Assess or Ignore

When Mary looked across the campus, everything was the same, yet something in her field of vision had changed. A new bar appeared in the upper left corner of her HUD. A stylized intruder rendered in minimalist white.

Mary – V 649

Assessment Privileges Structure Update. Your assessment privileges remain active.

She felt her back straighten, not out of pride, but because the system expected it.

A notification immediately flashed in the upper right:

Behavior Point: -10 * Unprompted gaze shift during interaction.*

A blinking box.

Assess / ignore?

This was new, and something stirred in the back of her mind. Until now, you could only award points; the system itself never provided direction or input. But GRACE couldn’t tell her how she was supposed to feel about any of this. Now GRACE was judging behavior, and it was Mary’s job to confirm the judgment.

She ignored the notifications. Her jaw tightened without her realizing it. Beside her, Theresa sat silently, staring at her bread. She was blinking a little too fast. It had been activated for her too. Angel inhaled, barely audible, and shifted one shoulder, casually, but with just a little too much intention. Her eyes drifted away, searching. In vain.

In the center of Angel’s HUD, a number appeared:

150

Below it: Influence score too low. Interface restricted. No access to behavioral notifications. Influence: 0.

Angel sighed and glanced to the side, the corners of her mouth tight.

“Fuck,” she muttered under her breath.

Something new flashed across Mary’s HUD:

inappropriate language / public interaction * Behavior Point: -5.*

A split second later:

Assess or ignore?

Mary hesitated. Beside her, Theresa’s eyes moved across her HUD. She responded smoothly, without thinking.

Angel frowned. “What?”

Mary saw it happen: the notification disappeared, and Angel’s score dropped by five points.

Theresa shrugged casually.

“Those are the rules, right? Isn’t that what you and your little club came up with?” Her voice was coated in a thin layer of sweetness.

Mary felt her cheeks burn.

“T.”

Theresa’s eyes stayed cool. “Seriously, Mare. What did you think? That none of this would actually matter?” Angel tapped a fingernail against her water bottle. The taps sounded louder than usual.

“I’m fucked, aren’t I?”

She said it with a crooked grin, but her eyes weren’t smiling. Another notification flashed across Mary’s HUD:

Repeated inappropriate language. * Behavior Point: -10.*

Mary felt her eyes pulled toward the choice: assess or ignore. For a moment, she noticed the same thing in Theresa: her eyes lingered just a little too long to the right, on the selection panel. But Theresa did nothing.

She kept her eyes fixed on her sandwich, as if hoping the notification would disappear on its own.

Mary tightened her grip on the bottle.

“Angel…” She kept her voice low. “You need to be careful.” Angel raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

Mary swallowed. “That number… the way it’s dropping… I don’t know what it means. Nobody does.” Angel shrugged, slowly, almost slowly enough to pass for disinterest.

“Don’t you?” she asked, her voice just a little too sharp.

“You’re with GRACE, aren’t you?”

Mary opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“I don’t know any more than you do,” she finally said.

Theresa pushed her sandwich away and pulled her knees up, her expression cool.

“Maybe that’s true,” she said.

Her tone was light, but Mary felt the sting beneath it.

Mary’s eyes flicked back to the HUD. The warning appeared without warning.

Unauthorized communication will result in a revised score.

She closed her eyes for a moment, seeking shelter. But when she opened them, the message was still there on the HUD, unwavering. What kind of warning was that? Were they not allowed to talk about GRACE? Why did that stupid system never explain anything clearly? Mary wanted to say something, opened her mouth, then closed it again. Unauthorized communication… maybe it was better to keep quiet.

Angel tapped the bottle one more time. The plastic vibrated softly against the tabletop, the sound lingering in the silence.

Theresa looked up at the sky and said, “Too bright today.”

It sounded like a comment, but felt like a boundary.

Mary dismissed another notification without looking. Pure reflex.

The air above them shimmered in the sun, but the shadows felt closer. Mary realized that until today, she’d chosen what she saw. Now GRACE was choosing what she had to choose.