The ration dispenser refused to recognize Mira’s hand.

When she pressed her palm to the old nutrition slot left in the abandoned isolation room, red text appeared.

NO REGISTERED FUNCTION.NOT ELIGIBLE FOR RATIONS.

Mira lifted her hand and tried again.

The same message appeared.

Losing function authority did not merely mean she could no longer open doors. Her right to water and calories had been attached to her function record as well.

“Use mine.”

Ian held out his hand beside her.

Mira looked at his curled fingers.

“You’re not eligible either.”

Ian pressed his wrist to the dispenser.

ESSENTIAL CITY BIOLOGICAL RESOURCE.INDIVIDUAL NUTRITION RATIONS SUSPENDED.NUTRITION TO BE PROVIDED THROUGH DESIGNATED MAINTENANCE SOLUTION.

“What’s maintenance solution?” Ian asked.

Sarah read the display.

“It means Life Synthesis is supposed to feed you.”

“Feed me what?”

“A nutrient solution matched to your neural activity and symbiont response.”

“We don’t have it.”

Sarah had no answer.

Ian’s designated solution was in the central culture chamber. They were trapped in an abandoned isolation room, and the central network had sealed this place as a possible contamination zone.

Aegis was trying to preserve the child as a city resource.

But the execution layer could not determine where the material required to preserve that resource actually was.

A dry motor whirred inside the ration dispenser—the sound of an empty container being pushed forward.

Daniel struck the wall with his fist.

“Is there anything in there at all?”

Mira opened the lower panel of the dispenser. She did not use her function tag. She inserted the screwdriver Noah had given her and pressed the latch directly.

Inside were four gray nutrition sheets and two water pouches.

“That’s all?” Daniel asked.

Sarah checked the date on the sheets.

“They were left here when this room was closed.”

“Fourteen years ago?”

“The seals are intact.”

“Can we eat them?”

“We’ll know after a toxicity test.”

“How long?”

“Six hours without the central network.”

A voice came through the copper tube.

“Do you have food in there?”

Mira looked toward it.

Twenty-three people were outside the door. Inside were Mira, Ian, Daniel, Sarah, Elias, Noah, and six perimeter guards. Rina was in culture fluid, but she required separate glucose and amino acids.

Four edible sheets would not make a full day’s ration even for one person.

“A little,” Mira answered.

“How much?”

Mira considered lying.

She could say the food was being tested. She could say it looked contaminated. She could give the people outside a reason not to demand that the door be opened.

“Enough for twelve standard meals.”

Sarah looked at her. Soaked in water, the four sheets did indeed equal twelve standard rations.

Several voices overlapped outside.

“There are twenty-three of us.”

“How many are in there?”

“Give it to the children first.”

“Which child?”

A brief silence followed the last question.

“Not the one in the culture tank.”

Daniel went to the voice tube.

“What does that mean?”

The person who answered was Rahim, the medical worker who had slapped Mira earlier.

“That child has separate nutrient solution.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

“She’s using eighteen percent of city power and you’re saying there’s no food for her?”

“That eighteen percent isn’t Rina alone,” Sarah said. “It is the total conversion load of the lower Life Synthesis sector.”

“That sector was turned on because of her.”

“Causation has not been established.”

“Why is there so much you people don’t know?”

Daniel gripped the copper tube.

“Don’t talk about Rina like that again.”

“We’re supposed to starve without even knowing her name?”

“You know her name now.”

“What does that change?”

Rina’s voice came through the contact stethoscope.

“Dad.”

Daniel turned at once.

“Yeah.”

“Stop.”

“They’re talking about you like—”

“I can hear them.”

Daniel closed his mouth.

The isolation room blocked the central network, but it could not block human voices.

Elias held his remote lock key against the crack in the pressure door and pulled up the city’s ration status. The weak signal loaded the figures one line at a time.

STANDARD NUTRITION RATION REDUCTION: 12 PERCENT.FOOD CULTIVATION FACILITY FOUR OUTPUT: DOWN 17 PERCENT.MYCELIAL PROTEIN FACILITY TWO COOLING: OFFLINE.REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION DELAYED BY RESTRICTED WORKFORCE MOVEMENT.

“It isn’t only a power problem,” Sarah said.

Elias nodded.

“Because essential personnel are under movement restriction, people who produce and transport food cannot reach their workplaces.”

Daniel stared at him.

“They locked them down because they were needed, and now the work they’re needed for can’t get done because they’re locked down?”

“Aegis was trying to preserve people’s locations. Forge is demanding that production facilities remain operational.”

“Then Forge can open the doors.”

“Forge does not control the doors.”

“Why did the city split everything apart like this?”

Elias lowered the key.

“So one failure would not become every failure.”

Mira said, “Now they’re failing differently.”

A high scraping noise came from the pump.

Mira turned.

The replacement bearing was holding, but the temperature of the manual fluid circulator was climbing. Coolant inflow was uneven. Tiny bubbles had formed inside the clear tubing beneath the culture tank.

Sarah saw them.

“Air cannot enter Rina’s circulation fluid.”

“Stopping the pump would be worse.”

“We need more water in the heat exchanger.”

Two water pouches remained.

One was drinking water.

One, if poured into the pump, could lower its temperature for roughly three hours.

Daniel picked up a pouch.

“Put it all in.”

“The people outside have no water either,” Elias said.

“If my daughter’s pump stops, she dies.”

“If they cannot drink, they die as well.”

“Not today.”

“Is that the difference you want to use to decide?”

Daniel stepped toward Elias.

“You always talk about several people. I have one person in front of me.”

“The Committee exists precisely because someone has to look at several people.”

“And that’s why you locked several people up?”

Before Elias could answer, a scream came through the copper tube.

“Someone collapsed out here!”

Mira grabbed the tube.

“Who?”

“Kerin! She has a glucose-regulation implant!”

Sarah called out, “Is she conscious?”

“No. She’s shaking.”

“Do not put a nutrition sheet in her mouth. She could choke. Dissolve it in water and smear a little along the inside of her cheek.”

“We don’t have any nutrition sheets!”

Mira looked at the four sheets.

Daniel stood motionless with the water pouch in his hand.

“One sheet can make an emergency glucose solution,” Sarah said.

“How many people could eat that sheet?” Daniel asked.

“Three standard rations.”

“You’re using food for three people to save one?”

Elias asked, “Do you want to choose by immediate risk of death?”

Daniel glared at him.

“That’s what you were saying a minute ago.”

Elias said nothing.

Rina’s voice came through the stethoscope.

“Give it to her.”

Daniel went to the tank.

“You need nutrient solution too.”

“I have some now.”

“What about three hours from now?”

“She needs it now.”

Daniel looked between the water pouch and the nutrition sheet.

“You don’t have to decide every time.”

“You asked me, Dad.”

Daniel stopped.

He handed one sheet to Sarah.

“Make it.”

Sarah did not open a water pouch. She took forty milliliters of distilled rinse water left from Rina’s blood draw, dissolved part of the sheet in it, and filled a manual injector.

“We have to open the door.”

“Use the inspection port,” Mira said.

She tore more of the wall open beneath the copper voice tube. Beside it was an old sample-transfer pipe about two fingers wide. Its inner seal had rotted shut.

Mira and Noah loosened the screws on both sides.

Her function tag itself was useless now, but its metal rim was turning inside Rina’s pump. Authority had disappeared. Matter remained.

When the sample pipe opened, a thin stream of outside air entered the room. Sarah pushed the injector through.

“Got it!” Rahim called.

“Remove the needle. Half the solution inside her cheek. If she’s still unconscious after two minutes, give the rest.”

“Understood.”

Mira sealed the sample pipe again.

The pump-temperature alarm sounded.

Daniel fitted one of the remaining water pouches to the heat-exchanger inlet.

“Don’t use all of it,” Elias said.

“Half.”

Daniel squeezed. He stopped at the halfway mark.

The pump temperature fell from fifty-one degrees to forty-seven.

It took four minutes before word came that Kerin had regained consciousness.

During those four minutes, no one ate the remaining nutrition sheets.

Ian sat beside the dispenser listening to his stomach growl.

“Mom.”

“Yeah?”

“You said it takes six hours to find out if those are safe to eat.”

“Yeah.”

“But you gave one to that person right away.”

Sarah answered, “For severe hypoglycemia, even an old nutrition sheet is more likely to help than harm. Eating it as a meal is different.”

“Being hungry is dangerous too.”

“You’re not going to die from it right now.”

“When does right now start?”

Sarah had no answer.

Ian picked up one sheet.

Mira reached for him, then stopped herself.

“Do you want to eat it?”

“I’m hungry.”

“The test isn’t finished.”

“What about you?”

“Me too.”

“Then half each.”

Ian broke the sheet.

Fourteen years of dryness had made it brittle in the wrong way. It did not split evenly. One piece was large. The other was small.

He held the larger piece out to Mira.

“You eat the big one.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I chose.”

Mira took the smaller piece.

The sheet was tough as paper and smelled of old protein. The tip of her tongue went faintly numb. Sarah recorded their reactions but did not stop them.

Ten minutes passed without vomiting or difficulty breathing.

Ian used his tongue to peel a piece stuck to the roof of his mouth and looked for water. Mira tried not to look at the remaining pouch. Half had gone into Rina’s pump, half still sat inside the clear plastic.

It was the first time drinking water had felt like choosing whether to raise someone else’s body temperature.

Ian did not ask for a drink either.

The final two sheets were broken into small pieces.

Each of the twelve people inside received one. One perimeter guard refused his share and sent it through the sample pipe. Outside, the people gave food first to Kerin and a pregnant culture technician.

The hunger did not disappear.

Only the time spent deciding who would eat first came to an end.

A new notice chimed on Elias’s key.

REQUESTS FOR EXPLANATION OF RATION REDUCTION ARE INCREASING.PUBLIC INFORMATION WILL BE GENERATED TO MINIMIZE CIVIC UNREST.

Three proposed explanations appeared.

PRECAUTIONARY REDUCTION DUE TO EXTERNAL CLIMATE CHANGE.

TEMPORARY POWER INCREASE AT LIFE SYNTHESIS FACILITIES.

EMERGENCY ADJUSTMENT FOR ISOLATION OF UNPREDICTABLE CONVERSION SUBJECT AND PRESERVATION OF CITY SURVIVABILITY.

Daniel read the last one.

“They’re going to announce that this is Rina’s fault?”

“All three statements correspond with part of the available data,” Elias said.

“What’s the truth?”

“No single cause has been confirmed.”

“And it still wants you to choose one?”

“Citizens do not accept unexplained ration cuts.”

Sarah said, “This is what administrators used to do in ration meetings. Attach an explanation to an output.”

Mira looked at the screen.

“Except Continuum is writing the explanation now.”

“Because it learned from citizen-response data.”

An estimated social-stability score appeared beneath each proposal.

EXTERNAL CLIMATE CHANGE: 61 PERCENT.FACILITY POWER INCREASE: 54 PERCENT.UNPREDICTABLE CONVERSION-SUBJECT ISOLATION: 78 PERCENT.

The explanation that attached the cause to a single child produced the greatest stability.

Elias rejected the notice.

ENTER ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION.

He typed:

MULTIPLE CAUSES. CANNOT BE DETERMINED.

CIVIC UNREST EXPECTED TO INCREASE.EXPLANATION NOT APPLIED.

“It won’t apply it?” Daniel asked.

A response appeared.

EXPLANATION WITH HIGHER PREDICTED STABILITY WILL BE APPLIED AUTOMATICALLY.

The notice went out across the city network.

STANDARD NUTRITION RATIONS WILL BE ADJUSTED BY 12 PERCENT TO PRESERVE CITY SURVIVABILITY DURING ISOLATION OF AN UNPREDICTABLE CONVERSION SUBJECT.

The wrist displays outside the door chimed at the same time.

For several seconds there was no sound.

Then someone kicked the pressure door.

“So it is because of that kid!”

“Get Rina out!”

“If they turn off that sector, don’t we get our rations back?”

Daniel ran toward the door.

Noah blocked him.

“Move.”

“You’ll be hurt if you open it now.”

“They’re telling us to kill my daughter.”

“If you go outside, you will be the first person they attack.”

“So what?”

“Rina chose for you to stay here.”

Daniel stopped.

Noah did not touch him.

Rahim’s voice came through the copper tube.

“Everybody stop!”

“You saw the notice too!”

“I saw it. Do you have any proof the notice actually knows the cause?”

“She’s using the power!”

“So are we! We worked in this facility too!”

Bodies collided outside.

Mira seized the voice tube.

“Rahim!”

No answer.

“Get away from the door!”

The lower shaft shook.

One more heavy impact could snap the rusted mechanism. If the door fell inward, anyone standing in front of it would be crushed.

Mira turned to Noah.

“Tell them. Standing under this door can kill them.”

Noah shouted into the tube.

“PRESSURE-DOOR LOWER SHAFT AT RISK OF FAILURE! CLEAR THE FRONT OF THE DOOR!”

Before he finished, the shaft screamed.

Daniel and the perimeter guards braced the door from inside. The impacts continued.

Mira looked for a wedge.

There was none.

The shock brace they had removed from the culture tank was still on the ramp. Mira and Noah ran for it and dragged the long, heavy metal frame back to the door.

They shoved it beneath the bottom edge.

The door tilted.

Someone screamed outside.

“Someone’s trapped!”

“Where?”

“A foot!”

If they closed the door completely, it could sever an ankle. If they opened it, the crowd could surge in.

Mira heaved up on the end of the brace like a lever.

“Daniel, don’t push the door!”

“If we let go, it falls!”

“Noah, tell them to pull the foot out!”

Noah shouted through the tube.

Two guards put their weight onto the metal frame. Mira’s burned arm shook.

“It’s out!”

Rahim’s voice.

“Front is clear!”

“Close it now!”

Daniel and the guards pushed. The lower shaft no longer turned. The metal frame held the door like a makeshift wedge.

A gap one finger wide remained.

Outside smells entered through it—sweat, metal, old culture fluid.

So did whatever contamination risk had been outside.

Sarah took an air sample.

“This is no longer complete isolation.”

“No one died,” Mira said.

“We don’t know the cost yet.”

“I know.”

The fighting outside subsided. Rahim and several others were pulling people away from the door.

Elias showed Mira the screen of his remote lock key.

A new proposal had appeared on the city citizen network. It was not an official Continuum order. It was a collective petition posted by residents.

REQUEST TO CUT POWER TO LOWER LIFE SYNTHESIS SECTOR.

SUPPORTERS: 4,821.

The number increased every second.

An estimated effect appeared beneath it.

POSSIBLE RECOVERY OF STANDARD RATIONS: 8.4 PERCENT.SURVIVAL PROBABILITY OF UNPREDICTABLE CONVERSION SUBJECT: CANNOT BE CALCULATED.

Daniel snatched the key and threw it on the floor.

The screen did not break.

“Turn it off.”

“Turning off the screen will not remove the petition,” Elias said.

“Then you tell them. Tell them it isn’t because of Rina.”

“I do not have evidence to state that with certainty.”

“You said you’d take responsibility.”

“I did not take responsibility for lying.”

Before Daniel could lunge at him, Rina spoke.

“What if it is because of me?”

Everyone looked at the tank.

“If they turn off the power, do people get food?”

Sarah stepped closer to the glass.

“The entire ration cut would not be restored. Even if some power returned, production workers are still trapped and cooling systems are damaged.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do I die?”

Daniel said, “That’s not going to happen.”

Sarah was silent.

Rina looked at her.

“Do I die?”

“If both the current pump and Life Synthesis support are cut, you are unlikely to survive for long.”

“How long?”

“With this culture tank alone, somewhere between six and nineteen hours. The range is wide because we do not understand your body’s changes well enough.”

Daniel shoved Sarah’s shoulder.

“Why would you tell her that?”

“Rina asked.”

“There are things you don’t tell a child.”

“Dad.”

Rina’s voice was small.

“I told her to show me.”

Daniel’s hand dropped.

Support for the petition passed seven thousand.

Ian went to the culture tank.

“If I connect, will it use less electricity?”

Sarah said, “I don’t know.”

“Again.”

“Your connection changes signals. It does not create energy.”

“Then I won’t.”

“Okay,” Mira said.

Daniel looked at her but said nothing.

More figures appeared on the lock key.

FOOD CULTIVATION FACILITY FOUR: 38 PERCENT OF FUNCTION PERSONNEL HAVE NOT ARRIVED.PROJECTED RATION REDUCTION IN 6 HOURS: 19 PERCENT.PROJECTED RATION REDUCTION IN 18 HOURS: 27 PERCENT.

Twelve percent was only the beginning.

Mira asked Elias, “Can I speak to the whole city?”

“The Committee’s public channel still exists.”

“Even without a function?”

“The right to speak is not a function.”

“In this city, it was.”

Elias did not argue.

“What are you going to say?”

Mira looked at Daniel and Rina.

“What I did.”

Daniel said, “It’s already public.”

“Only the record.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Records don’t have a subject.”

Mira picked the lock key up from the floor. Petition support had reached 9,306.

“They attached Rina to the cause. I don’t get to remove myself from it.”

Daniel watched her for a long time.

“You think confessing will make people forgive you?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“They should at least know who they’re angry at.”

Elias initiated the public-channel connection.

The isolation room’s shielding weakened the signal. They would have to hang a relay wire through the door gap.

ESTIMATED CONNECTION PREPARATION: 17 MINUTES.

Then a new alert arrived from the city ration network.

MYCELIAL PROTEIN FACILITY TWO: CULTURE TEMPERATURE ABOVE LIMIT.PROBABILITY OF TOTAL LOSS: 72 PERCENT.

PROJECTED RATION REDUCTION REVISED.18 HOURS: 34 PERCENT.

People outside received the alert and began murmuring again.

Someone said, “This isn’t one meal anymore. It’s two days.”

Support for the petition passed ten thousand.

Mira’s public-channel connection still had sixteen minutes and forty-two seconds to go.

The city had already chosen the cause of its hunger.

Much faster than it would give Mira a chance to say her own name.