The police hovercar slid silently through the city sky. Chen Ke leaned against the window, watching the countless ribbons of light from floating vehicles below weave into regulated rivers, flowing along system-calculated optimal paths toward their assigned destinations. Efficient, and lifeless.
His fingers swiped across his personal terminal, pulling up the case file from the night before. The hologram of the stone rotated, rough and silent. The glaring [UNKNOWN] in the database was like a wedge driven into his logical understanding.
"District Seven, public scanner self-diagnostic report," his colleague's voice came over the comms, interrupting his stare. "Data normal. Efficiency fluctuation below 0.03%. Looks like a one-off incident. The boss says we can close the file."
"Mm," Chen Ke grunted, shutting down the terminal. Case closed. All anomalies that didn't fit the system's optimal calculations were ultimately classified as such. Then forgotten.
But he couldn't forget the symbol. It wasn't any known religious sigil or gang sign. It was more like... something intensely personal, carved with a kind of desperate precision.
The hovercar descended at the District Seven police station. He passed through the automatic doors, the sensor lights flicking on sequentially. The moment he stepped into the lobby, the massive public display screen hanging dead center – the one that eternally broadcast system propaganda and the Soul Index – its image flickered.
Like a bad signal.
Then, a line of text replaced the slogans praising efficiency and order, briefly occupying the entire screen.
It lasted less than half a second, so fast it was almost an illusion.
But Chen Ke saw it clearly.
It was composed of pure points of light, continuously contracting and expanding –
An equilateral triangle.
Identical to the one carved on the stone in his pocket.
Everything around him was normal. Colleagues hurried by, no one looked up, no one noticed. The system propaganda video resumed, a cold, electronic female voice expounding: "Order is the foundation. Efficiency is life..."
Chen Ke stood rooted to the spot, his blood seeming to freeze solid for that half-second before rushing violently back to his limbs. He slowly reached into his pocket, closing his hand tightly around the cold stone.
It wasn't an accident.
It was a signal.
And the city had just answered him.