Unseen Access

The dim glow of the ERG Maintenance Hub hummed like a dying insect. Fluorescent strips flickered over rows of cables, casting thin veins of green light across the concrete floor. The air smelled of warm metal and a faint bitterness of ozone, the kind that lingered after a storm‑charged power surge.

Kaito stood alone at his console, his palm resting on the cold steel of the terminal. Outside, the city was still—a thin layer of fog clung to the lower streets, muffling the distant rush of water in the submerged canals. A soft hiss rose from the vents, stirring the thin layer of dust that settled on his shoulders.

A tiny blip appeared on the screen, a single packet of data pulsing red against the sea of green code. The hub’s auto‑delete routine flagged it instantly, the cursor flashing “UNAUTHORIZED ECHO – QUARANTINE”.

“What the—?” Kaito muttered, his voice echoing off the metal walls. He leaned forward, eyes narrowing. The packet header read **CHANNEL: CANAL‑SECTOR** and a cryptic tag: **COLD‑SPOT 7B**. His breath caught.

He knew that phrase.

Months earlier, during a routine sweep of the grid’s peripheral nodes, he had slipped a tiny back‑door—just a whisper of code he called a “cold‑spot”—into a dead‑end alley of the canal network. It was a safety valve, a place only he could access, meant to let him pull a thread if something went wrong. He had never imagined anyone else would ever find it.

A knot tightened in his stomach. The hub’s warning siren throbbed low, a metallic sigh that seemed to vibrate through his bones. He could let the auto‑delete run, erase the packet, and forget it ever existed. That would be the safest choice. The Authority’s eyes were always watching; any stray echo could be traced back to him, and the penalty was harsh—re‑education, or worse.

But curiosity gnawed at him, thin and sharp. The packet carried a fragment of memory, a faint pulse of something warm, almost like a smile trapped in code. He could feel it reverberating against the edge of his own affect regulator, stirring a flicker of unauthorized feeling.

He tapped the console, opening the packet’s metadata. The timestamp was early pre‑dawn, just before the city’s first light. The coordinates pinned to a narrow stretch of the canal where bioluminescent algae flickered like underwater fireflies.

His hand hovered over the “DELETE” button. For a heartbeat, he imagined the clean, clinical line of his duty: “Delete. Erase. No trace.” The screen seemed to pulse, as if the packet itself were breathing.

“Don’t. Don’t…,” he whispered, the words spilling out in a rush. A cold sweat dripped down his neck, the metal of the console suddenly feeling too hot.

He flipped a switch, overriding the auto‑delete protocol. The warning siren rose a fraction, then steadied, as the hub rerouted the packet into a secure log. A new line of code appeared: **SAVE – COLD‑SPOT COORDINATES → 34.2‑N / 135.9‑E**.

A soft chime sounded, the sound of a lock clicking into place. Kaito exhaled, the breath coming out in a shaky hiss.

“Who are you?” he said aloud, though no one was there. His voice sounded thin, almost swallowed by the hum of the machines.

The console remained silent, but the tiny packet continued to pulse, a low, steady beat that matched the rhythm of his racing heart. He could feel the paranoia creeping in his veins, the knowledge that every second he kept this secret, the more he walked a tighterrope over a void of surveillance.

He reached for his notebook, a battered leather thing he kept hidden beneath his jacket, and scribbled the coordinates in a jagged hand. The page felt rough against his fingertips, grounding him in something real.

“Maybe it’s a trap,” he thought, the words sharp as a knife edge. “Maybe it’s a call.” The doubt was a dull ache, but the curiosity was a bright flare, pulling him forward.

He stood, the lights of the hub flickering once more, and turned toward the door. The pre‑dawn sky outside began to lighten just enough for the fog to lift, revealing the faint glow of the canals below. Somewhere in that watery maze, a hidden hand had thrown a stone into his pond, and the ripples were already spreading.

With the coordinates saved and the packet alive, Kaito felt the weight of the decision settle on his shoulders. He had chosen connection over safety, and the paranoia that settled in his chest was the first taste of something that might—just might—be worth the risk.