like being cross-examined by the city," Samira said.
I felt a cold draft where my spine should have been.
"What happens after?" I asked.
"In theory?" she said. "They can do several things. Confirm you as negligible and remove the flag. Mark you as dangerous and recommend containment. Or—"
She broke off.
"Or?" Echo prompted.
"Or mark you as interesting and assign you to observation," she said reluctantly. "Which means you stop being just a client and start being a… data point."
"You mean like a lab rat," I said.
"I mean like a case they keep half-erased on purpose," she said. "To see what you do."
I thought of the residual score on the screen. Four percent. The number had comforted me in a strange way. I'd wanted it lower, but not enough to admit it.
"And if I refuse?" I asked.
"You can't," she said. "Override means your consent was already marked as waived when you joined Endless Death."
"I did not sign up for higher observation," I said.
"You signed up for being administratively dead," she said quietly. "Anything that happens to an anomaly after that is fair game to them."
I laughed once, without humor.
"Reassuring."
"They don't run these for every anomaly," she added. "Something about how your threads resolved has their attention."
I thought of my mother's one clear moment. of Rana's closed draft. Of the activist tearing my name off their wall. Of Ben on the kitchen floor, telling an empty chair he hated me.
"What did I do wrong?" I asked.
Samira didn't say "nothing." She didn't say "everything." She said:
"You did something they didn't predict."
In Null, that was probably the worst crime.
Echo leaned forward, elbows on the table.
"So what exactly happens in this review room?" they asked. "Is it one of those server halls with the ominous humming, or more of a 'small metal chair, bright light, bad questions' situation?"
Samira's mouth twitched.
"Neither," she said. "It's more like… a document you can walk into."
"That sounds worse," I said.
"It is," she said. "Come on."
She stood. We followed.
We didn't go toward the dock. Instead, Samira led us down a corridor I hadn't used before. The tiles here were older, scuffed in a way that said fewer feet had taken this path. The air felt colder, the hum deeper, as if we were walking closer to the building's throat.
"There are levels to Null," Echo murmured, mostly to themself. "I always forget that."
"We don't use this one often," Samira said. "Most cases don't merit it."
"Flattering," I said again, under my breath.
The corridor ended in a door with no handle, just a faint outline in the wall and a strip of glass at eye level. Behind it, I could see nothing. Not darkness—nothing. Like someone had painted over reality with a primer coat.
"Review chamber," Samira said. "You go in. Echo goes with you."
"And you?" I asked.
"I stay out here and watch a very clean, very unhelpful version of whatever they're showing you," she said. "If anything glitches, I pull you out."
"That's possible?" Echo asked.
"If it wasn't, we wouldn't let clients in at all," she said. "But understand: once you're inside, most decisions will be yours. I can't tell them no for you."
I nodded, though nothing about this felt like "mine."
Samira touched the glass strip. A soft click sounded, and the door's outline brightened.
"No speeches?" Echo asked her, half-teasing, half-hopeful.
Samira considered.
"Answer honestly," she said at last. "Not politely, not rebelliously. Honestly. If they're going to tag you, make sure they tag who you actually are, not some performance."
"That is the most terrifying advice you could give," I said.
"Good," she said. "Means you heard it."
The door slid aside.
Inside, there was no furniture. No light source, but the space wasn't dark. It was white in the way paper is white before you write on it.
Echo stepped through first. Their outline hesitated, then solidified.
I followed.
The door closed behind us with the softest of clicks.
For a moment nothing happened.
Then, in the air in front of me, a line of text appeared, crisp and black.
ADMINISTRATIVE CASE 7F-19N – SUBJECT: NOOR [REDACTED]
The letters hung there without any visible support. More lines joined them, stacking downward like a paragraph building itself in front of us.
STATUS: DECEASED (ADMINISTRATIVE)
REASSIGNMENT: NULL DISTRICT – ENDLESS DEATH PROGRAM
THREADS: MATERNAL – IDEOLOGICAL – PERSONAL
I watched as the text scrolled through my own recent history:
Matilda at the café, reduced to "MATERNAL RESOLUTION: DIRECT INTERVENTION – EMOTIONAL CLARIFICATION PROVIDED – THREAD CLOSED."
Rana at the Civic Centre, condensed to "MEDIA SOURCE: POTENTIAL NARRATIVE ASSET – INTERFERENCE: CLIENT – RESULT: DRAFT SUPPRESSED."
Mothlight in their messy room, labeled "EXTERNAL ACTIVIST NODE – NARRATIVE REDIRECTION – ANONYMITY INCREASED – AGGREGATE INSTABILITY +0.3%."
And Ben.
PERSONAL RESIDUAL: ROOMMATE – HIGH
INTERVENTION TYPE: MEMORY OVERLAY – ACCEPTANCE TRIGGERED – APPEAL ACTIVITY CEASED
"Do you ever get used to seeing yourself turned into bullet points?" I asked.
Echo shook their head.
"You learn to read what they're not saying," they said.
The text stopped scrolling.
New words appeared, floating slightly larger than the rest.
QUERY: STATE PRIMARY MOTIVATION FOR JOINING ENDLESS DEATH PROGRAM.
I blinked.
"Is that it?" I asked. "No 'hello, we're the external review committee, how are you finding your stay'?"
The text didn't change.
"You should probably answer," Echo said.
I swallowed.
"I didn't want to be turned into content," I said. "Into a story the city could use to make itself look better."
The letters shifted, rearranged.
CLIENT ANSWER: AVOIDANCE OF NARRATIVIZATION.
Another line faded in beneath it.
CROSSCHECK: CLIENT PRODUCED MULTIPLE PUBLIC TEXTS PRE-DEATH (BLOG, POSTS, PETITIONS). CONTRADICTION?
"Oh, they've been reading," Echo murmured.
"I wrote those because I wanted to be heard," I said. "By people. Not by an algorithm that would slice my life into a moral."
The system seemed to think about that. Text pulsed faintly.
CLIENT CLARIFICATION: DESIRES RECOGNITION WITHOUT INSTRUMENTALIZATION.
"That's one way to put it," I said.
Another segment of text appeared, this time in a different tone, almost like a header.
REVIEW ITEM 1: MATERNAL THREAD – CONSEQUENCES
Below it, bullet points:
– IMMEDIATE RESULT: SUBJECT'S MOTHER ACCEPTS ADMINISTRATIVE DEATH STATUS.
– SECONDARY RESULT: HALT IN APPEALS FROM FAMILY LINE.
– INDIRECT EFFECTS:
The list expanded in a branching pattern, like a decision tree.
A social worker, somewhere in the city, getting one less case on her desk.
An internal training presentation losing a slide about "Managing Persistent Family Queries."
A committee meeting running three minutes shorter because there was one less "sensitive case" to mention.
None of these had names, just roles, percentages, arrows pointing toward "ADMINISTRATIVE EFFICIENCY +0.02%."
"So I made their lives easier," I said. "Congratulations to me."
A new line appeared under the tree.
NOTE: CLIENT DID NOT INTEND TO OPTIMIZE SYSTEM PERFORMANCE.
"That sounds almost… sympathetic," Echo said.
"It sounds like they're annotating a lab rat," I said.
The tree withdrew. Another header replaced it.
REVIEW ITEM 2: IDEOLOGICAL THREAD – REDIRECTION
The system replayed the room with three monitors, the collage wall, the pen circling my name. Instead of Mothlight's voice, I got metrics.
DRAFT TITLE: HOW MANY NOORS DOES IT TAKE TO WAKE UP A CITY? – DISCARDED.
FINAL TITLE: HOW MANY NOBODIES DOES IT TAKE TO WAKE UP A CITY? – PUBLISHED.
Underneath: a graph.
SHARE RATE: ABOVE EXPECTED BASELINE.
ARCHIVE CLASSIFICATION: UNSTRUCTURED DISSENT – LOW NARRATIVE USABILITY.
PUBLIC TRUST INDEX IMPACT: -0.4% (LOCAL), -0.1% (GLOBAL).
"Wow," Echo said softly. "You actually nudged trust."
"I thought I was just saving my own skin," I said.
"You were," they said. "No rule that says that can't have side effects."
Another note appeared.
NOTE: CLIENT PRESERVED SYSTEMIC CRITIQUE WHILE REMOVING INDIVIDUAL MARTYR.
For a second, the text glitched, doubling, like someone with a different handwriting had tried to underline the line and changed their mind.
Underneath that:
FLAG: PATTERN MATCHES PRIOR ANOMALY CASES.
"Prior anomalies," I said. "Plural."
The words fuzzed at the edges, as if I wasn't supposed to see them that clearly.
"What prior cases?" I asked.
No response.
"Did they also choose to redirect instead of erase?" Echo asked.
Still nothing.
The review moved on.
REVIEW ITEM 3: PERSONAL THREAD – TERMINATION
The room replayed Ben's apartment in a stripped-down way: just positions, movements, timestamps.
LAST APPEAL SENT: TIMESTAMP –1 DAY.
INTERVENTION: MEMORY REINSERTION (BLACKOUT EVENING).
POST-INTERVENTION ACTIONS: CEASED FORMAL APPEALS. ACCEPTED REALITY OF ADMINISTRATIVE DEATH. RETAINED LIMITED SYMBOLIC OBJECTS (MUG, CHAIR).
A smaller branch of indirect effects sprouted. Fewer complaints filed. Fewer "difficult client" training examples. The Archive's draft "Friend Who Wouldn't Give Up" marked "CANCELLED."
"Do they have his feelings in there?" I asked. "The part where he says he hates me and misses me at the same time?"
No bullet point answered. Emotions didn't get percentages.
Instead, a new line:
NOTE: CLIENT SELECTED HIGH-IMPACT RESOLUTION OVER PROLONGED DIFFUSION.
The notes rearranged themselves, stacking vertically.
PATTERN SUMMARY:
– CLIENT REFUSES MARTYR ROLE.
– CLIENT INTERVENES TO REDUCE INDIVIDUAL EXPLOITABILITY.
– CLIENT ACCEPTS HARM TO CLOSE RELATIONS TO AVOID SYSTEMIC APPROPRIATION.
It was strange, seeing my ugliest decisions phrased like that: as if I'd sat down and made a cold plan instead of flinching my way through each moment.
QUERY: DOES CLIENT CONSIDER CHOICES JUSTIFIABLE?
I exhaled.
"Yes," I said. Then, because Samira had told me to be honest: "Mostly."
CLARIFY "MOSTLY."
"I hate what I did to Ben," I said. "I'd hate it more if they turned him into a prop in my story. I cut one kind of cruelty to avoid another. I don't know if there was a version where neither existed."
The text pulsed.
CLIENT ACKNOWLEDGES TRADEOFFS. DOES NOT SEEK ABSOLUTION.
"Is that good?" I asked.
"For them?" Echo said. "Probably. They like when the rats understand the maze."
The review's tone shifted. The floating text flattened, became smaller, like regular file output.
RESIDUAL SCORE: 4% – SOURCE FRAGMENTS:
Lines branched out from that number.
SELF-MEMORY: 1.2%
ARCHIVE SHADOWS (PUBLIC TEXTS): 0.8%
INTERNAL TAGS (TRAININGS, REPORTS): 1.1%
EXTERNAL THREAD ECHO (UNKNOWN): 0.9%
"Wait," I said. "Unknown?"
A single, thin line traced away from the residual breakdown into empty space. No label. Just a blinking dot at the end.
"Who's that?" Echo asked.
No answer.
I stepped closer to the floating map, squinting. The dot wavered, just out of focus. My head throbbed.
It felt like when you try to remember a word that's on the tip of your tongue and all you get is the shape of the first letter.
"Is that one of my own memories?" I asked. "Something I'm not looking at?"
No response.
"Is it… someone else?" Echo tried. "Another person who remembers him? A case that overlaps?"
The dot brightened, briefly, then dimmed. The system refused to put it into words.
A new header dropped over the image, covering it.
RECOMMENDATION: ESCALATE CASE 7F-19N STATUS.
My throat went dry.
ESCALATION OPTIONS:
1. CONFIRM NEGLIGIBLE – REMOVE OVERRIDE FLAG.
2. MARK AS HAZARDOUS – RESTRICT FIELD ACCESS.
3. ASSIGN TO OBSERVATION COHORT – MAINTAIN PARTIAL RESIDUAL.
Text hung there like a multiple-choice question. I had no cursor, no way to select.
"Do I get a vote?" I asked.
Silence.
Then, below the options, a line appeared in a different colour, faintly greyed:
OPERATOR INPUT RECEIVED: OPTION 3 PREFERRED.
"Operator?" Echo said sharply. "Who?"
More text. System-log style.
OPERATOR ID: [REDACTED]
OVERSIGHT TIER: CROSS-DOMAIN ACCESS
Someone had already answered the question, before I even stepped into the room.
I felt suddenly, irrationally, like the walls were leaning in.
"What does observation cohort actually mean?" I asked.
The room obliged.
DEFINITION: SUBJECT RETAINED AT NON-ZERO RESIDUAL FOR AN EXTENDED PERIOD. FIELD INTERVENTIONS ALLOWED UNDER SUPERVISION. DATA COLLECTED ON BEHAVIOURAL PATTERNS, SYSTEM INTERACTIONS, AND NARRATIVE RESILIENCE.
"In simpler words," Echo murmured, "they're going to keep you half-remembered and watch what you do."
A final block of text formed, neat and impersonal.
VERDICT: OPTION 3 – APPROVED.
RESIDUAL SCORE: 4% – LOCKED.
OVERRIDE FLAG: PERSISTENT.
NOTIFICATION TO NULL SUPERVISION: SENT.
I waited for anger. Panic. Instead, what rose first was a tired, hollow amusement.
"I spent all this time trying to become negligible," I said, "and they're… pinning me in place."
"You wanted to escape the story engine," Echo said. "Now you're part of a research project on how to escape the story engine."
The floating words began to fade, letter by letter, as if someone had finally closed the document.
Just before the last line vanished, something flickered at the bottom of my vision.
A fragment of text, there and gone again:
PRIOR CASE REFERENCE: PILOT-03 – STATUS: CLOSED.
Echo inhaled sharply, as if they'd been punched.
"Did you see that?" they asked.
"Pilot-03?" I said. "What is that?"
But the room was blank again. White, untouched, as if nothing had ever been written in it.
The door behind us clicked.
We stepped out into the corridor.
Samira was standing by the glass, eyes on a monitor mounted beside it. The feed there was a butchered, sanitized version of what we'd just seen: just my basic stats, a few summary lines, the final verdict.
She glanced at me first, checking—subtle, but there. Then at the screen.
"Let me guess," I said. "They went with observation."
She grimaced.
"Residual locked at four percent," she said. "Override flag permanent. You're not just a client anymore."
"What am I?" I asked.
"A problem someone thinks is interesting," she said.
Echo rubbed their temple.
"There was a reference," they said. "To a prior case. Pilot-03."
Samira went very still.
"You saw that?" she asked.
"They didn't want us to," I said. "It flashed right before the wipe."
She swore softly, a word I hadn't heard from her before.
"Pilot cases were the first human subjects they tested this whole 'administrative afterlife' on," she said. "They're sealed. I've never been allowed to see the files."
"Why would they link me to one?" I asked.
"That's what worries me," she said.
On the screen, my case file had rearranged itself. The thread map was still mostly empty, my three major connections dimmed. But a new branch had appeared: OBSERVATION – ACTIVE. Under it, a tag:
COHORT: P3-CLASS – NARRATIVE RESISTANT
"Narrative resistant," Echo read aloud. "Sounds like a compliment. Feels like a diagnosis."
Samira pinched the bridge of her nose.
"They're going to lean on you," she said. "See what happens when someone like you keeps working. See what breaks first: you, the system, or the stories."
"They're keeping me alive to watch me fail," I said.
"No," Echo said. "They're keeping you alive because they don't know if you'll fail."
Somewhere in the Office, a printer started up again, spitting out forms for someone else's fate.
On the central screen, my override flag blinked, no longer a temporary warning, but a steady, embedded part of my file.
For the first time since my administrative death, I knew one thing for sure:
I'd wanted to slip through the cracks and vanish.
Instead, I'd been moved to the front row.
Act sixth end - "eyes from heavenly death".