That night, unable to resist, he touched her wrist as he helped her with her coat. The Clockworm pulsed. A single second transferred. Her grey glow didn’t even flicker.
But Jinhai felt it. Null-Seeders were trained to sense quantum deficits. She turned, slow, and took his hand. Not in anger. In pity.
Now he walks the under-borough again, but differently. He finds leeches—common, premium, uppremium—and he touches their wrists. Not to steal. To witness. The worm is gone, but the resonance remains. He feels their greed, their panic, their hollow hunger.
Wei chose the latter. They removed the Clockworm and replaced it with a leash—a biogenic monitor that would shock his heart if he stole for himself.
He learned she was a “Null-Seeder”—an ascetic who had donated 90% of her time to a public arboretum. She lived day to day, hour to hour, and smiled.
“So are you,” she said, not looking up. “You just have more zeros on your tombstone.”
For thirty years, Wei lived well. He bought a penthouse view of the methane gardens, ate real pork, and slept twelve hours a night—a vulgar display of wealth in a world where sleep was a transaction.