Kez came to with a groan and the distinct sense that something had gone very, very wrong.
His face was pressed against damp concrete, the chill of it sinking into his cheek. Above him, the night sky was smeared with haze, streetlights buzzing faintly like dying insects. A light drizzle clung to his hair. Somewhere nearby, a car honked and kept going.
His head throbbed like it had been used to test out blunt weapon physics. Every blink scraped against the inside of his skull.
And then he felt a hand.
A slow, deliberate pat across his chest. Then another at his side. Fingers working through his pockets like they were checking inventory.
Kez stirred with a grunt, vision swimming.
"Hhhey... th' hell you doin'...?" he slurred, pushing feebly at the hand.
The figure crouched beside him didn't flinch. A man in a tattered coat, shoes held together by tape, breath visible in the cold. His face was lined, but sharp-eyed. Alert.
"Relax," the man muttered, still patting down his coat. "You ain't got nothin' worth takin'. I'm just makin' sure."
Kez rolled onto his back and coughed, the taste of alcohol and stale crackers thick in his throat.
"Huh? Wtf where am I? Why am I here?" Kez rasped, squinting through the misty air.
The man stopped checking pockets and sat back on his haunches, cracking his knuckles. "Downtown, couple blocks off the mainline. You're lucky you ain't been scooped up by the cleaners."
Kez blinked. "The... cleaners?"
"Yeah." The man nodded like it was obvious. "Black vans. No windows. Drive by at night and scoop up anything still breathin' but not movin'. You think the city's got this many homeless 'cause of bad luck? Nah, man. They disappear us."
Kez stared, trying to figure out if the guy was joking. He wasn't smiling.
"They tag folks too," the man went on, tapping the side of his temple. "Right here. Little chip behind the ear. Some kind of tracking signal. Makes your thoughts foggy. Makes you forget who you are."
Kez squinted. "You serious?"
The man leaned in close, eyes wide and steady. "I dug mine out with a spoon," he said calmly. "Cleaned the whole thing. Still twitch sometimes when the rain hits right." He paused, then nodded toward Kez's coat. "Found a couple decent spoons in your pocket. Figured it don't hurt to return the favor. Want me to check behind your ear?"
Kez recoiled slightly, groaning. "Huh? What? NO! I was going somewhere fancy... Why the fuck am I here?"
"You don't remember how you got here, right?" the man asked. "That's step one. Foggy head, sore body, no clue what hour it is... they dropped you. Happens to everyone. They test folks sometimes. Drop 'em off in different zones, see who makes it back."
Kez opened his mouth, then closed it again. He felt around his ear, just in case.
The man nodded solemnly. "They're watching us right now. You see that camera?" He pointed at a nearby traffic pole. "Looks like a light sensor, right? It ain't. That thing's blinkin' Morse. Blink-blink-pause-blink. That's the code for 'asset active.' You? You're active now."
Kez squinted at the traffic pole. The light on it was blinking, sure — but it looked like every other damn streetlight he'd ever seen.
"Blink-blink-pause-blink," the man repeated, tapping the side of his head with a grimy fingernail. "Classic pattern. Asset confirmed. They know you're up now. They're logging your vitals. Probably already running a response model."
"Response what now?" Kez asked dumbfounded.
"Response model," the man said with conviction. "They predict what you'll do next. You sit up, they log it. You ask a question, they tag your curiosity index. You run, they measure stress response. It's a game to them. See how long it takes you to break."
Kez stared at him, eyes unfocused.
"You get the static yet?" the man asked.
"What?"
"In your head," he whispered. "Like... buzzing. It's real faint, but it's there. That's how they track thoughts. Most folks don't notice, but I trained for it. Deep breaths help. And foil. You got foil?"
Kez blinked. "No."
"Shame." The man clicked his tongue. "Would've helped. You ever eaten a pigeon, son?"
Kez squinted harder. "...What?"
"High in grounding minerals," he said. "That's why they don't want you eating 'em. Makes you harder to trace."
Kez let out a slow, miserable breath, still gripping his skull like it might split open. The words around him were blurring into one another. Buzzing. Pigeons. Morse code. Response modeling.
But something was beginning to push through it. A flash of noise. Bright lights. A table. His hand holding a skewer. Someone staring at him—
A memory clicked.
"I... was at the party," Kez muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "There was this asshole tryna act cool... and food. I was eatin'...eating real good..."
The man nodded solemnly. "Ah. So they got to you through the appetizers. That's how they tag the rich ones. Truffle oil's got trace resonance markers. Happens all the time."
Kez groaned, dragging a hand down his face. Something clinked against his chest.
He blinked, reached into his coat, and pulled out a half-empty bottle — cheap, dark glass, sticky around the neck. He stared at it like it had personally betrayed him.
"…Oh," he muttered.
The memory came back in hazy fragments. The drink. The caviar. The fifth skewer. The yelling. Jack. The punch.
He winced and then yelled.
"FUCK!!! HOW DID THINGS GO THIS WRONG????"
Beside him, the man was still talking.
"They hide the transmitters in glass now too. Bottle's probably double-layered. Got an antenna in the base. I saw a guy drink one once and start speaking perfect Burenian for twenty-three seconds. Then he just—"
Kez shoved the bottle into his hands.
"Here," he said, hoarse. "Take this. Please. Just... drink it. Talk less."
The man blinked, looked at the bottle, then back at Kez.
His grin stretched wide.
"Appreciate the offering," he said, cradling it like a newborn.
Kez leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes again.
Everything hurt. But at least the guy had stopped talking. For now.
***
The bottle was gone. So was the man.
Kez wasn't sure if he'd blacked out again or just stared at the sidewalk for too long, but by the time he pulled himself upright, the street was empty. Only the puddles kept him company, reflecting broken streetlights and the gray-orange glow of the low clouds overhead.
He stood slowly, bones stiff, head heavy. His limbs didn't feel like they belonged to him. His coat was damp, his shirt clung to his back, and the taste in his mouth was a mix of metal and old sauce.
A hotel.
There was one, somewhere. In the center of the city. Bright, warm, high-ceilinged. Something expensive, something paid for. He remembered soft sheets. A lamp with a little pull chain. Maybe a minibar.
But right now, he was standing in a part of the capital that maps didn't advertise. The poor side. The kind of district people drove past with their windows rolled up. Buildings leaned at crooked angles like they were too tired to hold themselves upright. Rust crept down the edges of metal signage. Some of the storefronts had no names, just tags in spray paint or half-ripped posters faded beyond recognition.
'Did they actually throw me out here???'
He started walking.
The streets were narrow and uneven, lined with overflowing bins and drainage grates clogged with soggy paper and grease. Cats prowled near trash piles. Rats moved like shadows under vending carts left abandoned for the night. The air stank of wet brick, oil, and something vaguely sour.
As he walked, he passed people — not many, but enough to remind him that this place never really slept. A woman smoked under a busted awning, coat too thin for the cold. A trio of men sat hunched in a circle on the curb, passing around a cracked phone, laughing at something none of them would remember in the morning. A small girl stared at him from behind a rusted gate. She didn't blink.
Kez didn't speak to anyone. He just kept walking, hood up now, hands buried in his pockets. The streetlights started getting closer together. The trash piles fewer. Sidewalks smoothed out underfoot, and buildings began to stand straighter. Still gray, still tired, but neater. Cleaned-up versions of the same decay.
Then came the real transition.
The air shifted. Got colder, but cleaner. The roads widened. Headlights became constant. Taxis and late-night buses roared past, their bright lights harsh after the shadows. Storefronts here had neon signs that actually worked, flashing in blues and reds and greens. A digital billboard above a department store played some looping advertisement with a celebrity Kez vaguely recognized, her smile too wide to be real.
Crowds began to reappear. People leaving clubs, couples leaning into each other, lone students tapping on phones as they waited for rides. Their coats were cleaner. Their shoes made less noise. Nobody looked at Kez.
He felt it in the space between them — that invisible boundary, the kind where you were allowed to exist, but not quite belong. He passed by a group of sharply dressed interns arguing over project deadlines, and none of them even turned to glance at him.
Still, he kept walking. Through the bright corridors of the commercial heart. Past glowing cafés and glass storefronts. Past polished benches and trees wrapped in fairy lights. Eventually, the skyline opened up. Tall buildings stretched above him, their windows still glowing on random floors. Somewhere high up, a drone blinked red as it drifted between rooftops.
And then he saw it.
His hotel. Clean white letters mounted on a stone facade. Gold-lit entryway. A doorman half-asleep under the overhang. A revolving door that moved just slow enough to feel deliberate.
Kez hesitated on the curb for a moment. He looked down at himself — stained coat, pants wrinkled and speckled with dried something, one shoe muddy from a puddle he didn't remember stepping in. He looked like someone who had wandered out of frame from a very different story.
But he stepped forward anyway.
The doorman gave him a brief glance, but said nothing. The revolving door ushered him in with a low hiss of warm air.
Inside, the lobby was clean and quiet. Marble floor. Soft yellow lighting. That faint expensive smell of polished wood and some kind of floral cleaner. A grand piano sat in one corner, untouched. Two guests in suits stood by the elevator, laughing quietly.
Nobody noticed him. Nobody stopped him.
He shuffled toward the elevator, blinking through the fatigue. The ride up felt unreal. Like he was in a capsule shooting back toward the surface of a life he'd almost forgotten he had.
His floor was quiet. Plush carpet muffled his footsteps.
He found his door, let the keycard fumble only once this time, and slipped inside.
The room was exactly as he'd left it — too clean, too perfect, like a showroom frozen in time. No sign that hours ago he'd left it thinking he might just grab a bite and disappear into the background.
He didn't bother turning on the lights.
He kicked off one shoe. The other stayed on.
Then he faceplanted onto the bed.
And stayed there.
Eyes open. Breath slow. City humming softly just beyond the window.
After that, it didn't take long for sleep to overwhelm him.