CHAPTER 29 - The Beginning or End?
Oversight Sector 8B hummed with the dull monotony of routine. Terminals glowed across the hall, clerks hunched over their desks, the sound of keys and pens filling the air like rain on tin. Numbers moved across screens—Bamboo coding inputs, quarterly forecasts, Dawn cross-checks—nothing alive, nothing remarkable.
For Chris Xiong, it was relief. Fragile, temporary relief, but relief nonetheless.
Each ordinary day was evidence: they didn't know yet. The Bear Patriarch's vow still echoed—we will hunt you, we will find you, and justice will be done—but here, buried in spreadsheets, he could almost convince himself he was invisible. That CCX remained just three letters in the access logs—a tag without a name, a signature without identification. The technical teams could see someone marked CCX had accessed the servers, pulled ECSE-v2 through the rejects' tap, but those three letters didn't tell them who. As long as no one connected his employee records to that timestamp, as long as no one cross-referenced his access codes to that server room entry, the tag meant nothing. Just three letters. Could be anyone.
Almost.
Every footstep in the corridor made his pulse spike. Every unexpected voice pulled his shoulders tight. He'd been tracking it for days now, the paranoia: how long until someone noticed his name in the wrong logs? How long until the algorithm found the pattern? How long until a Serpent analyst connected Wall Pod's cleaner to Oversight's newest clerk to the man who'd stood at the rejects' fire days before ECSE-v2 bled through their tap?
He'd stopped sleeping more than three hours a night.
But here, at his desk, with numbers that didn't accuse and forecasts that didn't point, he could pretend. Just another clerk. Just another day. Just another hour of not being caught.
The door slid open.
Chris's hands froze mid-keystroke.
Unannounced visitors to Oversight weren't routine—they were audits, investigations, enforcement actions. His mind went immediately to worst case: They found it. They traced CCX back. They connected the dots. This is it.
His chest constricted. Every muscle in his body prepared to run even as his rational mind knew running would only confirm guilt.
A woman stepped inside.
Not Sky enforcement in tactical black. Not Serpent intelligence with their quiet notebooks. She wore a fitted charcoal jacket, her scarf wrapped loosely at her neck, carrying only a slim folder tucked beneath her arm. Bamboo colours. Civilian bearing. No weapons, no backup, no arrest warrant visible in her hands.
Chris forced himself to breathe.
Audit. Just an audit. Not arrest. Not yet.
His pulse began to slow. And then he actually looked at her.
She moved through the bureaucratic space with practiced ease, her presence commanding attention without demanding it. When she smiled at the section chief, the interaction was perfectly calibrated—friendly but professional, warm but appropriate. The chief straightened immediately, whatever rank she carried within the Bamboo clearly outweighing his territorial instincts.
"I'm here to confirm House of the Bamboo inputs," she said, her voice clear, carrying easily across the clerks. "Quarter-two forecasts, Dawn Bureau ledgers, coding adjustments. I'll need to see the files directly."
The chief nodded quickly, half-bowing, and gestured down the row. "Clerk Xiong is managing those reports."
Chris's pulse skipped again—different reason this time. She's noticed me. Filed me in her memory. I'm supposed to be invisible.
He lowered his gaze, pretending to double-check the figures, but her footsteps carried steadily until she stood beside his desk. This close, he caught the faint scent of jasmine, saw the way she held the folder with casual confidence. Not nervous. Not uncertain. Completely in control of the space she occupied.
"These are the Bamboo forecasts?" she asked, her tone even, business-like.
"Yes, ma'am," Chris said, sliding the dataset across to her. His vowels curved differently from those of his colleagues, softened by his accent.
Shit. She's heard it now. Another detail filed away. Foreign-born clerk, handles Bamboo forecasts, distinctive accent. If they're looking for someone, she'll remember this conversation.
She paused, looking at him more closely. Then the smallest spark touched her lips. "You're not Republic-born. I can hear it."
He hesitated, weighing whether denial would make it worse. "...Southern Commonwealth."
Her smile bloomed, and something in it made his carefully maintained paranoia falter. It wasn't the predatory interest of an investigator spotting prey. It was genuine warmth, as if she'd discovered something pleasant rather than suspicious.
"I thought so. I heard it the moment you said 'ma'am.' It suits you."
Chris swallowed, heat rising to his cheeks despite the terror still coiled in his chest. "It never leaves you, I suppose."
"Good," she said simply.
She flipped through the sheets with quick efficiency, her eyes scanning rows of figures with the kind of practiced speed that came from years of similar work. Professional competence wrapped in approachable demeanour—a combination that made her seem both authoritative and safe.
"The models hold," she said after a moment. "But tell me, how do they look to you?"
Chris blinked. "They're just forecasts. The numbers speak for themselves."
Her head tilted, her eyes glancing sideways at him with faint amusement. "Numbers speak, yes. But voices matter too. Especially a voice not born inside these walls."
She set the sheets down, her tone softening in a way that felt deliberately calculated yet somehow still genuine. "Why don't you tell me properly? Not here, though. After work. Tea. You can explain what the Republic looks like through Commonwealth eyes."
The words landed like a stone dropped into still water.
Chris's first instinct was refusal. You're a fugitive pretending to be a clerk. Meeting with a House official outside work? After what you've done? After the Bear's vow? Every survival instinct says no.
But she was looking at him with something that felt like genuine interest. Not suspicion. Not interrogation. Just... curiosity. Human curiosity, the kind he hadn't seen since leaving the Commonwealth. The kind that suggested he mattered as a person rather than as a data point or potential security threat.
And god, he was so tired of being afraid. So tired of being alone. If she suspected him of anything serious, she'd just have him arrested now. If she didn't—if this was real—
Maybe I'm not as doomed as I think.
"...Alright."
The words came out before he could stop them.
Her smile deepened, carrying what looked like genuine pleasure at his acceptance. She tapped the folder lightly against his desk with a practiced gesture that suggested countless similar interactions, then moved on to the next clerk. Her manner snapped back into professional sharpness, the warmth he'd seen reserved specifically for him.
To the room, she was another inspector completing routine work.
To Chris, she was already something else.
He watched her move through the rest of the office, noting how she adapted her approach to each clerk—efficient with some, warmer with others, always getting what she needed with minimal friction. Skilled social navigation. Professional competence. The kind of person who made bureaucracy feel less oppressive simply by moving through it with grace.
Or the kind of person trained to make you feel that way, a small voice whispered in the back of his mind.
He pushed the thought down and returned to his spreadsheets, trying to focus on numbers while counting the hours until the end of shift.
The teahouse she chose sat tucked three blocks from the tramline, down an alley where foot traffic thinned and Oversight's usual camera density dropped. Not invisible—nowhere in the Republic was truly invisible—but less monitored. The kind of place where two people could have a conversation without every word being automatically transcribed and filed.
Chris noticed this as he approached. Whether she'd chosen it deliberately or by habit, he couldn't tell.
The fogged windows obscured them from street view. Inside, the air was warm and fragrant with steaming kettles. She was already waiting at a corner table, her scarf unwound, positioned where she could watch both the entrance and the street beyond.
Situational awareness. Professional habit. Or just natural caution.
"You came," she said, and her smile made it sound like a victory.
"I said I would," Chris replied, his voice betraying the nervousness he was trying to hide.
She poured tea into a second cup, sliding it across to him with practiced ease. "Good. Now you can tell me. What does the Republic feel like, to someone from the Commonwealth?"
Chris stared into the steam, weighing his words carefully. This could be a test. It could be genuine curiosity. It could be a skilled interrogator establishing rapport before asking more dangerous questions.
But the warmth in her eyes didn't feel calculated, even though his paranoid mind insisted everything about this situation should feel calculated.
"Different," he said finally. "Heavier. Back home, you could speak your mind, even if no one listened. Here... every word feels weighed. Like the walls are listening."
It was more honest than he'd meant to be. But something about her presence made honesty feel less dangerous than silence.
Her expression shifted—something that looked like recognition rather than surprise. "Yes. That is the Republic's flaw." She leaned forward slightly, and the movement felt natural rather than performed. "Too much weight. Too much knowledge locked away. The Houses hoard it, convinced it makes us safe, but it only builds walls."
The words struck like a blade finding old wounds. Chris had thought exactly that. Had used those exact justifications when he'd leaked ECSE-v2. Knowledge should be free. The Houses are practicing tyranny by hoarding innovation.
But after the Bear Patriarch's speech, after realising his "small act of righteous rebellion" might have triggered international crisis—after understanding that he'd potentially loosed fire instead of bread—
Those same words now felt different. Still true, perhaps. But also naïve. Dangerous. The kind of idealism that led to consequences he hadn't bothered to foresee.
"I feel that too," he admitted, his voice hollow. "I came here believing this was opportunity. But since..." Since I nearly caused World War Three. "...since the crisis, it feels like the walls grew taller. Like I can see the bars now."
She nodded slowly, and something in her gaze made him think she was weighing his words as carefully as he'd chosen them. "That's why I asked you. Because you can see what others can't. You remind me there's still air outside these walls."
She sipped her tea, never breaking eye contact. "I love my House. I serve it fully. But sometimes I wonder if we're strangling ourselves. Knowledge isn't meant to be sealed forever. It should move, it should breathe. Otherwise it poisons the hand that holds it."
Is she testing me? Seeing if I'll agree with seditious statements? Or does she actually believe this?
Chris couldn't tell. And that uncertainty was almost as frightening as the possibility she was investigating him.
"Even if that's true," he said carefully, "saying it is dangerous."
"Which is exactly why it needs to be said." Her smile turned sad. "The Republic was founded on principles of shared knowledge and mutual advancement. Somewhere along the way, we forgot that. The Houses became what we once fought against."
The words were perfectly chosen to appeal to everything Chris believed—or had believed, before understanding the cost of acting on those beliefs. She was either genuinely sympathetic to his worldview, or skilled enough to mirror it convincingly.
He studied her face, looking for tells. Signs of performance. Evidence of manipulation.
All he saw was someone who looked as tired of the Republic's weight as he felt.
"You're very good at this," he said quietly.
"At what?"
"Making me want to trust you."
She laughed, and it sounded genuine. "That's not manipulation, Chris. That's called having a conversation with someone who sees the world similarly. It's called finding common ground." She reached across the table and touched his hand briefly—a gesture that felt spontaneous but could have been practiced. "How long has it been since you've had that?"
Too long. So long he'd forgotten what it felt like to talk to someone who didn't make him feel like a cog in machinery designed to grind him down.
"A while," he admitted.
They lingered until the cups were empty, their words circling from heavy thoughts to lighter ones. She asked about the Commonwealth—what he missed, what he didn't. He asked about her work—careful, surface-level questions that she answered with just enough detail to feel honest without revealing anything classified.
Her laughter came easily. His own grew less hesitant as the evening wore on.
When they finally rose, the lamps outside the shop threw long shadows on the street. The Republic's ordered infrastructure hummed around them—tramways running on schedule, workers streaming between buildings, cameras logging movement with mechanical precision.
"Thank you," Chris said quietly. "For listening."
Her smile was warm but carried something he couldn't quite read. "Don't thank me. Just don't bury your thoughts. Even the smallest truths matter."
Before he could nod, she tilted her head slightly, a playful glint softening her words. "Do you have your phone?" she asked, holding out her hand as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. When Chris fumbled it from his pocket, she tapped in a number with quick precision and handed it back, her fingers brushing his for the briefest instant.
"My direct line," she said, pressing the phone back into his palm. "For when you need to talk. And Chris—" she met his eyes, her tone softening—"I hope you will need to talk."
Before he could respond, she tilted her head slightly, something playful entering her expression. "We'll speak again. Tomorrow. Same time at your desk."
The promise landed like an anchor, something real to hold through the night.
"Promise you'll be there for me?" she added, the words carrying both levity and surprising weight.
Chris nodded, his throat too tight for speech.
She stepped into the night, her figure swallowed quickly by the street's familiar anonymity.
Chris walked home with her number saved in his phone. The warmth still glowing in his chest from two hours of feeling human again.
For once, he hadn't spent every moment cataloguing exits and calculating which direction to run. For once, someone had looked at him and seen a person worth knowing rather than a security risk or foreign anomaly. For once, the Republic's crushing weight had lifted enough to let him breathe.
But as the streets grew darker and the warmth began to fade, colder clarity returned.
If Olivia was investigating him—if this warmth was professional cultivation rather than genuine connection—he'd just given her everything she needed. He'd confirmed he questions Republic authority. Revealed his isolation and vulnerability. Shown desperate need for emotional connection. Admitted he feels trapped by the system.
Everything a skilled operative could exploit.
But if she wasn't investigating him—if this was real, if she actually saw him as someone worth caring about—then maybe he wasn't as doomed as he'd thought. Maybe there was someone in this Republic of surveillance and control who could actually understand him.
He stopped on the tramline bridge, staring down at the lights on the water. The choice that had been tearing at him for days crystallized with new urgency.
Run? Quit Oversight before the net closed tighter, disappear into the faceless masses who skirted the Republic's edges, survive by becoming invisible?
That meant never seeing her again. Never having another evening like tonight. Never feeling that warmth again.
Stay? Keep working at Oversight, keep seeing Olivia, keep building something that felt like it might be real?
That meant risking everything. If she was investigating him, staying gave her time to find proof. If the Bears were closing in, staying made him an easy target. If the pattern emerged—Wall Pod to twins to Oversight to the access logs—staying meant being caught.
But leaving meant being alone again. And after tonight, after remembering what human connection felt like, the thought of going back to that isolation was almost worse than the thought of being caught.
Chris clenched the rail until his knuckles whitened, his heart racing between two futures. One path led to silence and safety. The other to danger wrapped in warmth.
He couldn't tell which he feared more: that Olivia was using him, or that she actually cared and would eventually learn what he'd done.
Above him, a camera logged his biometric signature, timestamped his location, added another data point to patterns that algorithms were already analysing. The surveillance network he'd once dismissed as bureaucratic theatre now felt like a web drawing tighter with every step.
CCX in the access logs. A tag without a name. But my biometrics in the building. My access codes. My employee file showing I was on-shift that night. If they cross-reference the timestamp with who had physical access to the server room, they'll find me. The tag doesn't identify me—but the pattern will.
But tonight, for the first time since the Bear Patriarch's speech, he felt something other than crushing terror.
He felt hope.
And that, he realized as he forced himself to keep walking toward his apartment, might be the most dangerous thing of all.
Olivia closed the door to her quarters, slipping out of the charcoal jacket and laying her scarf across the back of a chair. The disguise had served well enough; no one in Oversight would connect her to anything more than routine Bamboo auditing.
She crossed into her study, keyed her clearance, and the archive console lit the room with a pale glow.
Chris Xiong. Southern Commonwealth. The accent was impossible to miss once he spoke. Current post: Dawn Bureau IP Oversight, Sector 8B. His desk buried in Bamboo coding forecasts. Nothing remarkable on the surface, yet the pattern held.
She scrolled through fragments the Bear House had tried to bury. Wall Pod logs, incomplete but serviceable, still listed his name: Cleaner, Deep VR unit. Then the Yang twins' semi-VR report, the anomaly flaring to life within minutes of his departure. Two places. Two anomalies. The same man.
Coincidence? She didn't believe in coincidence.
The Bear Patriarch had made his vow—shadows would be dragged into the open, saboteurs rooted out. If the Bears pieced this together before she did, Chris would disappear, and with him the anomaly. That would leave nothing but silence. That outcome did not serve her. She did not want silence. She wanted to know.
How had the anomaly formed? Was it tied to his presence, some subtle interaction he wasn't even aware of? Or was it buried deeper, something that woke only when he brushed against the machines? Whatever the truth, it had happened twice, and twice was enough to mark him as more than a passing variable.
She leaned back, fingers resting lightly against her chin. He had responded so easily to her warmth. A little curiosity, a little laughter, some carefully chosen critique of the system, and he had opened his guard enough to speak of feeling trapped, of seeing bars he couldn't name. If she paced it carefully, he would reveal more. Not under pressure—that would drive him into silence—but freely, thinking it his choice.
Yes. Proximity mattered. Regular contact, quiet, deniable. One conversation at a time. Each word he gave her another piece of the puzzle, until the shape of the anomaly came into view.
She keyed in her final note to the archive: Chris Xiong to be observed under Bamboo authority only. Continue contact until anomaly mechanism is understood. Subject demonstrates vulnerability to emotional cultivation. Recommend patience and regular proximity.
The console dimmed, leaving her reflection faint on the dark screen.
To the Republic, he was just another foreign clerk lost in numbers. To her, he was already something else—a thread leading into the unknown, a puzzle that refused to fit existing frameworks, a phenomenon that might reshape everything they understood about human-technology interface.
And she intended to follow that thread until she held the answer in her hands.
Tomorrow, she would return to his desk. Would smile at him again. Would build the pattern of contact until it felt natural, expected, safe. Would become the warmth he desperately needed until he couldn't imagine surviving without it.
Professional cultivation. Standard intelligence practice. Nothing personal.
So why did the memory of his grateful smile make her feel something that wasn't quite satisfaction?
She pushed the thought away and began preparing tomorrow's cover story.