Elias Cross did not need to open his eyes before the city was already awake.He might hear it by the walls of his apartment, which were too thin, the engines snorting to start, the voices of people at the street below, the scream of a siren somewhere in the distance. The city was never awaiting anyone. It moved first. It always did.Elias sat up in his wretched bed and gazed at a crack in the ceiling which seemed to me a crooked question mark. He had allowed months to repair it. Now, to repair a thing needed money and money was something he had been taught to do without.He awoke and put his feet upon the damp floor.Another day, he thought.The other opportunity to be invisible.His face was weary in the bathroom mirror. Late twenties. Dark eyes which saw too much. A jaw that seemed sharper when he did not eat his food right which was different often. He dipped his face in water and plumped up his collar. His shirt was dirty but old, one that had been washed too often.His phone was

Elias didn't sleep.He was lying on his bed with his eyes open and counting the cracks in the ceiling and listening to the city breathing the walls. Any tiny sound was amplified beyond its due. Each of the shadows seemed as though it was waiting him to blink."Observation phase extended."The words were repeating on his head slow and deliberate.Observation of what?Of him?And when morning came it came without pity.The light was sliding through the blinds, and came like an accusation on his face. It was only one buzz on his phone with no message, a warning that the battery was low. Elias sat up, rubbing his eyes."Okay," he whispered. "Okay."He needed proof.Not belief. Not fear. Proof.Then he was ready early in the morning and got out of the apartment before skepticism could persuade him against action. It was the time of the day when the city was not so excited and was waking up. Street cleaners laboured without speaking. Some of the first commuters gazed into their phones as th

Elias rose earlier than daylight, and his head was still heavy, though sufficiently clear to reason.Pain was, he had learnt, a part of the language.Not punishment as such--communication.He was sitting on the edge of the bed talking in a low key, as though a man were trying to determine whether a room might hear him."You said resistance matters."The stress rattled, quick-tempered and slight.Good.He rose and his body awoke by stretching him out. No sudden movements. No emotional decisions. In case this thing was judging him, then he had to know the scale.He got up early and he did not even wake the city. At this time the streets were less congested, and sincere in a manner that midday never was.Elias used to walk without headphones. Without distraction.He wanted to feel everything.At a foot pavement the conventional certitude poked him.A light run van will carry out the delivery.He stayed back.It did.No instruction followed. No pressure spike. No pain.Prevention was no i

Elias did not go home from the cafe.He walked.Not aimlessly this time. With distance in mind. Space had separated him and whatever had just varied the level of his threat.The city was louder now. Noise on noise in the middle of the day--horns, voices, announcements, movement upon movement. Usually, such anarchy served to make him fade away.Today, it did not.He experienced it through the manner in which people stared at him. Not staring. Not noticing. Just... registering. Like their attention brushing him half a second longer than usual.It made his skin crawl.He entered a cross street and decreased his speed. Old houses were bent over here, and their shadows were long and amusing. This section of the city was still stinking of dust and oil and history that the system had not even bothered to clean up.The pressure stirred.Not sharp. Not commanding.Curious.You have changed something, Elias said.No reply.He kept walking.There was a bus station looming at the end of the stree

Elias ran.Not blindly. Not wildly.He had been running years long the manner in which the city had taught him to run-head low and stride even and only fast enough to be noticed but not so fast as to be pursued.The pressure roared.Not words this time. Not instruction.Alarm.His legs hit concrete as he turned left, right, going down the narrower streets where the buildings had narrowed and the cameras had thinned. Breath burned in his lungs. His eyes were smaller, not so because of fatigue but so because of concentration.Footsteps were following him.Not hurried.That frightened him more.They have some idea where I will go, Elias thought.The city expected a way of acting. That was its strength. It anticipated directions, lifestyles, choices.So Elias did a foolhardy thing.He stopped.Abruptly.Towards the middle of the alley, under a flickering light, he turned.Sharp, disordered, the pressure spasmed.Deviation spike.Two men turned the corner, and came to a standstill on seein