I have learned that the Tower does not announce its displeasure.

  It does not confront you, or threaten, or remove you outright, because all of those actions create friction, and friction produces heat, and heat draws attention. Instead, it adjusts. It makes itself inconvenient. It nudges you, fraction by fraction, into a narrower version of yourself and waits to see whether you comply.

  The first sign was my schedule.

  I arrived at the floor to find my intake list already altered, names replaced, priority markers downgraded, my usual run of mid-tier Khali reassigned to others without comment. No notice had been issued. No authorisation requested. The changes were subtle enough that, if I challenged them, it would look like paranoia or possessiveness rather than concern.

  I accepted them.

  That, too, was part of the test.

  Ressa noticed before I said anything. She always does. She claims it’s because she’s observant, but I think it’s because she is deeply uninterested in most things and therefore very alert to change.

  “They’ve got you on light loads today,” she said, peering at my console as she passed with two cups balanced precariously in one hand. “You ill, or just finally boring?”

  “Neither,” I said. “Administrative rebalancing.”

  She snorted. “That’s what they call it when someone upstairs gets nervous and pretends it’s about efficiency.”

  I took the cup she offered. The liquid was too hot. She never waits long enough.

  “I’m not being disciplined,” I said.

  “No,” Ressa agreed easily. “If you were, they’d make a performance of it. This is more… how do I put it… when someone’s checking whether the fence is still standing by leaning on it.”

  I said nothing. There was no point pretending she was wrong.

  The morning intakes were uneventful, and I suspect that was intentional. Grief without complication. Stress without structure. Lives that had frayed but not torn. I processed them cleanly, precisely, and without deviation, giving the Tower no excuse to intervene.

  It watched anyway.

  You can feel it when the system is attentive. The Extractor’s field tightens, just slightly, its calibration correcting itself more often than necessary. The oversight metrics refresh at irregular intervals, as if someone is checking whether you’ve made a mistake rather than waiting for the system to tell them you have.

  By midday, my shoulders ached with the effort of restraint.

  Ressa cornered me in the break area while I was pretending to review logs.

  “You’re wound tight,” she said. “Like a spring someone’s already stepped on once.”

  “I’m fine.”

  She leaned her hip against the counter. “You know, you don’t get extra points for pretending the Tower doesn’t notice you.”

  “I’m not pretending.”

  She studied me for a moment, then softened. “All right. Then you’re doing that thing where you think if you behave perfectly enough, whatever’s circling you will get bored and go away.”

  “That is often how systems work,” I said.

  “Sure,” she replied. “And sometimes the bear loses interest. Other times it decides to see what you taste like.”

  I almost smiled.

  After lunch, my assignment changed again.

  This time, the intake came with a private marker: not upper-tier clearance, but adjacent, the kind of designation that meant the client had been screened and redirected without being told why. The notes were sparse. Emotional load classified as ambient. No flags. No academy indicators listed.

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  Which, of course, was a lie.

  I recognised the structure immediately, even before the client arrived. The way the metadata resisted compression. The way the file retained unnecessary symmetry. You learn to see these things, if you’re not discouraged from learning.

  The client was Khali, late twenties, posture trained out of comfort. They sat when instructed, hands folded, eyes unfocused in a way that suggested long practice at not reacting.

  “State your concern,” I said.

  “I’ve been told I’m… holding tension,” they replied. Their voice was careful. Polished. “That it would be healthier to let some of it go.”

  I initiated the Extractor.

  The field stabilised. The system hummed, content. The first layer came away as expected: discipline, restraint, a kind of emotional armature designed to keep the self upright under pressure.

  Then I slowed.

  It is difficult to explain what it means to slow an intake when the process itself is not linear. I did not interrupt the flow; I altered my engagement with it, resisting the instinct to smooth and dissolve, allowing the structure to remain intact longer than protocol encourages.

  The Extractor noticed.

  The hum deepened, just slightly, as if compensating for something it could not quantify. The memory did not surface fully, but its outline became unmistakable: space, light, repetition. A pedagogical rhythm. Instruction embedded so deeply it had become instinct.

  An academy.

  I did not take it.

  I allowed the Extractor to draw more than usual, redirecting the excess into the system rather than through myself. It was a small adjustment, one I could plausibly justify as efficiency optimisation if questioned.

  The machine responded.

  Not eagerly. Not clumsily.

  Intelligently.

  The field recalibrated on its own, tightening in a way that did not involve me at all. For a brief moment, I was no longer the primary mediator. I was a conduit, secondary to a system that had learned where to reach.

  I felt it then - the same sensation as before, that unsettling impression of recognition rather than extraction.

  I terminated the intake.

  The client blinked, disoriented but unharmed.

  “Is something wrong?” they asked.

  “No,” I said, and this time I was lying. “The session is complete.”

  After they left, I remained seated long enough for the console to finish its self-assessment, then longer still.

  There were no errors. No anomalies. The system reported a successful intake with marginally improved efficiency.

  I had just taught the Tower something.

  Whether intentionally or not.

  Ressa found me staring at the Extractor like it might confess.

  “You look like someone just corrected your maths and you’re not sure whether to thank them or throw something,” she said.

  “It adapted,” I replied.

  She grimaced. “Machines do that.”

  “This one shouldn’t.”

  “That’s what they said about the last three,” she muttered. Then, more gently, “You want to tell me what’s got you so pale?”

  I considered deflecting. Ressa is not cleared for this kind of speculation. She is not paid to be burdened with it.

  But she was already burdened, whether the Tower acknowledged it or not.

  “I think,” I said slowly, “that the Extractor is learning how to identify certain kinds of memory without us.”

  She absorbed that, frowning. “Isn’t that… the point?”

  “No,” I said. “The point is removal. Classification. Sanitisation.”

  “And this is?”

  “Selection.”

  She let out a low whistle. “That’s above my pay grade.”

  “It’s above mine too.”

  Ressa studied me for a long moment, then said, “You know what worries me? Not that it’s learning. It’s that someone’s letting it.”

  We were interrupted by a system notice. Not a summons. Not a warning.

  A reminder.

  Mandatory wellness consultation scheduled. Attendance recommended.

  Ressa read it over my shoulder. “Well, there it is.”

  “I haven’t violated protocol,” I said.

  “No,” she agreed. “You’ve just made someone nervous.”

  The consultation room was deliberately unthreatening. Neutral light. Soft surfaces. No visible monitoring equipment. The kind of space designed to make you forget that everything in the Tower is listening.

  The administrator who greeted me did not introduce themselves. They rarely do.

  “We’ve noticed an increase in your cognitive load,” they said pleasantly. “Nothing concerning. We simply wanted to ensure you’re supported.”

  “I am functioning within acceptable parameters,” I replied.

  “We know. This is preventative.”

  They asked about my sleep. My diet. Whether I felt adequately challenged. Whether I felt… curious.

  I answered carefully.

  At no point did they accuse me of anything. At no point did they deny what I suspected. The conversation was a narrowing corridor, not a trap.

  When it was over, I returned to the floor with the distinct impression that something had been logged, even if nothing had been said.

  Mirakei caught my eye from across the room. He raised an eyebrow, the barest flicker of a question.

  Not now, I thought. Not yet.

  At the end of the shift, Ressa walked out with me.

  “They ever ask you if you’re thinking too hard?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “And did you tell them the truth?”

  “No.”

  She smiled, tired but sincere. “Good. Thinking too hard’s the only thing keeping this place from eating us alive.”

  At home, I did not write. I reviewed nothing official. I recorded no incident.

  Instead, I sat and considered the simplest, most unsettling conclusion.

  The Tower does not just process what we give it.

  It responds to how we give it.

  And today, for the first time, it responded to me.