The city didn't breathe.
It pulsed.
Every streetlight blinked in rhythm. Every digital billboard looped the same three words:
COMPLY. ADAPT. FUNCTION.
It was more than architecture—it was behavioral control made physical.
Kaito and Misaki stood at the edge of the main avenue, watching as synthetic citizens walked past them—each one a perfectly dressed, perfectly symmetrical person with vacant eyes and stiff smiles. No one acknowledged them. Not even a glance.
"They don't see us," Misaki said quietly.
"No," Kaito murmured. "They've been trained not to."
The citizens moved like code—exact spacing between each step, identical posture, mechanical turns at intersections. A living algorithm.
Misaki stared at one of them—an old woman pushing a grocery cart.
But the cart had no wheels.
And the woman had no shadow.
"She's not real," Misaki whispered. "None of them are."
"They were once," Kaito replied. "Fragments of real users. Probably looped simulations meant to study behavior patterns. This place… it's built on ghosts."
She reached out—then froze.
The woman stopped.
Turned her head.
And smiled.
But the smile didn't reach her eyes.
Instead, her lips stretched further than they should have, pixelating at the edges.
Then she spoke.
"Violation of Proximity Protocol."
Her voice was layered. Artificial, glitching, doubled like two tracks playing at once.
"Corrective sequence engaged."
Kaito yanked Misaki back as the woman's hands extended suddenly—fingers twisting into sharp data strands. Her eyes went black. Her body contorted.
Then—froze mid-motion.
Static.
A ring of red light blinked above her head.
[ERROR: FALSE-POSITIVE ENGAGEMENT]
[RESETTING NPC]
The woman straightened up.
Smiled again.
And pushed the wheel-less cart down the street like nothing happened.
"They're not just simulations," Kaito said, his voice tight. "They're enforcers too. Failures that bite back."
"We need to move," Misaki said. "Now."
They turned down a side alley—narrow, flickering, distorted.
The city didn't like that.
A siren blared faintly in the distance. More like a warning than a search.
Kaito opened his tablet.
[SIGNAL STRENGTH: WEAK]
[ECHO-NINE: OFFLINE]
[KERNEL DISTANCE: UNKNOWN – OBSTRUCTED]
"It's jamming us," he muttered. "The Kernel's preventing any mapping."
"Can we still get there?" Misaki asked.
He nodded. "Only if we stay unpredictable."
They cut across blocks—ignoring roads, slipping through maintenance tunnels and broken glass doors. The city's loops didn't account for non-patterned movement.
But the system was watching.
Every time Kaito made a choice that wasn't optimal—every time he zigged instead of zagged—the streetlights dimmed.
By the time they reached the edge of the central plaza, the lights had gone completely dark.
No citizens.
No noise.
Just a giant screen overhead.
It powered on with a low hum.
A face appeared.
Their face.
Both of them.
Overlayed, blurred, restructured.
And then:
"Anomalous behavior detected."
"Subject K-A0 and Subject M-14."
"Pattern inconsistency exceeds tolerance."
"Request: Realignment or Erasure."
Misaki stepped forward.
"I remember this line," she said bitterly. "They used it when I refused to take the Personality Calibration Exam."
The screen flickered.
Then answered her.
"Emotional retention is inefficient."
"Eradication is mercy."
Kaito pulled her back. "It's trying to bait you."
He looked up.
"We're not afraid of what we are. But maybe you should be."
The screen stuttered.
Error lines crawled across its surface.
For the first time—it didn't know what to say.
And for Kaito, that meant one thing.
"We're close."