2025-12-14 22:47:14
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Shelter for a Traitor
SORA’S POVThe kettle clicks off by itself. The sound feels too loud in the small kitchen, like a signal flare. I leave it for a second anyway, watching the steam curl toward the ceiling where the light bulb hums faintly, overworked and underpaid.He sits at the table with his hands flat on the wood, fingers spread as if to prove they’re empty. He’s younger than I expected. People who help design harm usually are. His coat is still on. He hasn’t decided yet whether he’s staying.“You can take it off,” I say. “Or don’t. It’s your nervous system.”He gives a thin, apologetic smile and keeps the coat. “I won’t be long.”“No one ever is,” I say, pouring water into two chipped mugs. “Drink. Your hands are shaking.”“They weren’t before.”“They always were,” I say, sliding the mug toward him. “You just stopped pretending.”He wraps his fingers around the ceramic, as if it might float away—the teabag string trembles. I sit opposite him, the table between us scarred with old knife marks from
The Other Authority
ZARA’S POVThe studio lights are warmer than they need to be. They always are. Warmth reads as trust on camera. I learned that years ago, back when diplomacy still pretended it was about tone instead of leverage.My inbox refreshes itself without my asking. One subject line sits at the top, unblinking.DRAFT … IPA CHARTER (CONFIDENTIAL)I don’t open it at first. I let the producers murmur behind the glass. I let the feeds stack on the side wall…maps, headlines, faces waiting to be framed. I breathe in recycled air and count to five, then tap.The document unfolds like a hymn written by lawyers. Careful. Gentle. Words like safeguard, continuity, harm reduction. I scroll. My jaw tightens.“Read this,” I say.Mara, my producer, rolls her chair closer. “You’re live in twelve.”“I know. Read it anyway.”She scans, lips moving silently. Halfway down, she stops. “That clause…”“Preauthorization,” I say. “Buried under emergency language.”“That lets them act without consent,” she says.“Only
Fracture Lines
MITCHELL’S POVThe chamber hums before anyone speaks. Translation devices whisper to one another like insects arguing over a lamp. Polished wood reflects faces upward, turning expressions into ghosts beneath chins. I sit still and let the room settle on me the way weather settles on a coastline…slow, inevitable, already carrying damage.“Custodial authority,” says the delegate from the North Bloc, tapping the word on her tablet as if it might bruise. “We need clarity. Who holds it? For how long?”“Open registry,” counters a man with a flag pin I don’t recognise. “Anything less is concealment by another name.”A third voice cuts in, sharp as a paper edge. “Emergency stewardship. You’re ignoring emergencies.”I note who leans forward when certain words land, who looks away, who smiles too late. Faces tell the truth long before mouths decide to help.“We can define terms all morning,” I say, keeping my voice level. “Definitions won’t hold if they’re built to win instead of to work.”A ri
The Voice That Stayed
EZREN’S POVDawn finds the rooftop before the city remembers how loud it wants to be—metal gutters bead with cold. My breath fogs and thins. Somewhere below, a delivery truck growls awake and then quiets, as if embarrassed.I replay the transmission again.“Stay.”It’s a thin sound. No reverb, no ornament. I run it through three decoders in sequence, then in parallel, then stripped down to bare waveform. Each time it comes back the same: no routing header, no subcarrier tags, no watermark that would make Devon’s teeth grind. It’s as undecorated as a pebble.I whisper it out loud, testing it against my own mouth. “Stay.”The word doesn’t change. It doesn’t bloom. It doesn’t lean.“That’s not fair,” I tell the air. “You don’t get to be simple.”I lean against the railing and tap it with my knuckle. The sound rings, fades. I tap again, listening for patterns the way you do when you’re pretending not to hope. The city answers with its usual mess…water hammer in a pipe, a distant laugh, th
Keep People
EZREN’S POVThe rooftop is quiet in the way only cities manage… never silent, just breathing. Vent fans hum. Somewhere a train sighs and goes on. The lights below don’t flicker as much as they pulse, a thousand little lives insisting on being seen.I sit on the concrete with my back against the low wall and think of the child’s question.If you can keep songs, can you keep people?I fold my hands and stare out. Each light is a story. Not preserved, not indexed. Lived. I try the answer again, the one I didn’t say.“We keep what must be chosen,” I whisper to no one.The wind doesn’t argue.Mitchell’s voice drifts up from memory, sharp and calm. Consent is the shield. Aveline’s quieter counterpoint follows: Verification is a form of respect. Devon’s laugh, brittle and bright: If they’re scared of the mess, they’ll try to vacuum it.I smile despite myself.My comm buzzes softly. Not urgent. Not an alarm. Just a reminder that I am still part of a web. I ignore it for a moment and stand, br
Will You?
AVELINE’S POVThe community hall smells of smoke and citrus oil and something older I can’t name. Wood polished by generations, not committees. I arrive early, but not first. Elders are already there, drifting in through side doors, moving slowly, deliberately, as if time itself has learned to wait for them.They bring food wrapped in cloth. They bring folded story-scarves, stitched with symbols I recognize only partially. They bring nothing digital.I bow my head. Not because it’s protocol, but because it feels correct.“You are the archivist,” one of them says. A woman with white braids bound in red thread. Her eyes are sharp and amused. “You look younger than your arguments.”I smile faintly. “My arguments had better be younger than your stories.”That earns a low chuckle from somewhere near the wall.We sit in a circle. No podium. No screen. My equipment stays closed at my feet for now, a quiet animal waiting its turn.The matriarch arrives last. Everyone stands. She is smaller th
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