They didn’t stop moving.
The tunnel bent and forked, narrowing until Taylor had to hunch forward, lungs burning more from panic than exertion. The woman led without hesitation, counting turns in her head, mapping absence like it was muscle memory.
Only when the hum thinned to almost nothing did she slow.
“Talk,” Taylor said hoarsely. “Before I lose it.”
She glanced back once. “You already did.”
He stumbled, caught himself on the wall. “You said that’s the math. Explain it.”
She stopped.
“This is the part people beg me not to tell them,” she said. “So, if you ask again, I won’t soften it.”
“Don’t,” he said. “Please don’t.”
She exhaled through her nose. Then nodded. “Fine.”
She turned to face him. “The system doesn’t value people. It values stability. People are variables. Most are cheap.”
Taylor flinched.
“You,” she continued, “became expensive the moment you escaped.”
“That man—”
“—was already in deficit,” she cut in. “Minor complaint. Delayed access. Low influence radius. His profile was flagged long before tonight.”
Taylor shook his head. “So, he was marked anyway.”
“No,” she said. “He was available.”
The word landed harder than the death.
“When you crossed the threshold,” she said, “the system had two options. Escalate you. Or offset you.”
Taylor swallowed. “And it chose—”
“—the cheaper variable,” she said. “Every time.”
Silence pressed in.
“That’s why it didn’t chase you harder,” she added. “That’s why it spoke gently. It had already balanced the equation.”
Taylor’s hands trembled. “If I hadn’t—”
“If you hadn’t run,” she said, “he’d still be breathing. And you’d be in a room right now, being made smaller until you fit again.”
The tunnel felt suddenly too tight.
“I didn’t agree to that trade,” Taylor whispered.
“No one ever does,” she said. “That’s how consent survives in stories like this.”
He slid down the wall, breathing ragged. “Why tell me?”
She watched him carefully. “Because people who don’t understand the cost keep causing it.”
“And people who do?”
“They choose,” she said. “And they carry it.”
Taylor looked at his hands, still shaking. “Does it ever stop?”
Her answer came too fast. “No.”
She turned away. “But you get better at counting.”
Somewhere far above them, the city adjusted a parameter.
Below, Taylor learned what survival would demand.