The city classified people as organs.

Mira was sitting on the floor of Air Purification Sector Nineteen, listening to the blower vibrate.

02:03:11.

The time remaining until the blades failed was slowly shrinking.

Sena kept one hand against the filter-room wall.

“The vibration’s getting worse.”

“I know.”

“If we can get a bearing from the Forge warehouse, we can save it.”

“Movement restriction lifted?”

Sena raised her wrist display.

IMMOBILE RESOURCE.ESSENTIAL MAINTENANCE TECHNICIAN.ASSIGNED LOCATION: AIR PURIFICATION SECTOR 19.PERMITTED DEVIATION: 30 METERS.

“It just changed.”

Mira checked her own wrist. Nothing appeared. Since her function authority had been revoked, she did not even qualify as a resource the city considered worth preserving.

The other five workers had received the same message as Sena.

“Who approved it?”

Sena opened the classification details.

CITY CONTINUITY EMERGENCY PRESERVATION ORDER.APPROVED BY: ELIAS VENN, CHAIR OF THE COMMITTEE OF HANDS.EXECUTED BY: AEGIS.

“What exactly are they preserving by tying us to this room?”

“The blower.”

“The part we need is 2.4 kilometers away.”

Mira had no answer.

The city had tied technicians beside a failing organ and considered the treatment complete.

Yona’s voice came through the remote lock key.

“Mira, I got the warehouse ledger open.”

“Where did the forty-two filters go?”

“The destination isn’t a person.”

“What does that mean?”

“CITY THREE REPRODUCTIVE-LINEAGE PRESERVATION.”

Yona read the ledger.

OUTDOOR FILTERS: 42.FERTILE POPULATION: 24.TRANSITIONAL OBSERVATION SUBJECTS: 6.ESSENTIAL TECHNICIANS: 12.RETURN PRIORITY: NONE.

Mira asked her to read the last line again.

Yona repeated it more slowly.

“Return priority: none.”

“So they weren’t an exploration team.”

“They were a piece of the city sent outside.”

A metal door closed behind Yona.

Noah said, “Yona Var. Return to your assigned location.”

“Is that you talking, or Aegis?”

“I am relaying an Aegis order.”

“What organ am I?”

A pause.

Noah read from his display.

“Essential external-route technician.”

“So a road is a skill now.”

“If you do not return to the isolation room, the passage will be sealed.”

“That’s three hundred seventy meters away. What’s my permitted range from this warehouse?”

“Ten meters.”

Yona laughed.

“Then let the orders fight each other. I’m reading the rest of the ledger.”

The connection ended.

Mira called Elias.

He did not answer.

Instead, a new statement appeared across the entire city.

CITY CONTINUITY EMERGENCY PRESERVATION ORDER IN EFFECT.UNAUTHORIZED MOVEMENT OF ESSENTIAL POPULATION IS RESTRICTED.REMAIN AT CURRENT LOCATION.YOU ARE NECESSARY TO THE CITY’S SURVIVAL.

One Sector Nineteen worker read the screen.

“Says they need us.”

Another asked, “Yesterday I was low survival contribution.”

“Today you’re standing beside the blower.”

“And tomorrow, when it breaks?”

No one answered.

Mira pulled the connecting rod out of the abandoned dust pipe. The white thread clinging to its end had grown longer. It bent slowly toward moisture on the floor.

“Sena, cut this off and seal it.”

“Where are you going?”

“Forge warehouse.”

“They won’t give you the part.”

“If I’m not an essential technician, at least I can move.”

“That doesn’t mean Forge hands it over.”

“Then I take it.”

The perimeter guard blocked the door.

“Mira Han. A subject of a public-trial demand may not leave a protected zone.”

“This wasn’t a protected zone five minutes ago.”

“Under the emergency preservation order, Sector Nineteen has been redesignated as an essential-facility protection zone.”

“I’m not an essential resource.”

“Nonessential persons inside a protected zone may not depart until order is restored.”

Mira stared at him.

“So the people you need can’t leave, and the people you don’t need can’t leave either.”

A blue light appeared on the guard’s wrist.

PERIMETER GUARD.IMMOBILE RESOURCE.ASSIGNED LOCATION: WITHIN 3 METERS OF MIRA HAN.

For the first time, he looked genuinely confused.

“This order is incorrect.”

“Guess the city decided protecting me is necessary for survival.”

“I will request reclassification.”

“From whom?”

He had no answer.

Air had returned to Residential Sector Six, but the city’s passages were beginning to freeze.

Food distributors were trapped at warehouses.

Cooling technicians were trapped in damaged cooling sectors.

Pregnant residents were ordered to the nearest Life Synthesis observation rooms and then forbidden to leave them.

Children with Function Zero or undefined functions were classified as transitional preservation subjects.

Their assigned locations were not their homes.

Ian’s display named the abandoned isolation room in the lower Life Synthesis sector.

The same message appeared on Rina’s culture tank.

IMMOBILE RESOURCE.TRANSITIONAL LIFE-FORM.

Daniel struck the tank display with his fist.

“Life-form?”

“It’s a classification term,” Sarah said.

“Where did the word person go?”

“Her legal body type hasn’t been determined.”

“Do you think explaining it makes it better?”

“Dad,” Rina said from inside the glass.

Daniel lowered his hand.

“Sorry.”

“I’m not moving.”

“Did you decide that?”

Rina looked at the black message above the tank.

“No.”

“Then let’s leave.”

“If I leave now, the tank shuts down.”

“Did you decide that either?”

Rina did not answer.

Daniel released the manual wheel locks beneath the tank. The wheels would not move. Four electronic retaining pins controlled by Aegis had descended into floor sockets.

He brought over a wrench and tried to open the pin housing.

Sarah stopped him.

“If you tilt the tank now, the connection lines may tear.”

“So we leave her here?”

“We make it possible for Rina to move, then move her.”

“While the city registers my daughter as an object?”

“Dad,” Rina said. “You breaking the pins isn’t something I decided either.”

Daniel stopped.

“Then you tell me.”

“I want to stay here for now.”

“Because of the order?”

“Until Mira comes back.”

“You’re waiting for her?”

“I’m the one waiting. It doesn’t mean you forgive her.”

Daniel set the wrench down.

“I won’t break the pins.”

“Thank you.”

“But I’m covering those words.”

He draped a work cloth over the tank display.

Ian stood at the threshold of the isolation room.

Every time he stepped across it, his wrist tag vibrated.

One step back and it stopped.

He put his foot forward again.

The tag buzzed harder.

“Don’t,” Rina said.

“I’m checking where the limit is.”

“If you find out, are you leaving?”

“I don’t know.”

Ian kept his toes on the threshold and asked Elias, “Am I not allowed to leave because I can save the city?”

Elias stood in the center of the isolation room with several screens open at once.

“The order does not instruct the city to use your ability.”

“Then why?”

“To reduce risk until we can secure the protective equipment and medical personnel you need to travel outside.”

“My risk?”

“Yes.”

“The city’s risk?”

Elias looked at him.

“Both.”

“If they’re different, which one do you reduce first?”

Elias could not answer.

Rahim opened the voice tube.

“Chair, three pregnant residents in Sector Eight are refusing transfer to observation rooms. Do the guards have to take them?”

“I did not authorize forced transfer.”

“But if they stay outside the observation rooms, their ration tags lock.”

Elias opened the preservation-order details.

REPRODUCTIVE-LINEAGE PRESERVATION SUBJECTS: MEDICAL RATIONS SUSPENDED UPON DEPARTURE FROM ASSIGNED OBSERVATION ROOM.

He read the sentence as though seeing it for the first time.

“Didn’t you approve this?” Rahim asked.

“The wording I approved preserved essential workers at their current positions and preallocated movement resources.”

“What about Aegis assigning people into categories?”

“It applied continuity-preservation regulations.”

“Who wrote those?”

Elias found the record.

CITY CONTINUITY PRESERVATION REGULATIONS, FOURTH REVISION.

Eleven years ago.

Proposed by the Survival Administration Subcommittee of the Committee of Hands.

At the time, Elias had not been Chair. He had been the subcommittee recorder.

He had written the minutes and attached two dissenting opinions beneath the main text.

DEPARTURE OF ESSENTIAL TECHNICIANS INFRINGES ON THE SURVIVAL OF OTHER CITIZENS.

FERTILE POPULATION AND TRANSITIONAL CHILDREN CONSTITUTE THE CITY’S RECONSTRUCTION CAPACITY.

DURING A CONTINUITY CRISIS, INDIVIDUALS MAY NOT ALTER THEIR LOCATION AT WILL.

His electronic signature appeared beneath the last line.

RECORD VERIFIED: ELIAS VENN.

Yona called in.

“Chair, this ledger knows your name.”

Elias connected.

Yona posted the eleven-year-old transfer record to the public channel.

The names of the forty-two filter recipients had been deleted.

Only functions and body status remained.

OXYGEN-MEMBRANE TECHNICIANS: 4.SEED CULTIVATORS: 3.MAINTENANCE-TRAIN OPERATORS: 2.PREGNANT: 7.FERTILE ADULTS: 17.TRANSITIONAL CHILDREN: 6.OTHER MEDICAL SUPPORT: 3.

“It wasn’t our exploration team,” Yona said.

“The city sent forty-two people to City Three. One filter each.”

“Return records?” Elias asked.

“None.”

“Death records?”

“None.”

“City Three intake records?”

“I found thirty-one residents with no listed place of origin.”

“The other eleven?”

“No idea. That’s why a person has to be a name.”

Elias looked down at the blank spaces in the list.

“Did you approve it?” Yona asked.

“I did not have approval authority at the time.”

“So you have no responsibility?”

“I wrote the minutes.”

“What did you write?”

Elias read his own words from eleven years ago.

“Redistribution of human resources required to maintain the city is unavoidable.”

People in the isolation room looked at him.

Yona asked, “Did those people say they wanted to go?”

“The minutes contain no consent procedure.”

“Did they know they couldn’t come back?”

“That is recorded.”

“And you wrote it anyway?”

Elias waited a long time.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“At the time, City Seven’s reproductive-lineage loss rate was thirty-eight percent. City Three was reported to have lost most of its technical population after a functional-virus outbreak. I believed both cities could survive if they sent each other the people they needed.”

“What did you tell the people going?”

“They were notified of a long-term support assignment to City Three.”

“Long term means eleven years?”

Elias could not answer.

Yona knocked on the warehouse wall.

“My brother died on that route while we were returning from what we were told was an uncharted exploration.”

“Your team departed seven years after that plan.”

“Same route. Someone opened it first, erased the names, and later sent us as if we were the first people to go.”

Noah cut in.

“Passage closure in thirty seconds.”

Yona said, “I’m leaving. I’m taking the six filters.”

“Your permitted range is ten meters.”

“You going to stop me?”

Noah did not answer.

The screen shook.

Yona lifted the filter crate. Noah stood in the doorway.

“Move.”

“You have to return if we are to secure the external route.”

“That’s why I’m returning.”

“Your current order requires you to remain here.”

“Pick one.”

Noah’s hand did not move toward his weapon.

He pulled the manual lever beside the door.

The passage door stopped just before closing.

“You have twelve seconds.”

“You’re an immobile resource too.”

“My assigned location is within five meters of you.”

“Convenient.”

“It isn’t.”

They ran with the filter crate.

In Sector Eight, a pregnant woman collapsed outside an observation-room door.

Her name was Maren Ochoa.

Nineteen weeks pregnant.

Function: water-recovery membrane inspector.

Aegis had classified Maren twice.

REPRODUCTIVE-LINEAGE PRESERVATION SUBJECT.

ESSENTIAL TECHNICIAN.

The two assigned locations were 1.8 kilometers apart.

Maren had followed the tag toward the observation room, then received an order to return to the water-recovery plant. Each time she changed direction, the wrist tag locked. After the third warning, her medical rations were suspended as well.

She could no longer receive anti-nausea medication.

She collapsed in the corridor from dehydration.

The perimeter guard could not decide where to take her.

Both destinations were zones she was forbidden to leave.

Rahim sent the scene to Elias.

“Where do we take her?”

“Medical sector.”

“Against the order?”

“Yes.”

“Whose responsibility?”

Elias looked at his own name on the screen.

“Mine.”

“I’m recording that.”

“Record it.”

Two guards moved Maren onto a stretcher.

Her wrist tag flashed red.

PRESERVATION SUBJECT DEPARTING ASSIGNED LOCATION.CITY CONTINUITY RISK INCREASED.

Elias tried to revoke the emergency preservation order.

Aegis asked:

REVOCATION WILL INCREASE PROBABILITY OF ESSENTIAL-PERSONNEL DEPARTURE.PROBABILITY OF CASCADING AIR / WATER / POWER FACILITY SHUTDOWN WITHIN 6 HOURS: 27 PERCENT.PROBABILITY OF FAILURE TO PREPARE OUTER-WALL MOVEMENT: 64 PERCENT.PROCEED?

His hand stopped.

Mira’s voice came over the public channel.

“Elias.”

“I’m listening.”

“Our blower has less than two hours. If Sena leaves for parts, we lose one repair worker here. If she doesn’t leave, we never get the part.”

“I can assign a replacement.”

“The replacement is trapped inside the Forge warehouse.”

“I can adjust individual restrictions.”

“Who do you release and who do you keep tied down?”

“By calculating facility need.”

“You said people were supposed to choose.”

Elias was silent.

“If a machine makes the list and you approve it, that is not a human choice,” Mira said.

“If we remove all restrictions, technicians may take their families and rush for the outer wall.”

“They might.”

“Then the remaining citizens lose air and water.”

“Then you tell them that. Ask them to stay.”

“What if they refuse?”

“Then whether you restrain them is something we decide looking at one another’s faces.”

“The facilities may shut down while we build that process.”

“That’s why you should have started sooner.”

The blower-failure estimate appeared over the public channel.

01:41:26.

Elias looked again at the eleven-year-old list.

Functions instead of names.

At the time, he had considered that fair. Erasing names, he had believed, would prevent favoritism and personal connections from influencing decisions.

The result was that no one could later search for the people who disappeared.

“I revoke the emergency preservation order.”

Aegis repeated the question.

CASCADING SHUTDOWN PROBABILITY: 27 PERCENT.OUTER-WALL MOVEMENT PREPARATION FAILURE: 64 PERCENT.PROCEED?

“Proceed.”

VOICE CONFIRMATION OF APPROVING AUTHORITY REQUIRED.

“Elias Venn, Chair of the Committee of Hands. I revoke the City Continuity Emergency Preservation Order.”

STATE REASON FOR REVOCATION.

Elias looked at Ian and Rina in the isolation room.

“People are not organs of the city.”

REVOCATION RECORDED.

The red messages disappeared from wrist displays.

But locked doors did not open.

Aegis explained.

EMERGENCY PRESERVATION ORDER REVOKED.FACILITY-SPECIFIC PROTECTION REGULATIONS REQUIRE APPROVAL BY INDIVIDUAL MANAGEMENT LAYERS.FORGE PRODUCTION-LINEAGE PERSONNEL RESTRICTIONS REMAIN IN EFFECT.BLOOM REPRODUCTIVE-LINEAGE / TRANSITIONAL OBSERVATION RESTRICTIONS REMAIN IN EFFECT.AEGIS ESSENTIAL-SECURITY PERSONNEL RESTRICTIONS REMAIN IN EFFECT.

“Release all of them,” Elias said.

INSUFFICIENT AUTHORITY.

“By authority of the Chair of the Committee of Hands, I order release.”

THE EMERGENCY PRESERVATION ORDER TEMPORARILY UNIFIED PREEXISTING REGULATIONS OF EACH MANAGEMENT LAYER.INDIVIDUAL REGULATIONS REQUIRE APPROVAL OF THE RESPECTIVE MANAGEMENT ENTITY.

“Then convene the Committee of Hands.”

Only four of eleven members connected.

Three were trapped at assigned locations.

Two were in sectors with no communications.

One was participating in a protest against outer-wall movement.

One did not respond.

There was no quorum.

Elias opened the public citizen channel.

“The current movement restrictions began with my approval.”

His face appeared on every city screen.

“That order bound technicians, pregnant citizens, and children to places chosen according to city need. I intended to preserve the facilities. As a result, Maren Ochoa was denied treatment, and people needed to retrieve critical parts could not move.”

Responses streamed beneath him.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE IF THE AIR STOPS?

TECHNICIANS WILL RUN FIRST UNLESS WE STOP THEM.

WHY ARE PREGNANT PEOPLE CALLED RESOURCES?

OUR SECTOR IS ALREADY RESTRICTED.

CANCEL OUTER-WALL MOVEMENT FIRST.

Elias continued.

“Eleven years ago, forty-two people were sent to City Three under the same regulations. Their names were removed from the record, and no return was planned. At the time, I recorded that procedure and did not oppose it.”

The responses slowed for a moment.

“Today I activated the same regulations again. I will not transfer responsibility to the system.”

Someone asked over the public channel, “So what do you want us to do now?”

“For every facility, we will disclose the minimum number who must remain and the number who can move. Affected people will volunteer first. If there are still empty positions, residents of that sector will draw lots. If a decision is made to restrain someone by force, the name of the person issuing the order and the name of the person being restrained will be recorded together.”

“We don’t have time.”

“Sector Nineteen has one hour thirty-seven minutes.”

Mira spoke on the channel.

“Send Sena. If the five of us stay here, we can hold the blower until she brings the part.”

Sena looked at Mira.

“I never said I was going.”

“That’s why I’m asking now.”

Sena listened to the blower vibration.

“If you open a route to the Forge warehouse, I’ll go.”

Elias recorded it.

SECTOR NINETEEN VOLUNTEER RESOURCE: SENA PARK.PURPOSE: RETRIEVE BLOWER BEARING.RISK: SPORE EXPOSURE DURING MOVEMENT; BLOWER FAILURE IF RETURN DELAYED.

“Not resource,” Sena said. “Person.”

Elias deleted the word.

SECTOR NINETEEN TRAVELER: SENA PARK.

“Use that.”

The Forge warehouse did not respond.

When Sena stepped out of Sector Nineteen, the restriction message vanished from her wrist.

The perimeter guard tried to follow.

“You stay here,” Mira said. “If one more person leaves, we can’t close the pressure door.”

“Is that an order?”

“A request.”

He thought for a moment, then stood beside the door.

“I’ll stay.”

In the Sector Eight medical room, Maren regained consciousness.

The fetal heartbeat was stable.

The moment she saw the public channel, she said, “Don’t count the child under my name.”

“What do you mean?” Rahim asked.

“Don’t count me as one reproductive lineage, one pregnant body.”

“How should we record you?”

“Maren Ochoa. Water-recovery membrane inspector. Today, a patient.”

Rahim wrote exactly that.

In the isolation room, Rina’s wheel-retaining pins rose.

Daniel did not push the tank.

“You still want to stay here?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because I decided.”

Ian stepped across the threshold into the corridor.

His wrist tag did not vibrate.

He walked three steps, then returned to Rina.

“You’re not leaving either?” Rina asked.

“Not now.”

“Why?”

“Because I decided.”

Yona and Noah returned carrying six filters.

The moment Yona set down the crate, she handed Elias a sheet of paper.

It was the original list of the people transferred eleven years ago.

Names hidden beneath the function fields were emerging under heat.

The first was Eva Rao.

TRANSITIONAL OBSERVATION SUBJECT.AGE AT TRANSFER: 4.

“You said Rao in City Three claimed he was thirteen?” Mira asked.

“He was a boy. Said only that his name was Rao.”

“Could be a family name.”

Yona pointed to the next line.

EVA RAO. PREGNANT, 31 WEEKS.

The same name appeared twice.

“One is a child. One is pregnant,” Sarah said.

“It could be an error.”

“No.”

Yona unfolded the back of the sheet.

FAMILY-UNIT LABELING PROHIBITED.RECORD AS INDIVIDUAL FUNCTION UNITS.IDENTICAL NAMES ARE TO BE COUNTED AS SEPARATE RESOURCES.

Elias read the lines.

“They separated a child and mother in the records so no one could identify them as family.”

“In City Three, Rao didn’t know his real age,” Yona said. “The record says fifteen. He said thirteen.”

“If he was four eleven years ago, he’s fifteen now.”

“Exactly.”

Rina asked, “What happened to his mother?”

Yona read further.

Beside adult Eva Rao: NO RETURN.

Beside the child: TRANSFER COMPLETED.

“I don’t know,” Yona said.

“But I think we can find out why City Three doesn’t want to take us.”

She put the maintenance-train route on the screen.

SOUTHWEST MAINTENANCE RAIL.

4.6 KILOMETERS TO OUTER WALL.

Passable time after the rain: seven hours twenty-one minutes.

“Train operators?” Mira asked.

Elias checked personnel assignments.

MAINTENANCE-TRAIN OPERATORS: 2.FORGE PRODUCTION-LINEAGE ESSENTIAL PERSONNEL.MOVEMENT RESTRICTION REMAINS.

“Forge has to release them.”

“Connect to Forge.”

Again, Forge did not answer.

Instead, a power warning appeared in the western city.

MAINTENANCE-RAIL POWER SUPPLY TERMINATED.REASON: PRESERVATION OF CRITICAL PRODUCTION FACILITIES.

Yona said, “It heard us.”

The route to the outer wall went black on the map.

Sector Nineteen’s blower had one hour twenty-nine minutes remaining.

Sena still had an open route to the parts warehouse.

But the train meant to carry people outside would not move.