My Warden System

Theo Ruiz died on the first night of the Bleed, when something with lantern ribs and backward knees put an antler through his chest on a hillside the news was still calling a gas leak.

Then he woke up in a body bag, healed, starving, and registered.

Not to the System humanity would get three weeks later. To the other one. The Verdant Registry, the green interface that manages the invading ecosystem, has Theo filed as FAUNA, CLASS III: one of its animals, with a feeding schedule, a body-condition score, and a winter cull list. It doesn't answer questions. It doesn't reverse growth. And it has no idea what to do with a vessel that finishes its shift and goes back to work saving lives.

When Integration hands the rest of the world its blue windows, every appraisal skill in the city can suddenly read exactly what Theo is: a Category One hazard worth 400 XP to any stranger with a kitchen knife. His new partner is the best reader in the county. The purge units are licensed and competent. And the Registry keeps issuing objectives a paramedic can't obey.