I noticed him because the city hesitated.
That almost never happens anymore. Correction had grown confident, swift, polite. Outcomes arrived with the inevitability of good accounting. So when a moment stretched—when an intersection held its breath half a second too long—I felt it immediately, like grit between teeth.
He stood at the corner across from the hospital annex, hands in his pockets, posture loose in a way that pretended not to be intentional. Young enough to still mistake calm for neutrality. Old enough to know better. He wasn't watching the traffic. He was watching patterns. The way people leaned forward before crossing. The way hesitation rippled outward, contagious and brief.
I knew that posture.
The city hadn't announced him. It wouldn't. Announcements create hierarchy. This was an audit.
He moved before the light changed. Not into the street—along it, skirting the edge where pedestrians negotiate with impatience. He said something to a woman without looking at her. Just a phrase placed like ballast. She adjusted her step. A cyclist swerved.
Somewhere behind them, a driver overcorrected and clipped a mirror instead of a body.
Correction landed soft. Too soft.
I felt the city register surprise.
He kept walking.
I followed at a distance that suggested coincidence. He didn't look back. He didn't need to. Awareness sharpens quickly when you're being tested. He stopped near a stairwell that smelled like disinfectant and old water. Bad design. Bad lighting. A place where mistakes matured efficiently.
A man sat on the steps, head in his hands. Sixth-adjacent despair—still messy, still loud. The false successor paused. Not to intervene. To measure. He spoke again, voice low, almost bored.
"Don't sit there," he said. "You'll slip."
The man snapped back something angry, embarrassed. He stood anyway. His foot caught, but the angle was wrong now. He stumbled forward, not down. The city corrected elsewhere, late and irritated.
I felt something cold settle behind my eyes.
He wasn't precise.
He was fast.
Speed is seductive. Speed feels like mastery when you haven't paid enough yet.
The woman appeared beside me without sound. She didn't look at him. She watched the city's response, the way a cardiologist watches a monitor instead of the patient.
"You found him," she said.
"You placed him," I replied.
She smiled faintly. "We introduced a variable."
"He's sloppy."
"He's enthusiastic."
That worried me more.
We followed him through three districts. He left small distortions behind him—nothing fatal, nothing clean. Bruises where breaks would have been cheaper. Delays that piled instead of dispersing. The city compensated, but grudgingly. Correction costs ticked upward, quiet but undeniable.
"You prefer me," I said.
"For now," she replied.
He stopped at dusk on a pedestrian bridge. Leaned against the rail with the casual confidence of someone who believes he's invisible. He watched the water, the reflection of light fractured into fragments that pretended to be whole.
A couple approached—arguing softly, the way people do when they're rehearsing separation. The false successor shifted his weight. Said nothing this time. Presence alone can destabilize. The man stepped too close to the edge. The woman grabbed him. They both went over.
Not clean. Not synchronized.
The city recoiled. Correction spiked—sirens, witnesses, weight. Too many eyes. Too much cost.
The false successor froze. Just for a moment. Long enough.
I stepped forward before I decided to. Decision had begun to feel optional.
"You should leave," I said quietly, standing beside him.
He flinched. Then recovered. He looked at me properly for the first time, eyes bright with the relief of recognition. Not fear. Validation.
"I was wondering when you'd show up," he said.
"That confidence will kill you," I replied.
He laughed, sharp and short. "It already has. A few times."
I watched his hands. Slight tremor now. Adrenaline outpacing control.
"You think this is acceleration," I said. "It's turbulence."
He shrugged. "The city will adapt."
"It already has," I said. "That's why I'm here."
The woman stood a few steps back, silent. Evaluating.
"You're afraid I'll replace you," he said, smiling.
"No," I said honestly. "I'm afraid you'll be cheaper."
His smile faltered.
"Cheap outcomes attract attention," I continued. "Attention increases cost. Cost invites intervention. You don't want intervention."
He looked past me at the water, where the aftermath was still being collected by people trained to look calm. "You don't own this," he said.
"No," I agreed. "But I understand it."
The city pressed in, waiting.
"You could teach me," he said suddenly.
"We'd reduce the load together."
That was the real test. Not replacement.
Replication.
I considered it. The efficiency. The reach. Two vectors instead of one. The city would love that—briefly. Then it would calculate redundancy and decide which failure it could tolerate.
The woman's gaze met mine. Just once. No guidance. No permission.
"You won't last," I said to him. "Not like this."
"Neither will you," he shot back.
He stepped away from the rail, decision made. He didn't look at me again. He vanished into the city's folds, leaving noise and unpaid costs behind him.
Silence settled heavy and resentful.
"He's inadequate," I said.
"Yes," the woman replied. "But instructive."
"For whom?"
She turned to me then. Close enough that the space between us felt intentional again.
"For you."
I understood. The city wasn't replacing me. It was benchmarking. Measuring tolerance. Calculating whether precision was still worth its price.
The false successor would burn fast. Spectacularly, if left alone. His mess would justify my continuation. Or—if I intervened, refined him, corrected his excess—he might stabilize enough to become a genuine alternative.
Either choice cost me something.
The city waited.
I felt the seventh death stir—not imminent, not threatening. Curious. It wanted to know which part of me I would protect: the system, or my position within it.
"I'll handle him," I said.
The woman nodded, once. Approval or warning—I couldn't tell anymore.
As we walked away from the bridge, the city began smoothing the damage he'd left behind, irritated but efficient. Sirens softened. Witnesses dispersed. The rate recalibrated.
Behind us, somewhere in the grid, the false successor learned the wrong lesson: that speed feels like power.
I learned the right one.
The city doesn't eliminate inefficiency.
It lets precision justify itself.
And soon, one of us would.