---
Arnold made a decision.
It wasn't an important one.
That was the problem.
---
He stood at the crosswalk outside his residential block, watching the signal flicker between red and green like it couldn't quite decide what it wanted to be.
The Authority screens overhead hummed softly, cycling through calm advisories and efficiency metrics.
Everything was normal.
Arnold stepped forward.
Then stopped.
Not because the light changed.
Because something in him pulled back.
A hesitation — sharp, sudden, and unfamiliar.
It felt wrong. Not fear. Not doubt.
More like resistance from a direction that didn't exist.
Arnold frowned and took a step anyway.
The moment his foot touched the pavement, the air shifted.
---
K-0 staggered.
They had been standing still in the unreal place — the edge where concepts softened and rules lost their confidence — when something yanked at them from elsewhere.
Not physically.
Causally.
They grabbed the air instinctively as the space around them rippled outward, like a pond struck by a stone thrown from another world.
"That's new," K-0 muttered.
The pull wasn't forceful.
It was familiar.
Like a muscle remembering how to move.
---
Arnold's vision blurred.
For half a second, the city doubled — not visually, but possibility-wise.
Two outcomes tried to occupy the same moment.
Cars stopped. Cars didn't. Arnold crossed. Arnold stayed.
The system screamed silently.
MICRO-DEVIATION DETECTED
CORRECTIVE INTERVENTION—
The correction hesitated.
That had never happened before.
Arnold stumbled back onto the curb, heart pounding.
People around him didn't react.
They couldn't feel the pressure.
Only Arnold stood there, breath shallow, hands shaking, staring at the crosswalk like it had personally betrayed him.
"What the hell was that?" he whispered.
---
In the Authority core, alarms blinked — not red, not urgent — just… confused.
Jack stared at the readouts.
"Why is the correction lagging?" he demanded.
"It's not lag," an analyst replied slowly. "It's… being counterweighted."
Jack felt cold creep up his spine.
"By what?"
The analyst didn't answer.
Because there was no category for it.
---
K-0 knelt, pressing a hand to the ground of the unreal place.
The pull came again — stronger this time.
Not dragging.
Calling.
"You," they said softly. "You finally noticed."
Images flickered behind their eyes.
A corridor. A closed door. A boy too young to understand what was taken from him.
Arnold.
K-0 exhaled slowly.
"So you're still alive."
The space around them bent, responding not to force, but to alignment.
---
Arnold walked home in a daze.
Every step felt heavier, like he was moving against a current no one else could see.
Memories surfaced uninvited.
Moments he couldn't remember choosing.
Classes he ended up in without deciding. Conversations he never remembered starting. Paths he followed because they were there.
For the first time, he wondered:
Had he ever actually chosen anything?
The thought made his chest ache.
---
That night, Arnold dreamed.
Not of events.
Of pressure.
A weight leaning toward him from far away, patient and vast.
He reached out in the dream — not with his hand, but with intent.
The moment he did, the world shook.
---
K-0 gasped as the unreal place cracked open.
A seam formed — thin, luminous — cutting through the void like a scar reopening.
On the other side:
A city. A room. A sleeping boy.
Arnold.
K-0 laughed softly, breathless.
"Oh," they said. "You're stronger than you know."
The seam stabilized — not by system force, but by mutual pull.
Two displaced halves recognizing each other.
---
The Authority detected it immediately.
CROSS-ANCHOR EVENT DETECTED
SOURCE: UNKNOWN / TARGET: ARNOLD A.
SEVERITY: UNPRECEDENTED
Maizy stared at the alert, dread settling deep in her bones.
"They're connecting," she whispered.
Jack turned slowly. "Who is?"
Maizy didn't answer.
Because the truth was worse than any enemy.
---
Arnold woke with tears on his face.
He didn't know why he was crying.
Only that something precious — something that should have been his — was close enough now to hurt.
He pressed a hand to his chest.
"I didn't lose you," he murmured, not knowing who he was speaking to.
Somewhere impossible, K-0 felt the words land like a hand on their shoulder.
"No," they replied softly. "They just moved me."
---
The system recalculated.
Not corrections. Not suppression.
CONTAINMENT.
Because for the first time since stabilization began, a choice was trying to come home.
---