The fracture didn’t stay where it happened.
It followed them.
By the second day back on the surface, Taylor could feel it in the small things: the way crosswalk signals lingered when he approached, the way crowds parted without intention, the way recommendations stopped being suggestions and became absences.
Not denied.
Unnecessary.
He didn’t tell her at first.
She was already brittle, holding herself together with rules she didn’t fully believe in anymore. Adding his experience to that felt like applying pressure where a fault line was still warm.
But the residue didn’t ask permission.
They were in a transit hub when it happened.
Not one of the clean ones—an older interchange where systems overlapped imperfectly, where delays were common enough to be tolerated. Taylor stood near the edge of the platform, watching people scroll through overlays that adjusted in real time, smoothing irritation into patience.
The hum returned.
Sharper now.
Not pressure.
Direction.
He swayed, just slightly.
She caught his arm instantly.
“No,” she said. “Not here.”
“I didn’t start it,” he replied, breath tight. “It’s just… there.”
Her grip tightened. “That’s worse.”
The crowd around them slowed, movements syncing unconsciously, like a system compensating for local instability. Taylor felt it then—a pull, gentle but insistent, like a current finding a conductive path.
A man nearby stumbled. His overlay flickered, then went blank.
Panic spiked.
Taylor reacted without thinking.
He shifted his stance, grounding himself the way he’d learned underground, letting the alignment pass through instead of resisting it.
The pull redirected.
The man’s overlay snapped back on.
The crowd resumed motion.
No one noticed.
Except her.
She let go of his arm slowly, as if afraid he might break if she moved too fast.
“You felt that,” she said.
“Yes.”
“And you used it.”
“I stopped it,” Taylor replied.
Her laugh was hollow. “You optimized.”
The word cut deeper than accusation.
“That’s not the same thing,” he said.
“It’s close enough to matter,” she replied. “You didn’t choose who benefited. You chose coherence.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
She stepped back, shaking her head.
“This is how it starts,” she said. “You’ll tell yourself you’re preventing harm. And most of the time, you will be right.”
“And the rest?” he asked.
She met his gaze.
“The rest will disappear into averages.”
They stood there, the noise of transit swelling around them, the system quietly grateful for the correction it hadn’t had to make.
“I didn’t feel it mark me,” Taylor said quietly.
“That’s because you were already marked,” she replied. “You’re just noticing the outline now.”
A silence settled between them—not hostile, but altered.
Something had shifted.
For the first time, she wasn’t the one closest to the edge.
And somewhere beneath the city, far below platforms and conduits and forgotten junctions, the system recorded a data point it had not requested: Residual stabilization via non-designated surface.
No action followed.
None was required.
The residue was enough.