Jane walks for nearly half a block before the phone vibrates.
It isn’t urgent. Just a short, deliberate buzz in her pocket—more like someone clearing their throat than trying to get her attention.
She keeps walking for a few steps before checking it.
LOCATION CONFIRMATION REQUESTED
Jane stops at the corner and studies the screen without touching anything.
“Leo.”
“I see it.”
“That was quick.”
“It means the classification stage finished.”
She tilts the phone slightly, reading the message again.
CONFIRM CURRENT LOCATION
Two buttons sit beneath it.
YES
NOT NOW
Jane watches traffic move through the intersection while she considers it. A cyclist rolls past with the steady impatience of someone late for something small but important. Across the street a man is arguing with a parking meter that appears to be winning.
“I don’t like systems that pretend this is optional,” she says.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
“It technically is.”
“That’s the worst kind.”
She taps NOT NOW.
The notification disappears.
Nothing replaces it.
For a moment the street simply resumes being a street. Cars roll through the junction. A delivery van blocks half the lane while the driver unloads crates and pretends not to notice the horn behind him.
Jane pockets the phone and continues walking.
Morning traffic hums beside her. Someone is unloading bread trays outside a café further down the block, and every time the door opens the smell of coffee drifts into the street like a small advertisement.
After a few seconds she says, “I miss when problems stayed in one place.”
“Systems prefer mobility,” Leo replies.
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
They reach the crossing. Jane stops and waits at the light while a bus pulls away from the stop across the road, releasing a tired hiss of air as it goes.
The café from the ghost charge sits on the opposite corner.
She notices it immediately.
“That’s annoying.”
“What is?”
“That café.”
“The one from the charge.”
“Yes.”
Leo pauses.
“That might be coincidence.”
Jane watches a man step out of the café holding two takeaway cups and a paper bag folded neatly over a croissant. He balances them with careful concentration, like the morning might collapse if he spills either one.
“You don’t sound convinced,” she says.
“I’m open to being wrong.”
The pedestrian light stays red longer than usual.
Jane waits.
Traffic passes in short impatient bursts while the crossing counter ticks down its slow digital countdown.
A few seconds later her phone buzzes again.
This time she doesn’t check it immediately.
When she does, the notification reads:
SUGGESTION: NEARBY CAFé
Jane looks across the road at the café again.
Then back at the phone.
“That’s subtle.”
“They’re being helpful.”
“They’re being persistent.”
She pockets the phone and waits for the light to change.
After a moment she says, “If I go in there, does that count as cooperation?”
“Yes.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You become harder to predict.”
The crossing light finally turns green.
Jane steps into the road.
Halfway across she says, “That sounds like a challenge.”
“It probably is.”
She reaches the other side and keeps walking without turning toward the café.
The phone stays quiet.
Ten steps pass.
Then twenty.
Jane notices the silence before the next notification appears.
“That’s interesting.”
“What?”
“They stopped asking.”
“They were testing proximity.”
“So turning the corner solved it.”
“For now.”
Jane slows slightly as she passes a newsagent window.
The glass is crowded with lottery tickets, disposable vapes and neon energy drinks — the sort of optimism that seems to run almost entirely on caffeine and bad odds.
“That’s weirdly polite,” she says.
“They prefer nudging to forcing.”
“Politeness again.”
“It usually is.”
Jane turns the corner and slips the phone deeper into her pocket.
---
REFRAME
The alarm had stopped.
The process hadn’t.
