Multiple Zones (Simultaneous)

  Time: 06:18 AM

  Status: [STABILITY: FRAGILE]

  Cameron stopped sleeping properly after Deptford.

  The alerts didn’t respect night anymore.

  Three nights ago, he woke at 2:17 AM with the certainty that a water main in Brixton was about to rupture. The knowledge arrived without images or numbers. Just pressure. A quiet insistence at the back of his mind that something was already failing.

  He sat up in the dark and let the feeling sort itself.

  That one could wait.

  That one would cascade.

  That one would hurt someone if ignored.

  He lay back down afterward. Sleep didn’t return.

  By the third morning, the sorting happened before he opened his eyes.

  Arthur noticed first.

  “You’re load?balancing in your head,” Arthur said, watching Cameron stare past his plate during breakfast. Steam curled from the kettle. Cameron’s toast sat untouched, its surface gone dull. “That’s not sustainable.”

  “I know,” Cameron said.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Tony snorted from the counter. “Says the guy who caught a lift with his face.”

  They were in a borrowed community center in Peckham. Folding tables with bent legs. A cracked kettle that rattled when it boiled. A whiteboard that still read YOGA — CANCELLED in fading blue marker.

  Someone had taped a handwritten sign beside it:

  MAINTENANCE MEETING — ALL WELCOME

  They had not done that.

  Cameron stood there a moment longer than necessary, reading it twice, then a third time as if it might change.

  People began arriving just after eight.

  A bus driver holding a laminated route map that kept rewriting itself between stops.

  A shop owner whose inventory duplicated items she had never ordered and could not remove.

  A teenager whose shield had equipped three days ago and refused to come off. He flexed his fingers every few seconds, checking.

  A woman who only wanted her flat to stop flickering between two different layouts. She spoke quietly, eyes tracking the walls.

  They queued without being asked.

  Arthur took notes. His pen slipped every few lines, leaving faint scratches in the paper. “This is starting to look like a tribunal,” he said.

  “A queue,” Cameron replied.

  Tony leaned against the wall with his arms folded. He watched Cameron speak with people one at a time. Short conversations. Practical questions. Clear outcomes. People left slower than they arrived.

  Tony felt something settle in his chest.

  Results.

  “Cam,” he said under his breath. “You can’t do all this.”

  “I’m not.”

  Cameron stood and picked up a marker. It squeaked as the cap came free.

  He turned to the whiteboard and wrote:

  KNOWN FAILURE MODES

  He left space beneath it.

  Admin tools without warnings.

  Variance flags misfiring.

  Consensus tags being gamed.

  He stepped back and faced the room.

  “If you’ve fixed one of these,” Cameron said, “write your name next to it.”

  No one moved.

  A chair scraped. Someone coughed. A kettle clicked off in the corner.

  Then a woman stepped forward. Grease stained her hands. Her tool belt was older than Cameron and worn smooth in places. She tested the marker against her palm, then wrote carefully beside the lifts:

  M. Chen, Lewisham — Ask about counterweights.

  A teenager added his tag beneath variance jitter.

  A man in hi?vis filled three lines under admin misuse, muttering as he ran out of space.

  The board filled steadily.

  Arthur stared. His pen stopped moving. “You’re delegating liability.”

  “I’m documenting reality,” Cameron said. “They already fixed things. I’m just making it visible.”

  A faint chime rolled through the room.

  NOTICE:

  Load redistributed.

  Cameron felt it immediately.

  The room thinned as people drifted out, quieter than they’d arrived. Some nodded to Cameron. Some didn’t.

  The board stayed full.

  Tony was staring at the door. “That actually worked,” he said, more to himself than anyone in particular.

  Cameron heard him, but he was already reading the board again.

  One name had been circled.

  He didn’t remember doing that.

  Somewhere south, a transformer tripped and didn’t come back on when it should have.

  Cameron felt the pressure shift.

  Not gone.

  Elsewhere.