Chapter 2: The Unverified Boy Trends at Eleven Million

The first thing APEX sends is not a person.

It is a notification.

It arrives on the shared unit still in Mira's hand, cutting across the live stream with a banner I can read from the floor: MERIDIAN INTAKE CONFIRMATION — VOLUNTEER SLOT SECURED — ZONE 12-GRAY — CONTESTANT ID: PENDING VERIFICATION. The banner is the corporate gold that I have seen on other people's screens my entire life, on borrowed feeds and public terminals and the broadcast nodes bolted to the water-ration walls. It has never addressed me before. It looks wrong against the cracked screen. Like a formal letter delivered to a condemned building.