Eli didn't get much sleep.
He was pretty sure Marcus didn't either. He was still sitting upright on the couch when the alarm went off at six thirty, hair pushed to one side, eyes doing that slow blink of someone who had been awake for most of it anyway.
"Happy birthday," Marcus muttered, pulling his dark coily hair into shape with his palm.
Eli sat up slowly.
Sixteen.
In the Somatic Republic, sixteen meant you were old enough to start acting like an adult in the ways that were convenient for everyone else. Driver's certification. Extended work hour eligibility. The chance to get flagged by certain military academies if your national exam scores were high enough. It didn't mean you got to make any real decisions for yourself. That part came later, or not at all depending on who you asked.
KMI sent recruiters to Port Virel every spring. He'd seen the posters in the school hallways since he was twelve. Always the same image. A soldier in full training gear, the Meridian Star stamped clean in the corner, the eight pointed symbol of the Church of the Fixed Star looking back at him from every bulletin board he'd ever passed.
He checked his phone. No updates from PVPD. No missed calls. Just an automated message from some system that had his birthday on file, the kind of message that went out to thousands of people and meant nothing.
Marcus pulled on his olive zip-up and grabbed his bag from the floor. "You gonna tell the school?"
"Yeah." Eli set his phone face down on the couch cushion. "Like they'd notice anyway."
Marcus gave a small laugh. "I'm glad you can still do that. With everything."
Port Virel High ran like every other public school in the Republic. A central online portal handled almost everything, attendance, scheduling, contact forms, district-wide systems that processed thousands of students without anyone having to pick up a phone. You marked yourself absent unless the situation required a live call.
Eli logged in and selected Family Emergency from the dropdown.
Marcus was already lacing his sneakers. "You staying in today?"
"I'd rather not."
"Fair. You want me to ditch with you? Han's deep in his cumulonimbus cloud unit. That could go on for another week easy."
"Nah. Don't make your mom any more stressed than she already is."
Marcus held for a second, then nodded. "Text me."
"I will."
He headed out. His footsteps moved down the stairwell and faded through the building's front door and out onto the street below.
Sixteen.
His mom usually did something small in the morning. Nothing that took much effort or planning. Just something. A plate left out. A note on the counter. Some small marker that the day was different from the others.
The stove stayed off.
He stood in the kitchen and looked at it for a moment.
He knew if he stayed inside he'd spiral. He'd already done the math on that last night, lying on his bed staring at the ceiling while Marcus breathed unevenly on the couch. He needed to move. He needed to be somewhere that wasn't this apartment with its too-quiet rooms and the Kit Kat Clock counting out minutes that weren't going anywhere.
He showered quickly and pulled on the nearest clean hoodie. Checked his phone. Nothing.
He grabbed his keys, double-locked the door behind him, and went downstairs.
Port Virel moved differently in the morning than it did at night. The tension that gathered after dark dissolved into something mechanical and indifferent. Delivery trucks lined the curb two and three deep, idling in the queue for the loading yard. The harbor cranes were already moving against the pale sky, their arms swinging in long arcs over the dock. Forklifts beeped steadily along the waterfront below, backing and turning with the practiced patience of machines that had done it ten thousand times.
The city never slowed down for a birthday.
The dread from the night before hadn't gone anywhere. It had just shifted into something flatter and quieter, the kind of thing you could carry without it dropping you, at least for a few hours.
He walked toward the harbor without deciding to. Same path as yesterday. Same sidewalks, same shop owners pulling up their metal gates for the morning, same lampposts with the same civic notices taped to them. He passed the bus stop on Marlin and glanced at the panel on the side. A laminated notice hung there slightly crooked, advertising Harbor Safety Week, sponsored by the Somatic Department of Infrastructure. Clean layout, official seal in the corner, the kind of thing that appeared on every available surface in this city and became invisible inside of a week.
The Somatic Republic didn't miss an opportunity to remind you it was watching.
Across the street a man was arguing quietly into his phone, one hand pressed to his other ear to block out the dock noise.
Further down, nearer to the edge of the waterfront, Eli caught something small at the edge of his vision.
A stray dog stood completely still near the base of a storage container, thin and shaggy, the kind of brown that had gone dull from too much sun and not enough food. It wasn't moving. Just staring at the water like it was waiting for something to come up from underneath.
Eli slowed without thinking about it. The dog must have heard him because it tilted its head slightly in his direction. Then it turned and walked between two containers and disappeared.
He kept walking. He was tired enough to read meaning into a stray dog if he let himself, and he wasn't going to do that.
Further down the waterfront, near a black sedan parked slightly apart from the rest of the vehicles along the dock, a man stood against the driver's side door. He was middle aged, suit jacket pressed clean, hands resting easy in his pockets. Not a dock worker. Not a delivery driver. Too still for someone waiting on a shipment.
He was looking directly at Eli.
Not the way strangers glanced at each other on a sidewalk. Longer than that. More deliberate. Like he'd already been watching before Eli got close enough to notice.
When Eli's eyes found his, the man shifted his gaze toward the water. Smooth and unhurried, like he'd just happened to be looking in that direction the whole time.
Eli didn't stop walking. He kept his pace and told himself it was nothing, that people looked at each other, that in a city this size where half the faces were familiar you could almost put a name to anyone, and strangers caught your eye sometimes without it meaning anything.
He glanced back once he'd put a few steps between them.
The man was on his phone now, posture still relaxed, still leaning against the door. Like he'd always been doing exactly that.
Maybe it was nothing.
He'd been telling himself that a lot lately.
He looped back up toward the main strip, the stretch of shops and restaurants that ran parallel to the harbor and stayed busy through most of the day. A bakery had its doors propped open and the smell of fresh bread drifted out onto the sidewalk, warm and yeasty against the salt air coming off the water. Two kids from his school walked past going the other direction, barely glancing at him.
One of them stopped.
"Yo, weren't you and Marcus out by the pier yesterday?"
Eli shrugged. "Yeah."
The kid looked like he was going to say something else. Then he reconsidered. "Happy birthday," he said instead.
Eli stared a second too long. "Thanks."
Word traveled fast in Port Virel. It always had.
He checked his phone out of habit, hoping for something to go his way.
Still nothing.
He slid it back into his pocket.
"Eli?"
He turned.
Corrine Merrin stood a few steps back near the entrance to a smoothie bar, one hand already reaching for the door handle. He knew her, or had known of her, since freshman year. Not close, just the occasional group project, the random hallway collision. She ran track and had the posture of someone who was always half a second from moving, weight slightly forward, angled like she was ready to go.
Her golden curls were pulled back in a loose bun with a few escaping around her face. In the morning light they looked almost translucent at the ends.
He'd noticed those curls before. More than once.
"I heard about your mom," she said.
"Marcus tell you?"
She frowned slightly. "No."
Eli blinked. "Where'd you hear it?"
"Two sophomores outside the science building this morning. They said there were police at your building last night."
He felt something tighten for a second, automatic and fast.
"They live in Mariner Heights," she added. "One of their moms saw the cruiser."
He exhaled slowly.
He hadn't realized he was already bracing for her to say Marcus's name.
"He wouldn't do that," she said, reading his face without much effort.
"I know. I know. I've just been losing it since last night."
"Yeah." She said it simply, without making it into something bigger. "That's allowed."
He shrugged. "Feels stupid."
"It's your mom. It's not stupid."
They stood there for a moment with traffic rolling past behind her.
"You just pacing around town all day?" she asked.
"Probably."
"That sounds like the worst birthday ever."
"I don't have much else going on."
"It's still your birthday though."
He exhaled. "Worst timing in history."
"So what's the move? You're ditching all day?"
"Marked myself absent."
She tilted her head. "Look at you. Very responsible."
They crossed toward the strip together without really deciding to.
"You eat anything yet?" she asked.
"I will."
"When?"
"Eventually."
"That's not a time."
He rolled his eyes. "You sound like my mom."
She softened immediately. "Sorry."
"No, it's fine," he said quickly. "She says that exact thing. All the time."
Corrine nodded and let it sit there without pushing it.
A few kids from school passed them on the sidewalk, heads tilted together, something murmured between them. Eli caught it in his peripheral and let it go.
"Sixteen," she said, shifting gears deliberately. "Big year." She gave him a light elbow.
"Doesn't feel like it. I can drive now and get recruited, but I still can't make any actual decisions for myself."
She glanced at him. "So what do you actually want? Like, if you could decide."
He hesitated. Then shrugged. "I don't know. Something different."
"Vague."
"I've just been here my whole life." He gestured loosely at the street around them. "Same harbor. Same cranes. Same shops. Same people. You could blindfold me anywhere in this city and I'd still know exactly where I was."
They stopped at the crosswalk while a delivery truck rolled through the intersection, its chassis rattling over the old asphalt.
"I don't even know what's out there," he continued. "Other cities. Other countries. Everyone in the Somatic just talks about it like it's the center of everything."
"It kind of is, I guess," she said lightly.
"Exactly." He looked out toward the cranes moving along the dock in the distance. "I'm just tired of everything being so predictable. Cameras everywhere. Same rules. Same expectations. You always already know what comes next."
"That's kind of the whole Somatic brand," she said.
"Yeah."
"But I get it," she added. "It does feel like nothing really changes here."
He nodded. "I don't hate it. I'm just tired of it. I want to go somewhere I can't already see the next ten years from."
Port Virel was good at making you feel like the world ended at the harbor's edge.
"My cousin moved out east last year," Corrine said. "Says it's completely different out there. No harbor smell. No crane noise at six in the morning."
"That sounds good."
"You'd miss it after a week."
"Maybe. But I'd know."
They slowed near the intersection by the shopping strip.
"You could go for college," she said. "Or join something. Or just save up and leave."
"Eventually, yeah."
He thought about his mom and her reminders. Be home before dark. Don't go past the district limits without telling me. He used to let them roll off him like they were optional. He'd take a hundred more of them right now if it meant she was just here, standing in the kitchen, giving him that look.
"I can't just go though," he said after a moment.
She looked at him. "Why not?"
"I mean, technically I could. But not without knowing she's okay." He pushed his hands into his hoodie pocket. "It's always been just us."
"I barely know what I'm supposed to be doing right now," he said. "Yesterday I was just worried about normal stuff. School. Whatever. Now I'm just, I don't know. Waiting. Looking. Pretending like there's something useful I can do."
"That's a lot for one day," she said.
"I keep saying I want to leave," he continued, quieter now. "But I wouldn't go anywhere if she wasn't okay. I can't."
"That doesn't mean you're stuck forever," she said.
"I know. It just feels like everything's paused right now."
They crossed the next intersection, Corrine a little closer than before without either of them acknowledging it.
"You don't need to have it figured out today," she said.
He let out a small breath. "Yeah."
A car passed with music thumping low through the windows.
"I just feel lost," he said finally. "I know I need to look for her. I just don't know where to start or who to ask."
She looked at him, not with pity, just level and steady. "Then start small," she said. "Eat something. Go home. Get through today."
His stomach had been making its own argument for the last twenty minutes. He'd been ignoring it.
"I actually have to go," she said, pulling her phone out and wincing at the screen. "Coach has texted me twice. If I don't show up she's going to think I quit."
"Yeah, go."
She hesitated for a second. "You'll be okay?"
"I will."
"Text me later?"
"Yeah."
She started to go, then stopped. "And Eli. Happy birthday."
"Thanks."
She gave a small wave and headed up the hill toward the school building where it sat above the rest of the town looking out over the harbor. He watched her go for a second, then pulled out his phone. No new notifications. He already knew what he was getting before he even opened the app.
Salt and Wok sat tucked between an old laundromat and a hardware store about two blocks from the waterfront, the kind of spot that didn't announce itself. The red lettering on the sign had faded to a dull pink over the years, chipped at the corners where the weather had gotten into the paint. Inside it was always the same layout, same counter, same smell hitting you before the door was fully open. In a city organized around shipping schedules and compliance checks, the place ran on its own clock and always had.
He and his mom used to come here on Friday evenings when the week had been long and neither of them felt like cooking. She'd let him order for both of them once he was old enough to say it loud enough over the counter noise.
Two orange chickens, one no onions.
He'd practiced that sentence when he was eight years old. He remembered the specific weight of it, trying to sound older than he was, watching her stand slightly behind him and not help.
He opened the app. Scrolled out of habit even though he already knew. Orange chicken. Fried rice. Crab rangoon. Extra sweet and sour.
He hovered over the add another item button for a second. His mom always added her spring rolls without telling him until the bag arrived and he found them tucked in next to his container.
He closed it.
Just his order today.
Twelve minutes estimated.
He walked the last block to the storefront. The clatter of pans from the back kitchen reached the sidewalk before he got to the door. A delivery driver stood against the wall outside checking his phone with his helmet still on.
He pushed the door open. The little bell above it rang.
"Eli!" Lina called from behind the counter the moment she saw him.
She was in her early twenties, hair pulled back in the kind of bun you put together in thirty seconds, eyes carrying the particular tiredness of someone who'd opened the place three mornings in a row. She'd been working here since he was in elementary school, a family friend of the owners who had watched him grow up from the other side of that counter.
"Sixteen, right?" She was already pulling up his order.
"Yeah."
"I remember when you couldn't see over the register."
"I could."
"You could not." She tapped at the screen and made a face. "Hey, just so you know. We had to switch suppliers this week."
"Mrs. Zheng mentioned it last time I was in."
Lina sighed. "Yeah. Harbor delays, new compliance inspections, the usual chain getting backed up somewhere. Our regular distributor got caught in some inspection mess so now everything's coming from up north. Close to the Pale border, actually."
"Is that bad?"
"Not bad," she said quickly. "Just different. The oil's a different brand, and the sauce blend is a little off from what we usually use. Mr. Zheng has been taste testing everything all week." She leaned on the counter slightly. "You can be a judge. You order the same thing every time so you'll actually notice."
"So you're telling me there's orange chicken slander on my birthday."
She laughed. "I'm warning you so you don't come back here complaining. Let us know honestly."
A few minutes later she handed him the white plastic bag across the counter, the steam already clouding the top, the little yellow smiley faces printed across the front looking up at him.
"Extra sauce is in there," she said.
"Thanks."
"And hey." She said it softer. "Happy birthday."
He nodded. "Thanks, Lina."
He stepped back outside into the morning air, bag warm in his hand.
He didn't check his phone on the way home. He just walked, letting the route happen around him, the familiar blocks pulling him forward without having to think about it. By the time Mariner Heights came into view the steam inside the bag had beaded up and started running down the sides.
He buzzed through the main door and took the stairs two at a time out of habit. He stopped at 416.
He stood there for a second.
He was half listening for something inside. A pan. The TV at low volume. The particular sound of her moving around the kitchen.
There was nothing.
He unlocked the door and went in.
The couch had the half-folded blanket Marcus had used draped across the cushions. The kitchen was the same as he'd left it. Same quiet. Same still air.
He set the bag on the counter.
"Happy birthday," he said to nobody.
He grabbed a fork instead of chopsticks. He didn't feel like trying that hard today. He opened the first container and the smell came up immediately, warm and sweet and fried, filling the small kitchen in a way that almost made it feel like a normal afternoon.
He looked at the food for a second. Maybe slightly darker than usual but that could have been the light.
He took a bite without overthinking it.
It tasted mostly the same. A little sharper maybe, something slightly different at the back of the sauce. He chewed slowly.
"It's fine," he said out loud, like Lina and Mr. Zheng were standing there waiting on him.
He took another bite. Then another.
By the fourth or fifth he felt it.
Not a taste thing. Something else. A warmth that started deep in his throat and didn't stay there. He stopped chewing and swallowed. The warmth moved downward through his chest, down through his stomach, all the way to his feet, his toes going tight and tingly at the same time.
He blinked hard.
"Okay," he muttered. "You just need sleep. You barely slept."
There was nobody there to agree with him.
The room shifted slightly to the left in a way rooms weren't supposed to. He set his fork down on the edge of the container.
His heartbeat was climbing. Not pounding yet, just faster than it had any reason to be sitting still at a kitchen table.
He pushed his chair back and stood up.
Bad call. The floor moved under him and he grabbed the corner of the table with both hands.
"This isn't funny," he said to the empty apartment.
His stomach twisted hard. The warmth up his spine turned into actual heat, the kind that came from inside rather than outside, moving up through his back and spreading across his shoulders.
His fingers were tingling now. His breathing was going shallow without him doing anything to make it happen.
He staggered sideways and caught the table edge again, his shoulder clipping it, the sweet and sour container sliding an inch and sloshing gently against its lid.
His chest tightened.
He'd had anxiety attacks before. He knew what those felt like, the closing-in, the pressure coming from outside him. This was different. This was something moving through him. Inside him. Something with direction.
His knees hit the floor before he decided to go down.
The room was too bright. He could feel the color leaving his face, the blood somewhere else, somewhere it wasn't supposed to be. The sounds of the apartment dulled around him like someone had pressed cotton against his ears from the inside.
He reached for his phone on the table. It was maybe eight inches away.
His arm wasn't doing what he told it.
His vision started closing from the edges inward, black filling the corners slowly and then faster, the center of the room shrinking down to a point.
He got his fingers to the edge of the table.
His vision flickered once, like a light losing power.
Then everything gave out at once.
The last thing he registered was the sweet and sour sauce slowly dripping off the lip of the container onto the kitchen tile, one drop at a time, patient and indifferent.