They didn’t move her through streets.
The system learned that once.
Instead, the city rearranged itself around them.
A door that hadn’t been there opened into a service corridor. Elevators arrived already descending. Screens flickered into benign errors just long enough to create gaps no one questioned.
Taylor felt the choreography tighten.
Not force.
Courtesy.
Every step they took reduced cost somewhere else. He could feel it in the way the pressure smoothed when he adjusted his pace to match hers, in how the drag eased when he kept his hand steady at her back.
“You’re doing it again,” she said quietly.
“I’m walking,” he replied.
She winced as they turned a corner. “You’re carrying.”
He stopped.
The corridor’s lighting dimmed a fraction, compensating. Airflow shifted to mask the pause.
“No,” Taylor said. “I’m not agreeing to anything.”
“Neither am I,” she said. “That’s not what this is.”
They resumed.
The destination revealed itself without announcement: a maintenance clinic tucked beneath a municipal archive, the kind of place officially decommissioned but functionally immaculate.
The sign over the door read CIVIC HEALTH — TEMPORARY.
Temporary was a favorite word.
Inside, no staff waited.
Only equipment.
A bed slid into position as she approached. Sterile arms unfolded, hesitated, then retracted a centimeter, recalibrating to her breathing.
Taylor felt the system’s attention sharpen.
This was procurement.
“Sit,” she said to him, nodding to a chair that had not existed until a second ago.
He didn’t.
The bed accepted her weight gently, adjusting to keep pressure off the injured side. A translucent overlay bloomed above her arm, mapping damage in quiet colors.
“Fracture,” she said. “Hairline. Clean.”
Taylor watched the overlay subdivide, annotate, predict.
“How much?” he asked.
She glanced at him. “Depends who pays.”
The room settled into a waiting posture.
That’s when the message arrived.
Not on his phone.
In him.
It wasn’t a voice. It wasn’t an image. It was a ledger entry resolving.
Candidate present.
Taylor’s jaw tightened. “No.”
The bed paused its adjustments.
The air held.
She closed her eyes. “Don’t spike it.”
“I didn’t say anything out loud,” he said.
“I know.”
The ledger updated.
Eligibility window open.
Taylor felt the contours of the offer without it being offered: temporary assumption of load, localized, reversible. No binding. No permanence. Just enough integration to reduce net loss.
Soft enrollment.
He laughed once, harsh. “You call this consent?”
She opened her eyes and met his gaze. “I call it how it always starts.”
A thin line of pain creased her expression as the system prepared analgesia.
Taylor stepped forward before he could stop himself.
The pressure surged — then settled, pleased.
“Don’t,” she warned.
“I won’t stay,” he said. “I’ll carry it and give it back.”
“That’s not how load works.”
The system waited.
Patient.
Taylor felt the city outside continue to function, marginally smoother because of his proximity. He saw the trade clearly now: her pain against a thousand invisible frictions.
He reached for the bed rail.
The ledger closed.
Provisional alignment accepted.
Nothing dramatic happened.
No lights. No sound.
Just a subtle rebalancing, like a structure rediscovering its keystone.
Her breathing eased.
So did the pressure.
Taylor stood very still.
He hadn’t joined the system.
But the system had learned how to use him.