The white light is so harsh it hurts to keep your eyes open.
Where the convoy enters doesn't feel like a room—it feels like a box filled to the brim with glare. The floor is a dark composite material with luminous lines embedded in it. The lines don't stay on; they pulse in a fixed rhythm—
pop, pop, pop—
like a heartbeat, or like a countdown tapping on bone.
Li squints. His wristband screen is swallowed by a forced overlay.
[Separation Destination: 7–4 Transfer Chain, Secondary Split A–47 Branch][Association Rate: 71%][Stability / Compatibility: B+ / Pending Review]
A smaller line scrolls fast, refreshing in real time—too quick to read.
A system voice loops in the antechamber, cold, empty of anything human.
"Proceed by indicator lights.""Maintain queue integrity.""Prepare to recite your category and ID."
The voice and the pulsing floor sync too perfectly. It makes your scalp crawl.
Beside him Daniel mutters, "Damn. Corporate onboarding, huh? With background music."
Marcus doesn't answer. He's staring at another overlay on his own wristband.
A digital confirmation form.
Title line only:
[Compliance Review Confirmation Regarding Separation Transfer of Navigation Asset (ID 7–4–23)]
The body is even blunter: confirm Li Kaine as "Navigation Asset, Category A–47, priority separation," and pledge that "after separation, no party may interfere in any form with the subsequent calibration pipeline."
Below that, a massive [SIGN] button pulses red.
Over the speakers, Brian's voice returns—still in that "reading policy" cadence.
"All Recovery Team personnel. Complete compliance-review signature before countdown ends. This is your sole path to preserve unit roster and family allocation points. Refusal or timeout will automatically trigger reselection."
He hits the word reselection hard.
Daniel's face drains. "This worker clause… signing means we personally hand you over, and promise not to make noise?"
Marcus doesn't look at him. He lifts his head toward an escort officer standing a few meters away.
"Sir," Marcus says, steady, even friendly, "we know procedure. We'll cooperate. Efficiency. Lowering unnecessary losses. Nobody wants blame at this level."
The officer frowns. "Talk."
"Navigation asset is currently in calibration lock—scripted operation." Marcus's tempo is calm, like he's discussing equipment maintenance. "If you extract him now and the separation handoff drifts because we lack final interface-consistency verification from the original operator unit… whose liability is that? Ours, for 'not cooperating well'? Or Monitoring Center's, for a separation design flaw?"
He pauses, then adds, softly:
"Best practice is one shortest final confirmation before separation. One motion. Smooth handoff. Best success rate, lowest downstream risk. Good for us, good for you. Otherwise when someone higher up asks 'Why didn't you perform final confirmation?' that pot of blame gets very big, very round."
The officer studies him. Presses his earpiece. Listens.
After a few seconds he nods.
"Fifteen minutes. Action must be compliant. Data must uplink."
"Understood." Marcus turns and flashes Daniel a look.
Daniel immediately drops into a fake shoelace tie, hands digging fast through his tool bag.
Li stands in the line. The script inside his head keeps running.
"Script segment: enter A–47 pre-screen queue.""Action: remain standing. Eyes forward.""Recitation prep: when green light flashes twice, recite your category and ID."
He moves with the line into a narrower corridor.
At the far end: another luminous door, stamped with a huge A–47.
Inside, a queue already exists—people with bands like his. Men, women, even older bodies. No talking. No wandering eyes. They stand still, quiet, like boxed inventory on shelves.
Li takes his place at the back.
Then the directive stream stutters.
Not a malfunction—more like something has been shoved in by force.
A razor-short broadcast echo passes through his skull, as if carried from a very distant speaker:
"…A–47–11… sample collection… next cycle…"
A–47–11.
Li's breathing stops for half a beat.
His daughter's file ends with 11.
He jerks his head up, staring forward.
The white light is so aggressive that people are only silhouettes. But he sees it—somewhere mid-queue, closer to the front: a small, thin figure in gray. The back of the shirt seems to have numbers, but he can't make them out.
He narrows his eyes—trying to pull detail out of glare—
and the script slams back in harder, denser, colder.
"Warning: attention deviation detected.""Forced calibration: gaze returns forward.""Recitation countdown: 3, 2—"
Li doesn't want to recite.
His lips move anyway.
But when the system says "1," what comes out of him isn't "A–47, ID 7–4–23."
It's:
"A–47… where is my daughter?"
Not loud.
But inside a corridor full of system voice and footfalls, it lands like a dropped tool.
The people ahead don't react. They keep drifting forward in tiny mechanical steps.
Li's wristband turns red instantly—violent, frantic flashing.
A piercing alarm detonates from his band and rebounds through the corridor.
[ALERT: Stability Downgrade][ALERT: Calibration-Locked Unstable Body][DISPOSITION: Immediate Transfer to Deep Calibration Unit]
Panels in the corridor walls slide open.
Four figures step out, sealed head-to-toe in protective suits, and walk directly toward Li.
Li doesn't move.
He stares toward that small gray silhouette and uses everything he has to nail the image, the tail-code, the broadcast fragment into his mind like a spike.
Remember.
The suited personnel seize his arms and drag him sideways—hard, no negotiation.
As they pull him out of line, Li turns his head one last time.
The small gray figure moves with the queue and disappears into the A–47 door's white glare.
Monitoring Center
Erin is staring at the screen, her palms slick with sweat.
On the waveform display, beside Li's trace, a huge red marker erupts:
[PROCESS GAP: Anomalous Operation Trace]
A prompt chirps in her headset:
"Manual tampering detected in waveform curve. Gap cannot align with standard noise model. Initiate auto-correction? Auto-correction will forcibly repair routing; target asset will be extracted immediately."
Erin inhales.
If she triggers correction, Li is taken now—and Marcus's fifteen-minute wedge collapses.
If she doesn't, the red mark stays. The system will backtrack. It will find her.
Her fingers hammer the keyboard, pulling up low-level calibration tools.
This isn't simple smoothing anymore. She has to forge a more complex "environmental interference noise" layer—right under the system's reverse-consistency check—and smear it over the red mark.
Every keystroke leaves a digital signature.
Employee ID. Permission level. Timestamp.
A confession carved into the data.
"Dr. Erin?" a colleague glances over. "Curve issue on your side. Need help?"
"No." Erin doesn't look up. Her voice is steady. "Intermittent anchor-edge interference. I'm separating noise."
She hits Enter.
The red marker blinks, fades, and finally dissolves into the background trace:
[Minor environmental noise. Logged.]
The prompt tone stops.
Erin leans back. Her shirt is soaked through.
On screen, Li's status updates:
Stability Downgrade.Deep Calibration Unit: link established.
She knows her fingerprints are now in the logs.
There's no running from this.
Gate Antechamber
Daniel stares at the alert that syncs onto his wristband. "Holy—shit."
"Old Li triggered an alarm! They flagged him unstable—deep calibration!"
Marcus stares at the compliance screen. The red [SIGN] button still pulses like a wound.
The fifteen-minute window ends.
The escort officer returns, face flat. "Time."
Marcus nods. "Final confirmation performed. Interface consistency verified. Data uplinked."
The officer checks his tablet. A confirmation receipt exists. His expression loosens a fraction, then hardens again.
"Fine. Navigation asset is now under deep calibration control due to stability downgrade." He points to Marcus's screen. "Compliance review—sign or not?"
He pauses, finger to earpiece—listening to Brian in real time.
Then he repeats, cleanly:
"If you do not sign: entire unit reselection immediately. Roster cleared. Family allocation points frozen… and deduction protocol initiated."
Deduction.
Daniel goes paler.
Deduction means the points they've been hoarding—housing slots, supply allotments, extraction favors—could be stripped, wiped, reversed.
Marcus's hand hovers over the screen.
He lifts his eyes toward the side door Li was dragged through.
It's shut now. Only cold metal remains.
When they pulled Li away, he turned his head once—just once—toward Marcus's direction.
Marcus couldn't read his expression in the glare.
But he saw Li's lips move.
A single word, mouthed through distance and alarms:
Sign.
Marcus's fingers tighten.
The stylus touches the screen.
The compliance display lights his face in shifting red and white.
And the system receipt lands—cold, even, seamless—not only in their ears, but in their bodies:
"Compliance review countdown: initiated.""Deep calibration link: ready.""Category: A–47.""Separation execution: irreversible."