THE phones asked for hands.
Not voices.
Not buttons.
Hands.
PLACE HAND ON SCREEN TO CONFIRM RESPONSIBLE HOLDER SUPPORT.
6,184 prompts lit across the city.
Some were on cracked phones face-down in the evidence garage.
Some were in South Ward, where Mira Sol's clean route had gone dark and rain was coming through a broken window.
Some were in hospital dispatch, ambulance bays, bookshop counters, stairwells, rooftops, shop floors, train platforms, flooded kitchens.
Every prompt had the same silver outline of a palm.
Waiting.
Hungry without looking hungry.
"Do not touch the screen," Rina said.
Too late for some.
People heard hand and thought help.
The first confirmations flashed at the edge of Soma's map.
ACTIVE HANDS: 9.
17.
31.
Sefa grabbed Avo's covered phone and flipped it facedown again.
"Hands are not support," he said into the local chain. "Hands do work."
That reached people better than the longer rules.
Mira Sol picked it up from South Ward.
