The corridors of Sector 7 were a masterpiece of functional monotony.
Every twenty meters, a recessed light flickered with a low-frequency hum that Evelyn felt in her molars. There were no decorations, no splashes of color, and certainly no windows. The "Residential Maintenance" sector was the belly of the beast, where the people who kept the Orbit's heart beating lived in cramped, pressurized stacks.
Evelyn walked with her head down, her footsteps practiced and silent. In the Orbit, to be noticed was to be evaluated, and to be evaluated was to risk "Correction."
"Hey, Glitch-Girl."
The whisper came from a dark alcove near the Sector 4 transition gate. Evelyn didn't need to look up to know it was Leo. Leo was a year older than her, a boy whose eyes always seemed to be searching for a line of code he could break. His uniform was perpetually slightly rumpled, a minor act of rebellion in a world where a misplaced crease could trigger a citation.
"Don't call me that," Evelyn hissed, though she felt a rush of relief.
Leo stepped out of the shadows, falling into step beside her. They moved in perfect synchronization, two small figures in grey tunics blending into the grey walls. "You're late. My tablet says your sector's oxygen scrubbers just finished a cycle. You should have been at the gate five minutes ago."
"My dad... he had to check something," she lied.
Leo's eyes darted to her shoulder, specifically the spot where the dermal-patch sat hidden beneath her sleeve. He didn't say anything, but his brow furrowed. Leo was a "Digital Ghost" in the making; he saw patterns where others saw static.
"Compliance Sweep in thirty minutes," Leo whispered, leaning closer. "The Overseers are doing a floor-by-floor in the Academy wing. Someone in Sector 9 tried to smuggle in a piece of real wood from the archives. A 'relic,' they called it."
Evelyn felt a shiver. "What happened to them?"
"Recycled," Leo said flatly.
The word hung in the air like a death sentence. In the Orbit, nothing was wasted. If a human element became "non-compliant", whether through physical illness, psychological decay, or the possession of "dirty" biological artifacts, they were sent to the bioconverters. Purity through technology. Anything that didn't fit the machine was broken down into its base chemical components to feed the next generation.
They reached the Academy gate, a massive slab of reinforced steel guarded by two Overseers. The men were encased in white exoskeletal armor, their faces hidden behind reflective visors. They looked more like robots than men, their movements fluid and hydraulic.
"Identification," one of the Overseers droned.
Evelyn stepped forward, her heart hammering against her ribs. She thought of the "Copper Pulse", the boy in the woods, the smell of pine. She forced it down. She imagined a wall of ice.
The Overseer raised a handheld scanner. A thin red line of light swept over her eyes, then her chest, and finally her shoulder.
Evelyn held her breath. Please don't see the glow. Please don't see the pulse.
The scanner beeped, a neutral indifferent sound.
"Evelyn Harper. Medical Candidate 402. Status: Compliant."
She stepped through the gate, her knees weak. Leo followed, his scan passing just as easily. Once they were deep within the sterile white halls of the Academy, where the air was even colder and smelled of ozone, Leo nudged her.
"Your heart rate was 112," he whispered. "That's high for a walk down a hallway, Evie."
"It's the sweep," she whispered back. "It scares me."
"It should," Leo said, his voice dropping to a level that wouldn't be caught by the directional microphones in the ceiling. "But I saw the scan, Evie. There was a flicker on the thermal. Your shoulder is running two degrees hotter than the rest of you. You're lucky that Overseer was bored."
They turned a corner, passing a group of older students dressed in the pristine white lab coats of the upper tiers. These were the elite, the ones chosen by Director Vane to lead the "Eradication Initiative" when the time came to "reclaim" the Earth. They walked with a rigid, terrifying grace.
"I can't help it, Leo," Evelyn said, her voice trembling. "It's like there's something inside me trying to get out. Something... wild."
Leo looked around, then grabbed her hand and pulled her into a small maintenance closet filled with spare air filters and cleaning droids. He shut the door, plunging them into darkness, save for the blue glow of his handheld tablet.
"Look," he said, tapping the screen.
He had bypassed the local firewall, a feat that would have earned him a decade in the conversion vats. On the screen was a grainy, low-bandwidth video feed from a decommissioned weather satellite. It showed a patch of Earth, not the scorched brown of the "Dead Zones," but a swirling, violent emerald green.
"The Green Storms," Leo whispered. "The Orbit says they're toxic clouds of mutagenic gas. But look at the movement, Evie. That's not gas. That's growth. Things are living down there. Trees, animals... maybe even people."
Evelyn stared at the screen. The green was so bright it hurt her eyes. It was the color she had seen in her "glitch."
"Why would they lie to us?" she asked.
"Because if the Earth isn't dead, we don't need the Orbit," Leo replied. "And if we don't need the Orbit, Vane loses his throne. He needs us to be afraid of the 'dirt' so we'll stay in our glass cage."
Suddenly, a heavy thud echoed against the closet door.
"Sector 4, Section B. Open for inspection!" a muffled, metallic voice commanded.
The Compliance Sweep had arrived early.
Leo's eyes went wide. He quickly minimized the video feed and pulled up a page of complex atmospheric equations. "Get down," he mouthed.
The door hissed open. An Overseer stood there, his white armor gleaming under the harsh corridor lights. He looked down at the two children huddled among the air filters.
"Unauthorized location," the Overseer stated. "Explain."
Evelyn felt the heat rising in her shoulder again. The silver mark began to prickle. The "Ghost Heartbeat" returned—thump-thump, thump-thump—beating in time with the fear pulsing in her veins. She could feel the Overseer's gaze behind the visor. She could feel the mechanical precision of his judgment.
"We... we were studying," Evelyn said, her voice surprisingly steady. She looked up, projecting the "Mask of Perfection" she had practiced in the mirror. "The Academy library was at capacity. We required a low-distraction environment to complete our calculus modules. We are aiming for 100% accuracy, sir. For the glory of the Orbit."
The Overseer lingered, his scanner humming as he recalibrated it. He tilted his head, the motion predatory. "Neural activity is elevated in Subject 402."
"She's excited about the exam," Leo jumped in, his fingers flying across the tablet. "Look at these equations, sir. She's just solved a triple-integral for oxygen-mix ratios in her head. Her brain is overclocked."
The Overseer looked at the tablet. The rows of complex math were perfect, because Leo had written a script to make them look that way.
For a long, agonizing minute, the only sound was the hum of the air filters. Then, the Overseer stepped back.
"Return to your designated sector immediately. Any further deviations will result in a Mark of Non-Compliance."
"Yes, sir," they said in unison.
As they walked away, Evelyn felt a bead of sweat trail down her spine. She could still feel the Overseer's eyes on her back. He hadn't caught them, but the close call had left a permanent mark on her psyche.
The Orbit wasn't just a home; it was a pressurized tomb. And the silver crescent on her shoulder was a ticking time bomb.
"Leo," she whispered as they reached the safety of the main stairwell.
"Yeah?"
"We're going to get out of here one day, aren't we?"
Leo looked at the grey walls, then at the tablet in his hand, where the green storms of Earth were still hidden beneath a layer of code.
"I don't know if 'we' are, Evie," he said quietly. "But you are. You don't belong in the sterile world. You've got too much heart for a place that doesn't have one."
Evelyn didn't answer. She just clutched her shoulder, feeling the faint, rhythmic drumming of a world she had never seen, but already loved.