The next time Mina entered the library wing, she caught herself adjusting her breathing.
It wasn't conscious. It happened the way old habits did, your body remembering before your mind agreed.
The access archway scanned her ID, the doors opening without sound, and Mina stepped into the hush with a steadier face than she felt.
Cora was already there, leaning over a return cart, hair in a different messy knot, tablet propped against the shelf as she muttered to herself.
"Morning," Cora said, glancing up. "You look like you slept with one eye open."
Mina set her bag down. "I slept fine."
Cora made a face. "That's what people say when they didn't."
Mina didn't answer. She didn't want to give Cora that satisfaction.
Nessa appeared a moment later, sliding a task tablet across the desk without preamble. "Intake reconciliation. Cross-reference updates. Inner corridor window from fourteen-hundred to fourteen-thirty."
Mina nodded. "Understood."
Cora watched Nessa walk away, then leaned closer to Mina with a whisper. "Inner corridor? Look at you. Resident-adjacent."
"It's a label adjustment," Mina murmured.
"That's what they all say," Cora replied solemnly. "And then suddenly their entire lives get interesting."
Mina shot her a look.
Cora grinned. "Relax. I'm being dramatic. It's my brand."
Work pulled Mina into its rhythm quickly. The library had rules she understood. Not because they were written, but because they were consistent. You didn't touch what wasn't assigned. You didn't ask questions outside your lane. You didn't speak about what you saw.
Discretion wasn't a virtue here.
It was currency.
Mina worked through the intake crates, logging returns, matching codes, correcting minor inconsistencies. She moved with the quiet competence Helix rewarded, the kind that didn't demand attention but earned it anyway.
A few times, she noticed staff in the periphery watching her work. Not closely. Not suspiciously. More like the way you watch a machine that's running smoothly, just to be sure it keeps running.
At midday, Tomas passed through the wing. He didn't speak to Mina, but his presence carried the same controlled neutrality as always. He paused near the central desk long enough to clear an access request on the terminal, then left.
Cora waited until he was out of earshot to whisper, "He approves of you."
Mina didn't look up. "How do you know?"
Cora shrugged. "Because he doesn't disapprove. With Tomas, that's basically applause."
At fourteen-hundred, Mina stepped into the inner corridor with her label kit and tablet.
The corridor curved gently, glass
cases lining the walls, contracts, artifacts, old agreements sealed and preserved like sacred objects. Light spilled from above in clean lines, turning the glass into mirrors that reflected Mina's uniform in fragments.
She adjusted the first label, smoothing it with careful fingers.
A faint murmur of voices drifted through the partition ahead.
Mina didn't move closer.
She wasn't curious. Curiosity was a luxury. In Helix, curiosity could become a mistake.
She finished the first label, then moved to the second.
The voices sharpened slightly, not louder, just closer.
"…Lovegood's correction prevented the overlap," a male voice said calmly. "The conflict won't recur."
Mina's hand froze.
Lovegood.
Her surname.
Not called out. Not spoken to her. Used the way people used file names and records.
Another voice replied, lower, thoughtful. "She caught it early?"
"Yes," the first voice said. "Consistently."
A pause.
"Good."
Mina didn't breathe for a second.
Then she forced her hand to move again.
She smoothed the label. Checked the alignment. Pretended her pulse hadn't shifted under her skin.
The conversation continued, but Mina didn't catch the next words. Her mind had narrowed to one point.
Her name had entered a room she wasn't in.
Not Mina.
Lovegood.
The name Helix used when it wrote you down.
When she returned to the main wing, Cora took one look at her face and stopped.
"Oh," Cora whispered. "Oh no."
Mina kept walking, setting her kit down carefully. "What."
Cora slid closer like a moth to danger. "They said your name, didn't they?"
Mina stared at her for a beat. "How would you even—"
"Because you have that look," Cora said, eyes bright. "The 'I just got noticed by something that doesn't notice people' look."
Mina lowered her voice. "They said my surname."
Cora's expression shifted, giddy, alarmed, impressed, all at once. "File name."
Mina's throat felt tight. "Who was it?"
Cora shook her head quickly. "Nope. Not saying it. Also, I didn't see. I only heard the cadence."
"That's not helpful."
"It's extremely helpful," Cora insisted. "Cadence tells you if someone's irritated or intrigued. And that was…" She paused, eyes narrowing as she replayed it. "Neutral. Clean. Like they were reviewing a system and you were part of the system."
Mina didn't know whether that was reassuring or terrifying.
"You're invisible in the right way," Cora whispered.
Mina didn't like the phrase.
But she understood what it meant.
By the end of the shift, Nessa approached Mina's desk.
"Your corrections were flagged for expansion," she said evenly. "You'll assist with packet preparation next week."
Mina nodded. "Understood."
Nessa paused, eyes sharp. "Maintain discretion."
Mina met her gaze. "Always."
Nessa held her stare for half a second longer, then nodded once.
It wasn't warmth.
It wasn't cruelty.
It was recognition.
That night, Mina sat by the window in her room, watching the courtyard lights flicker on one by one.
The fountain murmured softly, constant and indifferent.
She thought about how small her world had been in the beginning, food, shelter, safety. Every day measured by what could be taken from her.
Now the world measured her differently.
By consistency. By competence. By quiet usefulness.
She should've felt proud.
Instead, she felt exposed.
Not the way she used to, being seen as a body, as an object, as something vulnerable.
This was different.
This was being seen as a piece.
A component in a machine powerful enough to decide what mattered.
Somewhere, someone with access to rooms she couldn't enter had spoken her surname like it belonged there.
Like she belonged there.
Mina pressed her palm to the glass lightly, grounding herself.
Outside, Helix looked serene.
Inside, Mina's mind replayed that single word.
Lovegood.
A name spoken with calm certainty.
And Mina understood, with a clarity that made her chest tighten, that anonymity was thinning.
Once power learned your name, it didn't forget.
And once it counted you…
It rarely stopped counting.