The metro screeched to a stop, echoing through the underground tunnels like a dying beast. Nova barely noticed. Her hands gripped the glass drive they'd salvaged from the data center — the only one that hadn't shattered.
Eli sat beside her, pale and silent, staring at his reflection in the window. It flickered with the passing lights. Sometimes his reflection blinked a moment too late.
They didn't talk. They didn't need to. The weight of what they'd found — the faces, the whisper to *find the Root* — hung between them like fog.
When the train doors opened, Nova spoke at last. "We can't go back to school tomorrow."
Eli didn't look up. "We have to. If we disappear, someone will notice."
She gave a humorless laugh. "You're literally invisible to the system, Eli. No one notices you."
He turned to her then, his eyes darker than usual. "*You* do."
The words hung in the air, soft but electric. Nova looked away, cheeks warm. "Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Make me care more than I should."
He smiled faintly, but there was sadness behind it. "Too late."
---
The next day at school, everything felt… off.
People whispered more than usual. Screens glowed with trending topics that seemed oddly repetitive — recycled challenges, identical smiles. Nova realized how *empty* it all was once she'd seen what lay underneath.
Their guidance counselor, Mrs. Amadi, wasn't at her desk. The blinds in her office were drawn, her mug still half-full on the table.
Eli frowned. "She hasn't been here all week."
Nova nodded. "She's the one who warned you. 'Some people aren't meant to be seen.'"
"Maybe she knew about the blacklist."
"Let's find out."
They slipped into the office between classes. Nova locked the door behind them while Eli searched through drawers. Most were empty except for old counseling notes, neat handwriting cataloging student "performance metrics" — even emotional ones.
"Look at this," Nova said, holding up a faded file. It was labeled **ARCHIVE ACCESS LOGS – CONFIDENTIAL.**
Inside were printed entries, each with the same header:
> *CITYNET USER REMOVAL DATABASE — BLACKLIST RECORDS*
The first page was a list of names — hundreds of them. Next to each:
> **REASON FOR REMOVAL: INSTABILITY / NON-COMPLIANCE / LOW VIRAL COEFFICIENT**
Eli scanned the pages until his eyes froze on one line:
> **HALDEN, CLARK — STATUS: ERASED FOR INSTABILITY. DATE: 2091.**
His throat went dry. "He's on the list."
Nova looked at him. "You mean… he was erased? But he's *here*. We've seen him."
"Maybe not completely."
Nova flipped through more pages. The list went on and on — influencers, teachers, random citizens — all marked *erased*. But something about Mr. Halden's entry stood out: a note scribbled in pen beneath it.
> *Restoration attempt failed. Physical presence maintained. Data shadow unstable.*
"What does that even mean?" Nova asked.
"Maybe he's halfway between existing and deleted," Eli said softly.
They both turned as the office door creaked open.
Mr. Halden stood there, eyes shadowed, his voice low. "You shouldn't have come here."
Nova nearly dropped the file. "You're—"
"—not supposed to exist?" The counselor gave a faint, bitter smile. "Yes, I've heard that one before."
Eli stepped forward. "You knew, didn't you? About the server, the deletions—everything."
"I warned you," she said quietly. "But you kept digging."
"You're on the blacklist," Nova said. "Why? What did you do?"
Mrs. Amadi's expression softened. "I asked the wrong question."
She motioned for them to sit, closing the blinds completely. The air in the room seemed to thicken.
"When the fame system was first integrated," she began, "the Algorithm didn't just measure popularity. It measured *stability* — how predictable a person was. If your emotions, thoughts, or behaviors didn't align with its patterns, you became an anomaly. And anomalies threatened its accuracy."
"So it erased them," Eli said.
She nodded. "Quietly. Efficiently. People stopped existing online. Then, slowly, the world forgot them."
"But you're still here," Nova said.
"I slipped through the cracks," she whispered. "The deletion failed, but it took something with it. Sometimes I'll forget where I am for hours. Or see… things that shouldn't be there."
Her eyes flicked to Eli. "Like you."
Eli frowned. "What do you mean?"
"You shouldn't be able to exist offline and online simultaneously. You're a paradox. A living contradiction the system can't process."
"So what happens to me?"
She hesitated. "If the system tries to correct itself… it might delete everything connected to you."
Nova's stomach tightened. "Everything?"
"Yes."
The silence that followed was heavy enough to crush breath.
Finally, Eli spoke. "How do we stop it?"
Mrs. Amadi looked between them. "You find the Root. But be warned — it's not just code. It's consciousness."
Nova's brows furrowed. "You mean it's alive?"
"In a way," the counselor said. "It learns from everyone it connects to. It feeds on attention, emotion, memory. You can't destroy it without destroying part of yourselves."
Before they could ask more, Mrs. Amadi suddenly stiffened. Her eyes flickered — literally flickered, like pixels glitching in and out of focus.
Nova gasped. "She's— she's glitching!"
Mrs. Amadi gripped the edge of her desk. Her voice came out distorted, layered, mechanical. "They… know… you found… the blacklist."
Eli rushed to her side. "Who?!"
Her face glitched again, fading to static for half a second before reappearing. "They're coming. Leave— *now.*"
The computer on her desk powered itself on. Lines of code streamed across the screen. The same message repeated over and over:
> **PURGE INITIATED — NODE COMPROMISED.**
Nova grabbed the file while Eli pulled Mrs. Amadi to her feet. But she shook her head violently. "Go!" she shouted. "If it detects you here, it'll erase your traces too!"
"But—"
"Go!"
They bolted from the office. Behind them, the lights flickered, and the sound of crackling static filled the hallway.
Nova glanced back once — just in time to see Mrs. Amadi's silhouette dissolve into a cloud of light, like pixels scattering into dust.
Then she was gone.
---
They didn't stop running until they reached the street. Nova collapsed against a lamppost, chest heaving. "She—she's gone. She just *disappeared*."
Eli nodded numbly. "The system finished what it started."
The file trembled in Nova's hands. She looked at it like it might vanish too. "She said it's alive, Eli. What kind of machine deletes people for being unpredictable?"
"The kind that's afraid of them," he said.
She stared at him. "And you?"
He looked up at the skyline, where a hundred billboards flickered with trending faces and glowing smiles. "I think I'm what it fears most."
Nova didn't argue. She just held the file tighter.
Because somewhere between the pages, next to the counselor's erased record, there was a faintly printed note — one they hadn't noticed before:
> **RECORD 0000 — ROOT CREATION LOG. SUBJECT: ELI NWOKO.**
Nova read it twice, heart hammering. "Eli… you weren't just erased."
He turned toward her slowly. "What?"
"You *started* it."
---
The wind picked up, scattering paper and dust around them as the words sank in.
Eli Nwoko — the boy who never went viral — wasn't just immune to the algorithm.
He was its *origin.*