CHAPTER SEVEN
They didn't call it a mission.
Morgan called it exposure.
"You won't be sent," she said. "You'll be seen."
I stood in the prep room, pulling on a jacket that felt unfamiliar without weight in the sleeves. No weapons. No earpiece feeding me solutions.
Lisa leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "That sounds worse."
"It is," Morgan replied. "The system doesn't respond to rebellion. It responds to precedent."
I frowned. "You're using me."
"Yes," Morgan said evenly. "And so are they."
That was honest, at least.
The assignment was simple on paper.
A public transit hub. Midday. Cameras everywhere. No direct threat identified—just a probability cluster. Someone in the crowd was going to trigger a correction.
"Could be nothing," Morgan said. "Could be a reminder."
"For who?" Lisa asked.
Morgan looked at me. "For him."
We arrived separately.
I moved through the station slowly, letting people brush past me. The noise pressed in—voices, footsteps, announcements layered over each other.
The system stirred.
Not command.
Pattern recognition.
My pulse quickened.
I hated how familiar that felt.
Across the concourse, I spotted Lisa near a coffee stand, pretending to struggle with change. Morgan was nowhere visible.
Good.
This had to be real.
The boy appeared beside an information kiosk.
He looked older this time.
"You're late," he said.
"I'm on time," I replied quietly.
"You're lying," he said. "You're scared to decide."
Movement spiked to my left.
A man pacing. Hands opening and closing. Eyes darting to exits that weren't there.
Threat?
Or fear?
The system whispered probabilities into the silence of my thoughts.
I could still hear them.
That scared me more than silence ever had.
I moved closer—not fast, not slow. Just another body in motion.
The man stopped abruptly.
Our eyes met.
Recognition flashed.
Not of me.
Of himself.
"Don't," he said suddenly.
I froze.
"I'm not—" I started.
He shoved past me and ran.
People shouted. The crowd shifted.
This was it.
I had seconds.
I followed.
Wrong choice.
The boy's voice sharpened. "Scott."
I ignored him.
The man reached the platform edge and stopped, breathing hard, hands trembling.
"I can't do it again," he said—to no one. "I won't."
I stepped closer. "You don't have to."
He laughed bitterly. "You don't know what they put in your head."
My chest tightened.
I knew.
Sirens sounded—not police.
System response.
Too fast.
The platform lights flickered.
I reached for the man.
He stepped back.
Too far.
People screamed.
I grabbed him and pulled.
We hit the ground hard.
Pain flared through my shoulder.
The system surged—not as command.
As relief.
Good, it whispered.
That's what you're for.
I pushed myself up, shaking.
The man stared at me, stunned.
"I didn't want to hurt anyone," he said.
"I know," I replied.
Security swarmed the platform—not uniformed. Plain clothes. Efficient.
Morgan's voice came through my phone, tight. "Scott. You changed the outcome."
"Someone almost died," I said.
"Yes," she replied. "And someone didn't."
The boy stood at the edge of the platform, watching.
"You felt it, didn't you?" he said. "How easy it would've been to let go."
"Yes."
He nodded. "That's the test."
Lisa ran up, breathless. "I saw the lights flicker. You went off-plan."
"There was no plan," I said.
She looked at the man being helped up by medics. "You still chose."
The system withdrew.
Not defeated.
Satisfied.
We regrouped hours later.
Morgan didn't look angry.
That worried me.
"They marked the incident as spontaneous," she said. "No correction issued."
"Because I handled it," I said.
"No," Morgan replied. "Because you handled it imperfectly."
I frowned. "That's good?"
"It means you're unpredictable," she said. "Weapons aren't."
Lisa sat beside me. "You were scared."
"Yes."
"You still moved."
"Yes."
She nodded. "Then you're learning."
The boy sat across from us, legs swinging.
"They're watching you differently now," he said. "Not like property."
"Like what?" I asked.
He smiled faintly.
"Like a risk."
That night, alone again, I replayed the moment.
The pull.
The fall.
The whisper of relief.
I hadn't escaped the system.
I'd disrupted it.
And disruption wasn't freedom.
It was dangerous.
But as I lay there, shoulder aching, mind loud with uncertainty, I realized something else.
For the first time, my mistakes were mine.
Not optimized.
Not corrected.
Not erased.
Mine.
And if the system wanted me back—
It would have to accept something it had never planned for.
A human variable.