He tore through the alley like a man possessed, each footfall slapping the slick stones in ragged, grotesque bursts. His limbs shook as if unraveled, lungs ripping with every desperate gasp—this was no escape artist’s sprint but a desk-bound strategist’s panic laid bare. Murky water sloshed in his once-polished leather shoes; his bespoke suit jacket hung in shredded strips, threads trailing like bloody sinew. His hair bristled wildly, a storm-tossed bird’s nest atop his skull. In the claustrophobic gloom, his breath rasped like a mortally wounded beast.

  I followed in silence, footsteps pre-calibrated by [KINETIC REFLEX +2] and muscle memory stitched into me by war and worse. I didn’t run. I didn’t need to. The chase was for him. The outcome was already logged.

  He stumbled over a loose cobblestone, scraped his thigh against a wall, and pushed off with a grunt. Panic leaked from his pores. Not just fear of me, but of what I represented—judgment without appeal, execution without delay. He was right to fear it.

  He careened through a splintered gate and into a blind alley: brick dead-end, steel service door, and no lockpicks in hell fast enough. He spun, cornered, breath ragged, face streaked with the runoff of power and desperation.

  “I—I didn’t mean—” he gasped, voice a fraying wire.

  [SUBJECT ANALYSIS – COMPILED]

  ? Corruption Index: 91.7%

  ? Sentiment Deviation: -3.4%

  ? Behavioral Flags: Malicious Compliance, Fiscal Predation, Manufactured Scarcity

  Charges:

  – 412 counts: fraudulent land seizure

  – 17 cases: civil suppression via settlement laundering

  – 6 resultant suicides

  Guilt Threshold: EXCEEDED

  [RETRIBUTION PROTOCOL AVAILABLE]

  I said nothing. I lifted my hand.

  A point of light—surgical, searing—ignited in my palm. It spiraled up my arm like living wire, tracing invisible circuitry etched under my skin. It wasn’t warmth. It was sterile, cold, binary fire.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Reality bent. Shadows twisted. My silhouette unfurled across the alley walls, too large, too angular. A facsimile of divinity printed in silhouette.

  [VANTA: CORRECTION IN PROGRESS]

  He dropped to his knees, unmade by terror. Begging collapsed into confession—a slurry of names, dates, account codes, passwords. Raw, panicked data spewed from his mouth in a torrent no courtroom would ever hear.

  Then—

  [CONVICTION LOGGED]

  [SOUL INDEX: UNRECOVERABLE]

  [RENDERING SUBJECT…]

  [???]

  He didn’t die. He was removed. Deconstructed into ash-logic. Pixelated veins of blue light peeled him apart, dissolving flesh into data. No scream. No body. Just smoke and a black scorch mark etched deep into the wall behind him, still crackling with static.

  Street lights for blocks around blinked and buzzed. A security camera on a loading dock flashed its blinking red light in what might as well have been morse code. At the end of the block someone froze, uncertain whether they’d heard thunder or something else that they weren’t ready to name.

  [VANTA: CORRECTION COMPLETE]

  [Observation Score: +12.4]

  [Witnesses: Indirect | Environmental Echo: High | Rumor Potential: Moderate]

  [Host Compliance: 76%]

  [Alignment: Nominal]

  The light faded. My vision normalized. My pulse didn’t rise. The alley was quiet again. Cold. Sterile. It was like the air had been vacuum-sealed after the moment passed.

  I didn’t move at first. The world looked the same, but it wasn’t. Something had shifted. VANTA didn’t announce it. No alarms went off. But I felt it. That kill had been seen—not by eyes, maybe, but by something. Noticed. Logged. Filed away.

  Maybe that was what Observation Score meant. A record of how loudly I echoed through the world. How deeply my dark deeds had seared into it. Gods-damned bastards couldn’t even bother to explain the metrics, they just dropped me into the middle of it and expected me to learn the rules by stepping on the mines.

  I stared at the mark. Not my first kill under VANTA’s protocol. Not a victory. Not vengeance. Just a line in a ledger. A packet logged and confirmed.yes, bu

  It could have been me.

  Not for what I’d done—but because VANTA doesn’t measure sin. It measures efficiency. Uselessness. Deviations from function.

  And I was still useful. For now.

  [ROLLBACK LOG: 14 Days Prior]

  [SYSTEM BOOT: CIVIC // MODEL 1998]

  DASH-CAM FEED ACTIVE

  DRIVER: CARROW, D.

  PASSENGER SEAT: CONTAINER – HUMAN REMAINS (S. CARROW)

  Status: INERT

  Until the screen flickered.

  And VANTA spoke.