The elevator doors slid open with a soft hiss, spilling Kalani into the marble hall. The clock on the far wall blinked 10:12 PM in white light. The building was silent except for the hum of climate control and the low pulse of security drones drifting along the ceiling.
She moved carefully, almost tiptoeing across the polished floor. It didn't matter — her mother always knew when she was late.
The office door was open, and the glow from inside spilled across the hallway like a second moon.
"Kalani."
Her mother didn't raise her voice, but the sound froze her mid-step.
Governor Armstrong sat behind her glass desk, still in uniform, her face lit by the holographic map of Zone One projected before her. The wall behind her was alive with hundreds of lights — green, yellow, red — flickering in soft patterns.
Kalani hovered at the threshold. "We got stuck after the results ceremony. The buses—"
Her mother didn't look up. "It's 10:14."
"I know."
"I told you to be home by nine."
Kalani crossed her arms, her voice low but steady. "You also told me to smile at the press and pretend that everything we do at that school is justice. I managed one of those."
Her mother's hands paused over the keyboard. The silence that followed was sharp. Then, softly:
"Don't confuse defiance with depth, Kalani. They're not the same thing."
Kalani's throat tightened. She took a step closer, drawn toward the wall of colored lights. The greens pulsed rhythmically, alive and ordered. The yellows blinked in slow hesitation. The reds — hundreds of them — stayed frozen, solid, eternal.
"What is this?" she asked.
"The citizen index," her mother said. "Every household in Zone One is logged and monitored. Green means review complete — good standing. Yellow means pending evaluation. Red…" She finally looked up. "Red means permanent residents."
"Permanent," Kalani repeated. "As in—"
"They'll never leave the Zone."
Kalani's chest went cold. "You're tracking them like data points."
"That's what they are to the system."
"You talk about them like they're not people."
Her mother's eyes softened for half a second — then hardened again. "People are unpredictable. Systems are not."
"Maybe that's why systems never love anyone," Kalani said.
Her mother didn't respond. Instead, she adjusted a dial on the console, zooming in on a section of red lights. "Do you know what this area is?"
Kalani shook her head.
"District Nine — the oldest part of Zone One. Your friend lives near there."
Kalani stiffened. "You've been watching him?"
"Monitoring is part of governance."
"Invading is not."
Her mother finally turned fully toward her, her face calm but her voice firm. "You're too young to understand what happens when you blur the lines between duty and emotion. You'll learn that eventually."
"I don't want to learn it your way," Kalani said.
"That's exactly what I mean," her mother replied, turning back to the display. "Be careful. If the wrong people think you're involved with someone from Zone One, it won't just be your future on the line."
Kalani took a slow breath. "Then maybe your system's the problem."
"Go to bed."
She didn't argue. Not because she agreed — because she was tired of arguing with someone who could turn guilt into logic and fear into policy.
Kalani turned and walked out. Her mother didn't look up again.
Upstairs, Kalani pushed into her room and shut the door behind her. The lights came on automatically — soft gold against cream walls, the kind of clean beauty that always felt sterile.
She walked straight to the window.
From the twelfth floor, the city stretched in quiet perfection — white towers, silent trains, the constant pulse of drones. And far beyond the glimmer of the downtown lights, the southern skyline broke apart into darkness: Zone One.
Even from here, she could see the wall — high, metallic, pulsing faintly with scanner lights. Beyond it, scattered pinpricks of orange marked the living quarters, the fragments of life allowed to exist only under permission.
She pressed her forehead to the glass, searching for movement. Maybe he was walking home now. Maybe he'd just made it before the lockdown.
Her mother's words echoed again: Be careful.
She closed her eyes. "I'm already too late for that."
The gates to Zone One shut with a deep, mechanical groan as Oliver slipped through. The scanners blinked green for half a second before locking red. He checked his watch — 10:01 PM. Just made it.
The street beyond the gate was empty. The Zone at night was a place of silence — not the peaceful kind, but the kind born of knowing noise could draw attention. The buildings leaned together, their cracked walls lit by the faint blue hum of emergency lights that never turned off.
Oliver pulled his collar up against the cold. The smell of metal and dust hung in the air. Somewhere in the distance, a generator coughed to life, followed by the faint clatter of a window closing.
He turned down the narrow street toward the only building still awake.
TERESA'S — GROCERIES · PHARMACY · CAFE
The sign buzzed weakly in the dark, a flicker of color against gray brick.
Inside, the warmth hit him instantly — the smell of soup, soap, and old wood.
"Evening, young Mr. Rowe," Ms. Teresa said from behind the counter. Her hair was pinned up, and her apron was dusted with flour.
"Evening, Ms. Teresa," he said, shaking off the cold.
"You nearly missed curfew," she scolded lightly, ladling soup into a bowl. "I was about to put this away."
"Wouldn't let that happen," Oliver said. "Smells too good."
She smiled, sliding the bowl toward him with a piece of wrapped bread. "For you and your grandfather. I added thyme this time — it helps with the lungs."
He reached into his jacket. "How much do I owe you?"
She frowned, hand already waving him off. "You know better than that. The state gives me enough rations for the whole block. You pay me with conversation."
He smiled faintly. "Then I owe you interest."
She laughed — a warm, low sound that filled the small shop. "How's your girl?"
He blinked. "Kalani?"
"Don't play dumb. I might be old, not blind."
"She's… fine. Tired. Trying to fit in with people who think perfection is normal."
Ms. Teresa nodded knowingly. "That's the hardest kind of tired."
He hesitated. "She's not supposed to be with me. Her mother—"
"Her mother's the governor. I know," Ms. Teresa said, ladling more soup into a jar. "Doesn't mean she's right."
He took the food and smiled. "Thank you."
"Tell your grandfather I said hi. And don't stay out this late again — they've been running double drone sweeps this week."
He nodded and stepped back into the night.
The air inside his apartment was still. The lights flickered when he flipped the switch.
"Hey, Red," he whispered.
The small red tabby cat appeared instantly, tail curling around his ankle, eyes half-closed in greeting.
He crouched, scratching her behind the ears. "Missed you too."
His grandfather was asleep on the couch, a blanket pulled up to his chest. The old man's breathing was rough, uneven. The sound filled the silence.
Oliver set the soup on the table and knelt beside him. "Granddad, wake up. You need to eat."
The old man stirred, coughing weakly. "Didn't think you'd make it in time."
"Barely," Oliver said, smiling softly. "Ms. Teresa said you're not eating enough."
His grandfather sat up slowly, shaking his head. "Tell her she worries too much."
Oliver watches his grandfather struggle to sit up on his own. His weak old born shaking "Are you working tomorrow?"
"Hospital floors don't clean themselves," he told Oliver. His grandfather chuckled hoarsely. "Someone's gotta keep those rich people from slipping on their reflections.
Oliver smiled, even though it hurt. "Yeah. Guess that's you."
He helped the old man eat, then checked the envelope on the table — his grandfather's check, creased and thin. $700. Two weeks.
Not even enough to call survival.
He said nothing. There was no point.
When his grandfather fell asleep again, Oliver sat by the window with his own bowl of soup. Red jumped onto his lap, purring softly.
The streets below were empty — gray, cracked, lifeless, but safe. No one stole here. No one fought. It was too pointless to try.
He tore off a piece of bread and fed it to the cat. "It's not much, huh?"
Red blinked, content.
He looked past the rooftops, to the faint glow of the wall separating them from the rest of the city. On the other side, high above the skyline, he imagined Kalani standing at her window, watching too.
He smiled to himself — small, tired, but real.
"Goodnight, Kalani," he murmured.
Outside, the red lights on the surveillance towers blinked once, twice, then steadied — silent witnesses to a world built on distance.