Marin sat on the edge of her apartment window, legs swinging over the concrete ledge like she was on a playground. Her fingers tapped against the Ledger tablet, running through every number, every loophole, every decimal. Fifty-nine point three had become a nightmare.
Below, the city hummed with quiet efficiency. Cameras blinked, drones skimmed rooftops, and somewhere, a Registrar like Elias marked citizens down for minor infractions before they even knew they'd erred. The system watched. It always watched.
A soft chime announced a message. Liora, the corporate heiress whose name shimmered in red across the public Ledger, had tagged Marin for "unauthorized access."
That was fast, Marin muttered. A thrill of fear and annoyance mixed inside her. Liora was dangerous—not because she was cruel, but because she was clever, charming, and entirely unpredictable. One misstep and she could crush you without lifting a finger.
Elias' office phone rang. He didn't answer immediately, letting the display blink twice. Darin, the soldier from yesterday's incident, was on the line.
"Registrar Elias," Darin said, voice sharp. "We've had another Ledger violation. West District. I think—" His words froze.
Elias sighed. "You think what?"
"I'm not sure," Darin admitted. "It's… messy. But it's spreading."
The words made Elias' stomach twist. Spreading. That single error yesterday had become a ripple, infecting minor accounts, destabilizing permits, ration allocations—small, almost invisible consequences, but ones that grew like cracks in glass.
Across town, Tobias watched the digital chaos unfold. He muttered curses under his breath, fingers dancing across his tablet. He had predicted some backlash, but the system's efficiency exceeded expectation. A single misstep—Marin's miscode—was enough to ignite a chain reaction that neither hack nor ingenuity could fully contain.
Marin laughed bitterly, the kind of laugh that tastes like smoke. The thrill of bending the rules was gone; in its place was dread. She had survived, technically. But others—people she'd glanced at in passing, shared a laugh with—were now caught in the Ledger's invisible snare.
Liora appeared on the screen for a brief public address, a charismatic smile plastered across her features as she spoke about compliance and fairness. Fairness, Marin thought bitterly. Liora's influence was subtle, pervasive, lethal.
And somewhere in the shadows, Tobias realized the Ledger wasn't just a system. It was an organism. And it was hungry.