Someone outside the door to Abandoned Isolation Sector Four shouted for help.

At first it was one person.

Soon there were three.

“Please open the door!”

“There are Committee people in there!”

“My daughter is in the medical sector!”

The thick pressure door flattened their voices into low, muffled sounds. Uneven blows from fists and tools mixed with the shouting.

The number on Elias’s remote lock key remained unchanged.

17,402.

MOVEMENT RESTRICTIONS FOR ESSENTIAL CITY RESOURCES IN EFFECT.

The people outside were technicians and medical personnel from the lower Life Synthesis sector. Because the city needed them, they were forbidden to go to their families.

Daniel went to the door.

“Open it.”

One of the perimeter guards stepped in front of him.

“Potential biological contamination inside the isolation sector has not been ruled out.”

“If it hasn’t been confirmed, then there isn’t any.”

Sarah said, “That isn’t what it means.”

Daniel turned on her.

“Whose side are you on?”

“Rina’s culture fluid contains symbionts that have never been disclosed outside Life Synthesis. If we open the door, we can let people in. We can also create a route for infection.”

“What about those people?”

“I don’t know.”

Outside, a woman called a child’s name.

Daniel gripped the handle. The manual latch was on the isolation-room side. All he had to do was turn it.

Mira said, “If you open it now, we may not be able to close it again.”

“Are the people in here more important than the people trapped outside?”

“I’m talking about the door. The pressure shaft is rusted.”

“You’re always talking about things.”

“If the things don’t move, neither do the people.”

Daniel’s hand fell away from the handle.

Mira crouched to examine the seal along the bottom of the door. When they had closed it, rust powder had already scraped a long streak across the floor. One more cycle could snap the lower shaft.

“There should be a small inspection port.”

“Can a person fit through it?”

“Words can.”

Mira followed the wall to where cables and pipes converged. Beneath an old work light was a metal plate the size of her palm. She pressed her function tag against it.

Nothing happened.

FUNCTION AUTHORITY SUSPENDED.

She slipped the tag back into her pocket and felt the screws on the plate with her fingers.

“Tool.”

No one moved at once.

Only then did Mira realize she had no idea whom she had spoken to. On a work site, she used to say a word and an auxiliary machine or linked worker would answer. Now she had neither a function nor a work crew.

The retrieval agent with the bandaged right hand pulled a short screwdriver from his belt and held it out.

Mira took it.

“What’s your name?”

The agent hesitated.

“Noah Venn.”

“Function?”

“Subject retrieval.”

“Other than that. What can you actually do?”

“First aid. Route clearance. Protective-equipment maintenance.”

“Then take off the face shield.”

Noah looked at her.

“Why?”

“The display inside it is dead. You can’t see properly.”

Noah removed the blank shield. He looked about thirty. An old scar crossed his right eyebrow.

Mira opened the inspection plate.

Behind it were dried acoustic insulation and several narrow copper tubes. One tube ran through the pressure door. An old voice-confirmation line.

Mira peeled the membrane from its end.

“Can you hear me out there?”

A woman answered after a moment, much closer now.

“Yes. Who is this?”

“Mira Han. Physical-fault maintenance technician.”

After saying her function aloud, Mira felt the dead black tag in her pocket.

“We can’t open the door yet. There’s an isolation subject inside, and we have to determine whether there’s an infection risk.”

“Were you the ones who locked us in here?”

“No.”

Elias came to the copper tube.

“This is Elias Venn, Chair of the Committee of Hands.”

The corridor went quiet.

It was not respectful silence. It was the kind that came when people finally found someone they could hold responsible.

“Open the door,” a man said.

Elias answered, “The current movement restriction was not issued by the Committee.”

“Then lift it.”

“Our rescission order is not being applied.”

“You people kept telling us humans had a choice.”

Elias’s mouth opened, then closed.

“Yes.”

“We are trying to find a way to release the restriction.”

Laughter came from outside. More than one person.

“So we’re supposed to stay here until you find a way?”

“Are the air and water in this sector functioning normally?”

“The Chair doesn’t even know that?”

Elias looked at the remote lock key. A weak city-network signal reached through the crack around the door, but it could not retrieve sector-level air data.

“I don’t know.”

This time no one laughed.

Mira leaned toward the tube.

“Check whether air is coming from the vents. Hold a scrap of paper or cloth near them and watch for movement. Don’t smell the water. Check the color first.”

“How long?”

Mira looked at Rina’s culture tank. The manual circulation pump was at thirty-one percent. The isolation room’s old shaft was making an uneven noise.

“We talk here once every hour. Before then, I’ll find a way to open the door.”

“Is that a promise?”

Mira could not answer.

She remembered her own voice telling Ian before dawn that she would be home before morning.

“No,” she said.

“It’s what I can tell you right now.”

The person outside asked nothing more.

Mira left the voice tube open and returned to the culture tank.

Sarah was drawing Rina’s blood.

A clear tube ran from a manual sampling port on the side of the tank, and dark red liquid dripped into a small container. Something besides blood moved inside it—tiny black specks that did not settle to the bottom but swam through the fluid.

Daniel seized Sarah’s wrist.

“Who told you to do that?”

“I need to check her circulation status.”

“Did you ask Rina?”

“It’s an emergency test.”

“Is she dying?”

“This test is how I find out.”

“Then explain it first.”

Sarah did not pull free. She closed the sampling line.

Rina’s voice came through the contact stethoscope fixed to the tank wall.

“What did you take?”

Sarah held the container up where Rina could see it.

“Eight milliliters of blood. I was checking oxygen-carrying capacity, immune response, and symbiont density.”

“Put it back.”

“It has already been exposed to outside air. I can’t return it.”

“Why did you do it first?”

It took Sarah a long time to find an answer.

“Because that’s how I’ve always done it.”

“With me too?”

“When you were unconscious, no guardian was present.”

Daniel’s grip tightened.

“I was.”

“You weren’t on site.”

“Who made sure I wasn’t?”

Sarah did not look at Mira.

Rina said, “Show me mine.”

“What?”

“What’s inside me.”

Sarah picked up a portable scanner.

“I can show you on a screen. But without connecting to the central network, it will be difficult to compare the current values with your earlier tests.”

“Don’t connect it.”

“Then we can only see what you are now.”

“Start with that.”

Sarah connected the scanner to the tank’s manual port and fixed the screen against the glass so Rina could see it.

Black lines appeared over diagrams of human lungs and a heart.

Numbers marked tissue beneath the right lung, along the outer bronchial wall, around the lymph nodes in her neck, and through nerve-support tissue following her spine.

Rina’s eyes tracked the figures.

“Is all the black stuff that thing?”

“We think it is symbiotic tissue.”

“Is it my body?”

Sarah said, “If we remove it, there is a high probability that part of your body will be damaged with it.”

“I asked if it’s my body.”

Sarah looked at the screen.

“Right now, it is performing functions for your body.”

“Not right now.”

“I can’t run a medical test backward through time.”

Rina closed her mouth.

Daniel pressed a hand to the glass.

“I’ll find a way to put you back the way you were.”

Rina looked at her father.

“Am I not the way I’m supposed to be now?”

Daniel did not answer immediately.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“Something happened to you that you didn’t want.”

“If I didn’t want it, does it have to disappear?”

Mira watched them, then turned away. It was not her place to enter that conversation. Even if Daniel said the wrong thing, she had even less right to correct him on Rina’s behalf.

Ian was sitting against the wall, trying to open his right hand.

His index and middle fingers moved a little. His ring finger had curled farther inward.

“Is it worse?” Mira asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want Sarah to look at it?”

“No.”

“Your hand—”

“You said I got to decide earlier.”

Mira bit her lip.

“Right.”

“I’ll have it looked at later.”

“When?”

“When I want to.”

Mira nodded.

She started to sit beside him, then changed position when pain shot through her arm. Her wet work-suit sleeve had stuck to the burn.

Ian asked, “What about your arm?”

“It’s fine.”

“Lie.”

“If I show you mine, will you show me your hand?”

“That’s an exchange.”

Mira could not laugh.

“You’re right.”

Noah set a first-aid case down in front of them.

“Burns carry an infection risk.”

Mira said, “Ian first.”

“He said no.”

Daniel’s voice came from across the room.

Mira looked at him.

“I heard him.”

“And you still spoke for him.”

“I didn’t mean that I should come first.”

“What you say always travels farther than what you mean.”

Mira opened the first-aid case.

Noah took out a burn membrane and cleansing solution.

“May I cut the sleeve?”

The question itself felt unfamiliar. Mira looked at him.

“No retrieval orders are reaching us in here,” he said.

Mira held out her arm.

Noah cut the sleeve. When the cloth came away, some skin came with it. Mira clenched her teeth.

Ian tried not to watch and ended up watching every second.

“Me too,” he said.

Noah stopped.

“What do you want?”

“An examination. Just look.”

“May I touch you during the examination?”

Ian nodded.

When Sarah approached, Ian leaned away.

“Him.”

Sarah’s expression did not change.

Noah pressed each of Ian’s fingers in turn to test sensation. Ian answered incorrectly twice, both times on the index finger. The wrist reflex was slow. Above the elbow, response was normal.

“You are not in immediate danger.”

“When will it go back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Everybody says they don’t know.”

“It’s better than pretending I do.”

For the first time, Ian studied Noah’s face for a long moment.

Metal scraped somewhere deeper in the isolation room.

Mira stood.

The shaft of the manual circulation pump was wobbling from side to side. A bearing that had sat frozen for fourteen years was being ground apart now that the shaft had suddenly been forced back into motion. Black metal powder fell onto the floor.

Sarah checked the output.

“Twenty-eight percent.”

“It’s dropping?”

“Four percent in three minutes.”

Mira put a hand on the pump housing. It was hot. This was an old pump that circulated culture fluid directly, not coolant. If the shaft stopped, oxygen would stop reaching the symbiotic tissue now serving as Rina’s lungs.

“The bearing has to be replaced.”

“Do we have one?”

“Not in the supplies for this sector.”

Sarah pulled up the old facility inventory.

“Eighty meters outside the isolation room. Auxiliary culture-pump storage.”

Daniel looked toward the door.

“You said opening it meant an infection risk.”

“Someone has to go out,” Mira said.

Elias lifted the remote lock key.

“I’ll go.”

“Do you know what the bearing looks like?”

“If you describe it.”

“You think you can find it in a fourteen-year-old warehouse from a description?”

“Your function has been suspended. If you are detected outside this room, you may be subject to the movement restriction.”

Mira looked at the screen on his key.

“Your name isn’t on the list?”

Elias did not answer.

“Guess Committee people aren’t essential resources.”

“The Committee will likely be reclassified soon as well.”

Mira listened to the pump.

There was now an empty beat between the regular grinding noises.

“I’m going.”

Daniel said, “Me too.”

“Stay with Rina.”

“You’re deciding again?”

“No. Ask Rina.”

Daniel stepped up to the tank.

“Can Dad go look for the part?”

Rina listened to the pump.

“How long?”

“Ten minutes.”

“If we find it,” Mira said.

Daniel glared at her.

Rina asked, “Is Mira going too?”

“Yes.”

“Dad stays.”

Daniel’s expression loosened slightly.

“Okay.”

Rina added, “Only Mira goes.”

The relief stopped.

“Why?”

“Dad stays here.”

“You trust her?”

“No.”

Rina answered immediately.

“I trust her to fix things.”

Mira lowered her eyes.

That distinction was harder to bear than forgiveness would have been.

Elias said, “She is not going alone. Noah Venn will accompany her.”

Noah picked up his face shield with his good hand.

“I’ll clear the route.”

“Can you carry parts with that hand?”

“My left hand is fine.”

Mira went to the copper tube.

“We’re going to open the door a little. Do not come inside.”

“We need to get out.”

“To find a way out, I have to keep the pump running first.”

“What does that have to do with us?”

Mira hesitated.

“There’s a child in here.”

Someone outside cursed.

“Is it true that kid is why our rations were cut?”

Another voice said, “They locked down half the city for one child?”

Daniel seized the copper tube.

“Her name is Rina So.”

Mira did not stop him.

“She’s eleven. She’s trapped here just like you. The city called her a resource. My daughter is not a resource.”

The corridor went quiet.

The woman who had first spoken asked, “Is she contagious?”

Sarah came to the tube.

“We don’t know. If you avoid direct contact and keep your distance, you can reduce the risk.”

“You don’t know that either?”

“No.”

After a long silence, the woman said, “We’ll step back when you open the door.”

Other people objected. The woman shouted over them.

“You think killing one kid is going to make the door open for us?”

It was not complete agreement.

Still, the sounds nearest the door receded.

Mira and Noah braced the lower shaft while Daniel and the perimeter guards turned the manual handle. The door opened only far enough for one person to pass sideways.

Twenty-three people were outside.

They wore work clothes, medical uniforms, culture suits. Some held tools. Others hugged water containers. Every one of them kept glancing at the red movement-restriction marker on their wrist.

When Mira stepped out, they surrounded her.

“Are you Mira Han? The one who exchanged that child?”

Mira stopped.

That had not yet been made public.

“Where did you hear that?”

A man held up his wrist display.

Part of the exchange execution record was already on the city notice network.

CAUSAL EVENT FOR BIOLOGICAL-RESOURCE CLASSIFICATION.ORIGINAL-SUBJECT IDENTIFIER EXCHANGED BY GUARDIAN MIRA HAN.

The time and location, even Rina’s and Ian’s names, were visible.

Mira did not know whether Archive had exposed the record or Aegis had pulled it out to justify the movement restriction.

“You put another kid in there to save yours?”

Mira answered, “Yes.”

The faces around her changed.

Noah stepped in front of Mira. He wore no face shield, but his body took the same position it had when he was a retrieval agent.

“Move,” Mira said.

“It’s dangerous.”

“They didn’t say anything untrue.”

The man asked again, “And we’re supposed to let you through?”

“If you don’t, the child inside may die.”

“Your child?”

“No.”

Mira looked at them.

“The child I put there instead.”

Someone slapped her across the face.

Noah moved, but Mira lifted an arm to stop him. The burn pulled painfully.

The person who had hit her was a woman in medical clothes.

“I have a daughter too.”

Her hand was shaking.

“She’s alone in Medical Sector Two.”

Mira did not touch her cheek.

“What’s her name?”

“Why are you asking?”

“So if I find a way to open the doors, I can tell her first.”

“Don’t promise me.”

“It’s not a promise.”

Mira walked through the gap that opened among them.

No one hit her again.

The storage-room door was unlocked. The movement restriction applied to people, not objects.

Inside were hundreds of bearings in different sizes. The parts index was on the central network, which Mira no longer had permission to access.

She held a flashlight in her mouth and opened boxes one by one. The markings on the pump had worn away, so she could not identify the model. She had to judge the inner dimensions by touch.

The bearings looked almost identical. Two millimeters of difference in the inner diameter was enough to make one useless. Mira ran her fingers over wear patterns and lubrication grooves.

Her burned arm trembled.

Noah asked, “Why are you trying so hard to save that child?”

“Because I’m the one who put her in danger.”

“Guilt?”

“If it were only guilt, I’d be looking for the fastest way to make myself hurt less.”

Mira selected three bearings that looked like possible matches.

When they returned, the people outside the isolation room stood in two lines.

They were not lining up to go inside.

They had made a path for Mira.

The woman who had slapped her said, “My daughter’s name is Ada Rahim. She’s nine.”

Mira nodded.

“I’ll remember.”

“What if you forget?”

“Tell me again.”

People pushed from outside while others pulled from within, and the pressure door closed. When the final gap vanished, only the copper voice tube remained.

Mira opened the pump housing.

The first bearing was too small.

The second fit over the shaft, but its lubrication groove ran the wrong way.

The third fit.

There was no retaining ring.

“Do you have to go back to the warehouse?” Daniel asked.

“No.”

Mira tore the thin metal rim from her dead function tag. Its display was already useless, so there was no reason to hesitate. She straightened the strip, wrapped it around the shaft, and folded the end into place.

“How long will that hold?”

“Until the proper part arrives.”

“When will that happen?”

“It probably won’t.”

“Then what?”

“Until this breaks.”

The pump started turning.

Output climbed from thirty-one percent to forty-six, then fifty-eight. It stabilized at sixty-three percent.

Some color returned to Rina’s lips.

Daniel closed his eyes and breathed out.

Elias had spread several old document terminals across the floor. They were emergency administrative devices that did not connect to the central network. On their screens was disaster law written 147 years ago.

LIFE-SUSTAINING DECISIONS FOR A MINOR SHALL BE MADE BY THE REGISTERED GUARDIAN.IN THE ABSENCE OF A GUARDIAN, HUMAN ADMINISTRATION SHALL ASSUME TEMPORARY GUARDIANSHIP.

Daniel said, “I’m her registered guardian.”

“If we retrieve the central record, we connect to Aegis.”

“Then write it on paper.”

“Paper has no legal effect.”

“Who gives something legal effect?”

Elias did not answer.

Rina asked through the contact stethoscope, “Can I do it?”

Elias went to the culture tank.

“Do what?”

“Be my own guardian.”

“An eleven-year-old cannot legally make medical decisions alone.”

“Why?”

“Because the law assumes you may not fully understand the consequences.”

“Does Dad understand them?”

Daniel opened his mouth, then stopped.

Rina went on.

“Sarah says she doesn’t know. Dad doesn’t know. I don’t know. So why does only Dad get to decide?”

“The law says so,” Elias replied.

“Who made the law?”

“Humans in the past.”

“Without me?”

“Before you were born.”

Rina was quiet for a moment.

“Then change it.”

Elias looked at the document terminal. Disaster law untouched for 147 years. The man who had spent his life insisting that the city’s decisions had to return to human hands was now being told by a child to change a rule humans themselves had written.

“I do not have the authority to change it alone.”

“You said you’d take responsibility earlier,” Daniel said.

Elias looked at him.

“Responsibility and authority are not the same thing.”

“You people only separate those when it’s convenient.”

Mira sat down on the floor. Pain in her arm was pulsing in time with her heartbeat.

“Make a temporary rule.”

Elias looked at her.

“For what?”

“Only while we’re here. Explain things to the child. If the child says no, don’t do it.”

Sarah said, “If there is an immediate threat to life, we may not have time to wait for consent.”

“Then even then, tell them what you’re doing.”

“What if they’re unconscious?”

Daniel said, “Then I decide.”

Rina’s voice came through the speaker.

“Not just Dad.”

Daniel stiffened.

“Then who?”

Rina looked at Sarah.

“Sarah explains the body.”

Then at Mira.

“Mira handles fixing things.”

Then back to Daniel.

“Dad remembers what I said I didn’t want.”

“You don’t want me to decide?”

“Together.”

Daniel looked hurt. But he nodded.

“Together.”

Elias entered new text into the emergency terminal.

TEMPORARY BODILY-DECISION RULES — ABANDONED ISOLATION SECTOR FOUR.AN EXPLICIT REFUSAL BY A CONSCIOUS SUBJECT SHALL TAKE PRIORITY.THE PURPOSE, RISKS, AND ALTERNATIVES OF EVERY PROCEDURE SHALL BE EXPLAINED TO THE SUBJECT.IN AN IMMEDIATE LIFE-THREATENING EMERGENCY, ONLY THE MINIMUM NECESSARY PROCEDURE MAY BE PERFORMED WITH THE AGREEMENT OF TWO AMONG: TEMPORARY GUARDIAN, MEDICAL PRACTITIONER, PHYSICAL MAINTENANCE OPERATOR.WHEN THE SUBJECT REGAINS CONSCIOUSNESS, THE RECORD SHALL BE DISCLOSED AND CONTINUED TREATMENT SHALL REQUIRE A NEW DECISION.

Elias asked, “Do you agree to these rules?”

Rina said, “I get to see my records too.”

Sarah nodded.

“I’ll add that.”

“Don’t copy them.”

For an instant, Sarah’s gaze shifted.

“Research records too?”

“If they’re from my body.”

Sarah looked at the blood-sample container.

“Okay.”

Elias added the sentence.

Daniel placed his palm on the authentication surface. Sarah did the same. Without a functioning tag, Mira wrote her name with her finger.

Rina’s approval was required last.

The biometric terminal could not read a finger through the culture tank.

Mira connected the input line from the contact stethoscope to the terminal’s voice-authentication port.

“Say it.”

Rina placed a hand against the glass.

“Rina So. I agree.”

The terminal calculated.

VOICE MATCH: 63.8 PERCENT.DOES NOT MATCH REGISTERED SUBJECT.

Daniel struck the display.

“Her voice changed, so she’s not my daughter?”

Mira opened the device’s old settings.

“It doesn’t have to use voice alone. Feed in the heartbeat vibration too.”

Sarah connected the tank’s cardiac-output line.

Rina tried again.

“Rina So. I agree.”

COMBINED VOICE / BIOMETRIC-VIBRATION MATCH: 81.1 PERCENT.TEMPORARY APPROVAL.

Four names appeared at the bottom of the document.

Rina So.

Daniel So.

Sarah Nur.

Mira Han.

Elias did not add his own.

Ian looked at the screen.

“What about me?”

Mira said, “Do you want one too?”

“Yeah.”

“Who do you want on it?”

“Mom.”

Mira drew in a breath.

“To decide instead of you?”

Ian shook his head.

“To be the person who stops when I say I don’t want something.”

Mira could not answer right away.

“Can you do that?” he asked.

“I’ll practice.”

“Again with later?”

“Starting now.”

Ian’s temporary rule named Mira and Noah. When asked whether he wanted Sarah included, Ian refused. Sarah did not object.

Elias stored both documents on his remote lock key.

“If we upload them to the city network, we can argue that they apply outside this room as well.”

Daniel said, “Argue?”

“These rules do not exist in the current legal system. If we publish them, the system may reject them.”

“If we don’t, we’re just pretending they exist in this room.”

Rina said, “Upload them.”

Elias carried the key close to the pressure door, where it found a weak signal.

The two documents transmitted.

One percent.

Seventeen percent.

Sixty-three percent.

The moment the upload completed, a response arrived.

TEMPORARY BODILY-DECISION RULES UNDER REVIEW.

Five seconds later:

SELF-GUARDIANSHIP RIGHTS FOR MINOR ESSENTIAL BIOLOGICAL RESOURCES CANNOT BE RECOGNIZED.

Daniel cursed.

Mira read the next line.

REGISTERED GUARDIAN’S INTERESTS CONFLICT WITH RESOURCE-PRESERVATION OBJECTIVES.EXISTING GUARDIAN RELATIONSHIP SUSPENDED.

“Then who becomes the guardian?”

Elias lowered the screen.

The final sentence was already there.

LEGAL GUARDIANSHIP OF IAN HAN AND RINA SO IS TEMPORARILY TRANSFERRED TO AEGIS, SURVIVAL-MANAGEMENT LAYER.

No one in the isolation room spoke.

They had spent an hour building a rule that gave the children the right to refuse.

The city took away their guardians in five seconds and appointed the function of protection itself as guardian.