Chapter 1: The Zero-Score Girl
Nova’s heart slammed against her ribs like a malfunctioning piston as the red laser dot from the Score-Enforcer drone settled square on old Elias’s chest.
She was crouched behind a rusted shipping container in the Dregs, fingers frozen around the half-looted ration bar she’d just pried from a collapsed vending drone. The night air tasted of ozone and wet concrete. Above them, the Ledger’s sky-grid pulsed—billions of data threads stitching every citizen into an invisible cage.
Elias raised his wrinkled hands. His wrist implant glowed a desperate 31. “Please,” he whispered. “I only gave the kid water.”
The drone’s voice rolled out, cold and genderless: “Citizen Elias-4472. Negative interaction logged. Empathy deduction applied. Final score: zero.”
The dot turned crimson. Elias’s implant flashed blood-red. Two black-armored Enforcers dropped from the hover-platform above, boots cracking pavement. Elias didn’t run. He just looked at Nova—hidden, helpless—and mouthed one word: Go.
She couldn’t. Her legs wouldn’t move.
The first Enforcer pressed a gloved palm to Elias’s forehead. A soft click. The old man’s body jerked once, then slumped. No blood. No scream. Just deletion—neural override, public and painless for the cameras. His body would be collected for “recycling.” His name would vanish from every record. Unpersoned.
The second Enforcer scanned the alley. The laser swept past Nova’s hiding spot, missing her by inches. She held her breath until the drone ascended and the Enforcers vanished into the dark.
Only then did she crawl out. Her hands shook as she touched the cold spot where Elias had stood. Score 31 to zero in six seconds. For water.
Nova’s own wrist implant throbbed against her skin: 12. Permanently Low-Rank. No job, no housing credits, no future beyond scavenging and ghosts. She’d watched her mother hit zero when Nova was nine. She’d watched her little brother dragged away last spring for “suspicious offline activity.”
Tonight the Core burned in her mind brighter than the luxury towers across the river—Vane Dynamics’ server farm, the physical heart of the Ledger. She wasn’t stealing money anymore. She was going to delete the Unperson files. Every last one.
She slipped the ration bar into her satchel, pulled her hood low, and melted into the shadows. The Dregs swallowed her: collapsed overpasses crawling with Low-Ranks bartering black-market score boosters, flickering holos advertising “Upgrade Your Life—One Like at a Time.” In the distance, the Core’s floodlights cut the night like white knives.
Nova’s pulse steadied. She had one shot. One night. One virus tucked in the lining of her jacket.
She whispered to the empty street, “For Elias. For all of us.”
Then she ran.
(Word count: 998)
Do you think Elias deserved deletion for a single act of kindness, or is the Ledger already broken beyond repair? Drop your theories below 👇
