The city did not remember the weak.
It recorded them.
Then erased them.
Aira learned this lesson the morning after the suppression wave, when Sector Thirteen woke to silence instead of sirens.
No emergency announcements.
No apology notices.
No compensation credits.
Just absence.
Three families on her block were gone.
Their doors stood open, interiors stripped clean by enforcement retrieval units. No blood, no mess—just the sterile neatness of a system that had decided certain variables were no longer worth maintaining.
Mara noticed it when she left for work.
"They were here yesterday," she murmured, standing in the corridor with Aira balanced on her hip. Her eyes lingered on the empty rooms, confusion slowly hardening into something darker. "Weren't they?"
Aira rested her head against Mara's shoulder, eyes half-lidded, listening.
"They failed the compliance threshold," Aira thought.
[Likely.]
[Post-suppression mortality rate in Lower Sectors: 4.2%.]
"Only four percent," Aira replied internally. "Enough to scare the rest."
[Affirmative.]
The system spoke with a clarity it hadn't possessed before.
Not cold.
Not cruel.
Just precise.
Aira felt the difference.
Level 3 had not given her strength—but it had given her definition. The bond between her and the system had stabilized into something new, something balanced. Where once it had dictated, now it consulted. Where once it observed, now it considered.
They were still weak.
But they were no longer lost.
Mara left Aira with an elderly neighbor that day, a woman whose system had degraded so badly it barely projected notifications anymore. The kind of person enforcement units ignored until she stopped moving altogether.
Aira watched Mara disappear down the corridor, memorizing the slope of her shoulders, the way exhaustion bent her spine.
"Probability of Mara's survival until war?" Aira asked quietly.
The system did not answer immediately.
When it did, the number was lower than Aira expected.
[42.6%.]
Aira closed her eyes.
"Improve it."
[Constraints severe.]
"I didn't say immediately."
The system processed that.
[Long-term mitigation possible through strategic positioning, resource acquisition, and reduced audit exposure.]
Aira nodded slightly.
"Then that's our priority."
The system did not argue.
That, more than anything else, confirmed the change.
The elderly woman—Lysa—paid little attention to Aira. She sat by the window most of the day, staring at the distant glow of the upper sectors as if watching a different universe.
Aira used the time.
She practiced standing when Lysa slept, bracing herself against the wall, muscles screaming as she forced them to adapt faster than nature intended. She practiced falling without injury. Rolling. Crawling silently.
She practiced thinking while her body hurt.
The system tracked it all.
[Motor function stress exceeding optimal infant parameters.]
"I know," Aira replied. "Does it count?"
[Affirmative. Endurance accumulation ongoing.]
"Progress?"
[Level 4: 18.3%.]
Too slow.
Still too slow.
Aira adjusted.
She began depriving herself deliberately—skipping portions of food, forcing her body to function on less energy than it needed. She exposed herself to cold longer than necessary, sitting near cracked vents where unfiltered air seeped in.
The system issued warnings.
She ignored them.
"Pain isn't the point," she told it. "Control is."
[Clarify.]
"I need to know exactly how much I can endure without breaking," she said. "Not what you think I can endure."
The system recalibrated.
[Adjustment accepted.]
Aira smiled faintly.
The system was learning.
At sixteen months, Aira was summoned.
Not officially.
Not directly.
The message came through Lysa's system—a flickering, half-corrupted projection that appeared in the air without sound.
MANDATORY COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT
SECTOR THIRTEEN — BLOCK C
Aira recognized the format immediately.
"Pre-conscription screening," she thought.
[Correct.]
"They're early."
[War timeline acceleration detected.]
Aira felt a tightness settle behind her ribs.
"How long?"
[Revised estimate: 2 years, 7 months.]
The clock was speeding up.
And she was still Level 3.
The assessment hall was a repurposed warehouse, its walls reinforced with suppression emitters and system amplifiers. People lined up in rigid rows, their systems projecting status overlays whether they wanted them to or not.
Children cried.
Adults stared forward, expressions empty.
Aira was carried in Mara's arms, her face deliberately slack, her posture loose. She let her body look weak. Dependent. Normal.
Inside, she sharpened.
"Mask everything," she ordered the system.
[Masking at maximum safe threshold.]
"Lower it further."
[Risk increasing.]
"Do it anyway."
The system complied.
Aira felt the familiar compression, the sense of herself being folded inward, compressed into something smaller than she truly was.
She endured.
One by one, people were scanned.
Systems flared. Numbers appeared. Some were escorted out through a side door and did not return.
When Aira's turn came, the scanner paused.
Again.
Longer this time.
Mara's heart rate spiked.
Aira felt the system strain.
[Anomaly detection threshold approaching.]
"Redirect," Aira commanded. "Feed it average."
[Executing.]
The scanner hummed, then moved on.
Mara exhaled shakily, unaware how close the line had been.
As they turned to leave, Aira felt it.
A presence.
Not a person.
A system.
Different from the others.
Larger.
Watching.
[Warning: High-tier system attention detected.]
Aira did not look toward it.
She did not react.
She stored the sensation away like a blade hidden in cloth.
"Identify later," she thought.
[Acknowledged.]
That night, Aira dreamed.
Not memories.
Possibilities.
She stood at the edge of a vast data sea, fragments of cyber-races drifting past her like shattered stars—machine-blooded forms, neural phantoms, entities made of living code.
Each one pulsed faintly.
Waiting.
She woke with her heart racing.
The system spoke first.
[Evolution Pathways Accessible for Preliminary Review.]
Aira sat up slowly in the dark, careful not to wake Mara.
"Already?" she asked.
[No evolution possible until Level 10.]
"I know," Aira said. "You wouldn't show me this without reason."
The system paused.
Then:
[Early exposure may improve decision-making accuracy.]
Aira smiled.
"So you do think now."
[Processing complexity has increased.]
"Do you want to evolve?" she asked quietly.
The question hung between them.
In her first life, the system had never wanted anything.
Now—
[Yes.]
The answer was simple.
Honest.
Aira closed her eyes.
"Then we survive," she said. "Together. Until we can choose."
[Agreement logged.]
Something settled.
Not a contract.
Not a command.
A shared direction.
Level 4 did not come that night.
Nor the next.
It came weeks later, after Aira deliberately exposed herself to a data-feedback surge from a broken terminal, letting corrupted code scrape across her nervous system while she focused on staying conscious.
The pain was exquisite.
Her body convulsed. Her vision fragmented.
The system screamed warnings she ignored.
She endured.
And when the surge ended—
[Level Up Achieved.]
[Level: 4 / 10]
Aira lay on the floor, shaking, lungs burning.
She laughed softly.
Not because it hurt.
But because it worked.
Six levels remained.
The war was coming faster.
And somewhere in the city, a high-tier system had noticed her.
That was fine.
Let them watch.
She was done being invisible.
Soon, she would choose what to become—and when she did, neither the city nor its systems would be ready for the answer.