Minh Truong did not hesitate.
Not because he was brave—but because hesitation was what the system priced best.
The settlement interface expanded fully, the three familiar options rearranging themselves as if eager to be chosen. The escalation multiplier pulsed beneath them, a steady reminder that whatever he picked would echo beyond this moment.
Option A: Lifespan Deduction
Estimated Cost: 2 years, 3 months
Risk: Medium
Secondary Effects: Compliance Reinforcement
Option B: Memory Fragment Withdrawal
Estimated Cost: Severe
Risk: Low
Secondary Effects: Cognitive Drift
Option C: Identity Dimming
Estimated Cost: 14 days (active) + persistent attenuation
Risk: High
Secondary Effects: Network Decoupling
A fourth line flickered into existence—unstable, half-rendered.
Option D: Breach Trade (Unverified)
Estimated Cost: Undefined
Risk: Extreme
Secondary Effects: Unknown
The system had not meant to show it.
Minh Truong knew that instinctively. Option D wasn't offered; it was leaking. A seam in the interface where assumptions failed to seal.
Behind him, footsteps skidded to a stop.
"Minh Truong," the woman called, urgency stripped of restraint. "Don't take the unknown."
The sharper-eyed man swore softly. "That's not a payment. That's a wager."
Minh Truong didn't turn. He watched the timer bleed red.
00:18
"Clean payment makes me predictable," Minh Truong said. His voice surprised him—steady, almost distant. "Predictable makes me useful. Useful makes me dangerous to everyone else."
"That doesn't mean you burn yourself down," the woman snapped.
Minh Truong finally looked back.
"If I don't," he said, "it will."
The system's pressure tightened, a constricting ring around his thoughts. The blind zone screamed—no sound, just resistance—then began to thin everywhere at once. The building felt smaller, as if space itself were being compressed to simplify observation.
The man with tired eyes—the breach man—appeared at the edge of the group, expression grim.
"Option D," he said quietly. "If you do it, you don't get to choose the price."
Minh Truong nodded. "I know."
The breach man's gaze hardened. "And if you survive, the system won't know how to close you anymore."
Minh Truong's eyes returned to the interface.
00:07
He selected Option D.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the interface shattered—not visually, but conceptually. Panels overlapped, text losing alignment, categories bleeding into one another. The city outside stuttered again, a full frame lost this time. Minh Truong felt the system's attention spike, then scatter, like a spotlight trying to illuminate fog.
[Breach Trade Initiated]
Settlement Authority: Disputed
Cost Resolution: External
External.
The word landed like a dropped weight.
Minh Truong's vision dimmed—not blacking out, but draining of contrast. Colors flattened. Sounds became distant, layered behind a membrane. He felt something tug—not at his time, not at his memories—but at his associations.
The things that connected him to the world.
Faces blurred at the edges. Names slipped a half-step behind recognition. His phone vibrated in his pocket, and for a terrifying moment he couldn't remember who might be calling him—or why it mattered.
The system reeled.
[Containment Failed]
Recalibrating…
Breach Vector: Expanding
The anomaly group reacted instantly.
The woman stepped forward, voice sharp with command. "Everyone—move. Now."
The sharper-eyed man grabbed Minh Truong's arm, grounding him. "Focus. Keep one anchor."
"Which?" Minh Truong asked, breath shallow.
"Anything," the man replied. "One thing you refuse to lose."
Minh Truong's mind raced through fragments—his childhood apartment, a friend's laugh, a song he used to listen to—but they slid away like water. Panic surged.
Then he thought of the woman in the street—the one he'd pulled back from the car. The way her fear had turned into anger, then relief.
The memory held.
He latched onto it.
The tug eased—just enough.
The interface convulsed again, and a new line burned itself into view.
[Breach Trade Accepted]
Cost: Network Exposure
Duration: Indefinite
Exposure.
Not erasure.
Not time.
Minh Truong staggered as the building shuddered, the blind zone tearing open like a stretched seam. Outside, the city lights flickered in waves, block by block, as if someone were running diagnostics at street scale.
The system did not scream.
It worked.
Everywhere.
[Global Adjustment Initiated]
Blind Zone Density: Reduced
Observation Cost: Rebalanced
Minh Truong felt it—blind zones shrinking, thinning, becoming harder to hold. Places that had resisted attention now felt brittle, like ice underfoot.
The breach man swore. "It's shrinking the margins."
"Because you made it expensive," the woman said, eyes blazing. "So it's cutting them."
Minh Truong forced himself upright. His head rang, a dull ache behind the eyes that promised consequences later.
"What did I just pay?" he asked.
The breach man met his gaze. "You paid with connection. The system can't close your book cleanly now, so it's keeping you open—everywhere."
Minh Truong swallowed. "Meaning?"
"Meaning," the sharper-eyed man said, "you'll draw pressure wherever you go."
The interface updated again, calmer now—too calm.
User Status: Unresolved Asset
Containment Strategy: Distributed
Minh Truong laughed once, breathless. "So I'm bait."
"No," the woman corrected. "You're friction."
Sirens wailed in the distance—real ones this time. Not system artifacts, but human response to cascading malfunctions. Traffic snarled. Digital signs went dark and rebooted. Somewhere, a hospital generator kicked in early.
The breach had rippled outward.
Minh Truong looked at his hands. They felt like his. The world still made sense—mostly. But the edges were softer, connections less automatic. He would have to choose what to care about now, consciously, every day.
A cost that didn't show up as a number.
The anomaly group began to scatter, splitting toward different exits with practiced efficiency. The woman lingered just long enough to meet Minh Truong's eyes.
"You chose dirty," she said. "Good."
"That doesn't sound reassuring," Minh Truong replied.
"It isn't," she said. "But it's honest."
She turned to go, then paused. "One more thing."
Minh Truong waited.
"The system will test your exposure," she said. "Soon. It will offer you a chance to close yourself again—cheaply—by letting someone else pay."
Minh Truong's jaw tightened. "A civilian."
"Or an anomaly," she said. "Or an entire block."
She disappeared down the ramp.
Minh Truong stood alone in the failing blind zone as the interface dimmed to a tolerable pressure. Outside, the city stumbled toward a new equilibrium—one that would remember this night as a set of unrelated glitches.
But Minh Truong knew better.
Vol 2 had crossed a line.
Clean ledgers were gone.
From here on, every payment would smear.
And the system—deprived of easy closure—would do what all control structures did when their margins collapsed.
It would escalate.