Inside is clean and quiet and somehow worse than the alley. A waiting area with a desk and a few chairs and a hallway that leads somewhere I can’t see. The whole place smells like nothing—like someone scrubbed out anything human and left antiseptic behind.
“Have a seat.”
One officer disappears down the hallway. The other stays by the door, watching me while pretending not to.
I sit while counting exits trying not to be obvious. Front door behind me, occupied. Hallway ahead, unknown. No windows. The chair I’m sitting in is bolted to the floor.
This is fine. Vagrancy check, probably. Maybe a relocation sweep. I’ve been through this before—not here, not this building, but the same kind of processing. Answer the questions, don’t volunteer anything, be boring enough that they stamp a form and send you on your way.
I’m good at being boring.
Five minutes pass. Ten. Fifteen.
The officer by the door hasn’t moved.
I’m starting to wonder about the bread on Venn Street—whether it’s gone by now, whether I’ll have to find something else, whether any of this is going to matter by the time they let me out of here—when a door opens at the end of the hallway.
A woman emerges—middle-aged, plain professional clothes, carrying a folder. She doesn’t look at me.
“This way.”
I follow her to a smaller room with a table that’s seen better days, two chairs, no windows. She sits on one side and opens the folder and uncaps a pen like she’s done this ten thousand times before.
I take the other chair.
“Name?”
“Nova.”
“Age?”
“Twenty-six.”
“Place of residence?”
“Between places.”
“House affiliation?”
“Dream.” The lie is automatic. “Originally.”
She writes it all down without looking up. I’ve done this before. Different buildings, different officers, same bored questions. You give them what they want, nothing extra, and they lose interest and let you go.
“Show me your mark.”
My stomach tightens.
“Wrist,” she says.
And just like that, I’m awake.
I’ve been here before too—this exact moment, different rooms. This is where I smile and deflect and show them something fast enough that they don’t look too close. A flash of skin, a muttered excuse about fading or placement or a birthmark that confuses people. It’s worked before. It’s always worked before.
But she’s not even looking at me. She’s looking at the folder, pen ready, waiting for me to comply so she can move to the next box.
“I’m in a hurry,” I try.
“Wrist.”
