The morning her piece went live, the city felt like it was holding its breath.
Olivia woke before her alarm, heart already thudding. Gray light seeped around the edges of her blinds.
She lay there for a second, staring at the ceiling.
“You can’t stop it now,” she told herself. “It’s out of your hands.”
Her phone glowed on the nightstand.
6:01 a.m.
She opened the *Metro* app.
Front and center, under the banner image of the skyline, was her headline.
**FAULT LINES: INSIDE TERRANOVA WITH FOUNDER JAKE MORRISON**
Underneath, a subhead:
*How a kid from South Side rewired the city’s infrastructure—and what happens when one private platform owns the grid.*
Her byline sat beneath.
*By Olivia Martinez.*
Her throat went tight.
She’d had big stories before. The subway cleaners piece had blown up more than she’d expected. The Kensington rezoning had earned her a few angry calls from developers.
But this was… bigger. Visible.
She tapped.
The article loaded. Her words. His quotes. Leah’s skepticism. Hart’s hedging.
Photos: the protest. A shot of Jake in his office, taken by *Metro*’s photographer—him by the window, city blurred behind. A kid at the community center dribbling a basketball under a freshly painted hoop.
She read the piece again, stomach clenching at every turn of phrase that now felt either too sharp or not sharp enough.
The notification ding started halfway through.
Text from Raj: *holy SHIT, Martinez. this slaps.*
Then: *Laura*: *Good. Brace yourself.*
Twitter notifications started stacking like a slot machine.
She set the phone aside.
Made coffee. Stared at her toaster until the bread popped.
By the time she was halfway through her first piece of toast, her phone was buzzing nonstop.
She caved, picked it up.
Twitter was a flood.
Some highlights:
@UrbanistNerd: *This @metro feature by Olivia Martinez on TerraNova is the smartest thing I’ve read on “smart cities” in a minute. Nuanced, angry in the right places.*
@CityWatchNY (Leah): *“Whether that makes Morrison the best equipped to fix a broken system—or just the latest man to profit off it—depends on how closely we’re watching.” 👏👏 @oliviamwrites*
@TechBro420: *lol another jealous journalist dragging someone who actually built something*
@SouthSideMami: *He better fix those damn buses on 12th if he’s gonna have his face on my phone 😒*
Her follower count ticked up in real time.
Her email chimed.
**From:** Jake Morrison **Subject:** Fault Lines
She hesitated.
Opened it.
> Liv— > > You didn’t go easy on me. You also didn’t turn me into a cartoon. > > I can live with that. > > Two things: > > 1) You made my mother cry. (She called me at 6:05 to say she was “proud but still mad I don’t visit enough.” Thanks for that.) > > 2) You buried the best line in the middle. (“Heroes are useful. Gods are not.”) That’s your closer next time. > > Launch team is freaking out. Investors are sending me emails with words like “sobering” and “important perspective.” > > I mean this sincerely: nice work. > > —J
Her heart did a weird flip. *Liv.* *Nice work.*
She typed back before she could overthink it.
> Jake— > > 1) Tell your mother I accept her judgment. > 2) I argued about the closer. Laura liked it where it is. > > I’m not here to be your brand consultant. > > —O
The three dots appeared almost instantly.
> Wouldn’t dare suggest it. > > Can I ask you something off the record?
She chewed her lip.
> You can ask. I reserve the right to ignore.
> Fair. > > Did I… come off the way you see me? Or the way you think the city needs to see me?
The question unsettled her.
> Both, she wrote. That’s the job.
She added, almost despite herself:
> For what it’s worth, you came off human. > > That might be the most dangerous thing.
There was a longer pause this time.
> You always did think I was dangerous.
> I always thought you were reckless, she typed. > > Now you’re just… recklessly powerful.
She set the phone down. Before the typing bubbles could come back and do more damage.
At 9 a.m., Laura called.
“Congratulations,” she said. “You’ve pissed off everyone.”
“Already?” Olivia said.
“We’ve got three op-ed submissions—two calling you a hero for holding Morrison’s feet to the fire, one calling you part of the ‘jealous coastal elite’,” Laura said. “I’m not sure which coast they think South Side is on, but sure.”
Olivia snorted.
“TerraNova’s PR sent a politely worded ‘we appreciated the balanced coverage but take issue with…’ email,” Laura added. “Which, in PR-ese, means ‘we’re annoyed but can’t publicly say that without looking thin-skinned.’”
“And city hall?” Olivia asked.
“Hart wants a follow-up,” Laura said. “Something about clarifying protocol on data oversight. We’ll run a short sidebar online if you have bandwidth.”
“I can make bandwidth,” Olivia said. “I like watching powerful men sweat.”
Laura laughed. “Hold that thought. We’ll need it for Part 2.”
***
At TerraNova, the mood was… electric.
Jake walked into the office with his phone buzzing angrily in his pocket. He’d read the piece twice—once for content, once for tone.
He’d winced at some lines. Nodded at others. Recognized himself in parts he didn’t particularly like.
Carla met him by the coffee machine, tablet in hand.
“Morning,” she said. “You’re trending.”
“That good, huh,” he said.
She flicked her wrist, brought up a feed. He caught snatches of headlines.
*Metro Asks: ‘Do We Want Morrison Running Our Grid Forever?’* *Op-Ed: Smart Cities, Dumb Power Structures.* *Subway Cleaner Profile Writer Goes After TerraNova Founder.*
“That last one’s a compliment,” Carla said. “Sort of.”
He poured coffee—real coffee, not Manny’s—and took a long sip.
“The piece?” he asked.
“You want the PR answer or the real one?” she said.
“Real,” he said.
“It’s excellent,” she said. “And it’s a problem.”
He raised a brow.
“She humanized you,” Carla went on. “People are going to feel… conflicted. That makes it harder for anyone to write you off as either villain or savior. It also makes it harder for us to push a simple narrative.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he said.
“It’s bad for message discipline,” she said. “It’s good for the public discourse. I’m allowed to hold both thoughts at once.”
He studied her.
“You mad at me?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m mad that now every interview request is going to reference that piece and ask for more vulnerability,” she said. “But that’s my job.”
“And the board?” he asked.
She hesitated.
“You have a 10 a.m. call,” she said. “Max is probably already drafting a deck called ‘Addressing Narrative Risk.’”
He groaned.
“Look,” she said. “You didn’t deny the hard questions in the piece. You admitted risk. You talked about walking away from contracts. You basically told the city you’d rather lose money than become Skynet.”
“Isn’t that what we want?” he said. “For people to know we’re not… evil overlords?”
She sighed. “Yes. But some of your investors would prefer you kept that part between us.”
“They can deal,” he said.
She smiled faintly. “That’s the spirit.”
He took another sip.
“And… her?” she asked softly.
He kept his face neutral. “What about her?”
“You going to admit that having Olivia as your designated profile writer is both the best and worst thing that could’ve happened?” she said.
He considered.
“Yes,” he said.
Carla laughed. “At least you’re honest.”
“She did her job,” he said. “Brutal, like you said she’d be. Fair.”
“And personally?” Carla pressed.
He thought of the line about heroes and gods. Of the way she’d described his mother’s hallway without ever walking into it as a reporter.
“She sees me,” he said. “That’s… new. Most people in these pieces see what they need me to be.”
“Dangerous,” Carla repeated what Olivia had said. “She’s dangerous.”
He gave a half-smile. “You have no idea.”
***
By afternoon, Olivia had done a radio hit, a podcast interview, and an internal Q&A for *Metro*’s Slack where interns asked questions like, “Was he hot in person?”
She answered that one with, “My eyes are for facts, not thirst.”
Raj DM’d her: *liar.*
In the middle of planning the second article—on the city’s “Plan B” or lack thereof—her phone rang.
Jake again.
She let it go to voicemail. She had a rule about not picking up for sources on publication day. Too raw. Too likely to say something she’d regret.
A minute later, a text.
*Jake*: Not calling to argue. Calling to invite. Call me back.
She stared.
Invites meant events. Events meant… optics.
She sighed, stepped into an empty conference room, and dialed.
He answered on the second ring.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” she said. “You okay? You sound… less sure of yourself than usual.”
He huffed a laugh. “Got my ass politely handed to me by an 18-year-old intern on our social team,” he said. “She said the piece made me ‘weirdly sympathetic’ and that we need to be careful or we’re going to start trending on thirst accounts.”
Olivia choked. “Excuse me?”
“There are entire Twitter accounts dedicated to ‘hot CEOs,’” he said dryly. “Apparently I’m on some of them.”
She pressed her fingers to her temple. “I did not need that mental image.”
“Welcome to my nightmare,” he said. “Anyway. That’s not why I called.”
“You said invitation,” she said. “I’m braced for horror.”
He blew out a breath.
“We’re doing a pre-launch event,” he said. “Smaller than the main one. More… community focus. Demo for neighborhood orgs. Some city officials. Not just the usual tech press circus.”
“Okay…” she said slowly.
“I want you there,” he said. “Off the record. Not as *Metro*. As… a person who grew up where I did. I want you to see how this lands up close.”
Her chest did a funny little lurch.
“That sounds dangerously like an attempt to sway me,” she said. “Show me your good deeds.”
“If I wanted to sway you, I’d invite you to the big glossy launch with free champagne and terrible canapés,” he said. “This is in a rec center gym. There will be bad coffee and folding chairs.”
“Be still my heart,” she deadpanned.
“So?” he asked.
She paced the small conference room, phone pressed to her ear.
“Who else is going to be there?” she asked.
“Leah from CityWatch,” he said. “We invited her. She RSVP’d with a gif of someone side-eyeing, but she said yes. Some community board reps. Directors from five centers we’ve done infrastructure pilots with. A few small business owners. My mother, if I can convince her to come.”
Olivia nearly tripped.
“Your mother,” she repeated.
“I told her you wrote the piece,” he said. “She said, and I quote, ‘Tell that girl I still have her sweater.’”
Heat flooded her face.
“I left a sweater at your place once,” she said. “She stole it.”
“She says it was a rescue operation,” he said. “It was a crime against knitwear.”
Olivia pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Jake,” she said. “I can’t—seeing your mom—”
“You don’t have to talk to her,” he said quickly. “I just… think you should see what this looks like when it’s not a press release. How the people I claim to be doing this for actually react when we show them.”
“So they can tell me if you’re full of shit in real time,” she said.
“Exactly,” he said. “You trust them more than you trust me.”
She chewed her lip.
“Where?” she asked.
“South Side,” he said. “The center. Thursday. 6 p.m.”
Her heart stuttered.
“You’re doing a launch demo at the community center,” she said.
“Calling it a demo is generous,” he said. “We’re putting up a couple of screens, showing them how the new bus algorithms change their route maps. Talking through an air quality sensor pilot.”
“You’re trying to make South Side your case study,” she said.
“I’m trying to make sure South Side isn’t the last to get the improvements,” he said. “Optics are a bonus.”
She stared at the blank whiteboard in front of her.
If she went, she’d be walking into the heart of everything—his company, her neighborhood, their past.
If she didn’t, she’d be missing a critical piece of context.
“You realize I’ll probably write about it,” she said. “Even if I go as a ‘person’ first.”
“I’m counting on it,” he said.
She sighed.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll be there.”
He let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like relief.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll… see you there.”
“Don’t make this weird,” she said.
“I’m not the one who wrote about my ex in the paper,” he said.
“She wasn’t in the paper,” she said. “Trust me. You don’t want to know what that version looked like.”
He laughed, low and rough.
“I’ll take your word for it,” he said.
She hung up before her resolve could soften any further.
When she stepped back into the bullpen, Raj was leaning on her desk.
“You’re glowing,” he said. “Should I be concerned?”
“It’s the overhead lighting,” she said. “Makes my sweat look dewy.”
He snorted. “You just got off the phone with him, didn’t you.”
“Boundaries,” she said. “Ever heard of them?”
“I’m a journalist,” he said. “We eat boundaries for breakfast.”
She rolled her eyes.
He lowered his voice. “Seriously. You good?”
She hesitated.
“I… think so,” she said. “Ask me again after Thursday.”
“Thursday?” he said, eyes lighting. “Date?”
“Work,” she snapped. “South Side event. Pre-launch thing. Off the record-ish.”
He perked up. “Ooh, field trip. Can I come?”
“No,” she said. “You’re going to Brooklyn Borough Hall to cover the sanitation scandal, remember?”
He groaned. “Oh right. Trash. Glamorous.”
“If you’re good, I’ll bring you back a TerraNova-branded stress ball,” she said.
“Bring me back dirt,” he said. “Stress balls are for people with 401(k)s.”
She laughed.
“Always,” she said.
***
Thursday came fast.
Too fast.
Olivia stood in front of her closet, towel wrapped around her hair, dripping onto the hardwood floor.
What did you wear to watch your ex-boyfriend show off his life’s work in your childhood gym?
Not the denim jacket. Too… teenage.
Not the blazer either. Too “reporter on the scene.”
She settled on black jeans, ankle boots, and a deep green sweater that made her skin look warmer than she felt. Hair down, for once, curling around her shoulders. She told herself it was because it would be cold in the gym, not because Jake had always liked it that way.
On the subway down, she watched South Side roll in through the scratched windows. The billboards changed. The ads shifted from finance firms and Broadway shows to trade schools and discount furniture.
Outside the station, the air smelled like exhaust and corn from a nearby street cart.
The community center loomed at the end of the block, its once-faded brick now painted a rich, fresh red. The new banner—*Thanks to TerraNova, Building Tomorrow Today*—hung a little straighter than the last time she’d seen it.
Inside, the gym felt smaller than she remembered.
The same scuffed wooden floor. The same bleachers. Banners for youth league championships from years when she’d been half the age of the kids now tearing up and down the court.
Tonight, the hoops had been rolled back. Folding chairs formed rough rows facing two big screens on wheeled stands. Extension cords snaked along the floor, taped down in patches.
A projector hummed. The TerraNova logo glowed faintly on the far wall.
People milled—parents holding toddlers, teenagers in hoodies, a couple of old men she recognized from the bodega, arms folded skeptically.
Leah stood near the back, arms crossed, talking to someone with animated hands.
Olivia scanned for Jake.
He was near the front, talking to Director Ortiz, who ran the center. Jeans and a button-down, sleeves rolled. He had a lanyard around his neck like everyone else—*Guest*—instead of some special badge.
As if sensing her, he looked up.
Their eyes met.
He excused himself from Ortiz with a hand on his heart and walked over.
“You came,” he said.
“You invited me,” she said. “It would’ve been rude to ignore.”
He smiled, small.
“You look…” he started, then caught himself. “Cold. You sure that sweater’s enough? The heat in here hasn’t improved since we were kids.”
“I brought a coat,” she said. “Thanks, Mom.”
“You’ll get along great with mine,” he said. “Assuming she shows.”
“She will,” a voice said behind him.
They both turned.
Mrs. Morrison stood there, shorter than Olivia remembered, hair streaked with more gray, but eyes just as sharp.
Olivia’s breath caught.
“Señora Morrison,” she said, the old habit dropping from her tongue.
“Olivia,” she said, opening her arms. “Ven acá.”
Olivia stepped into the hug before she could overthink it.
Mrs. Morrison smelled like laundry detergent and the cheap perfume she’d worn forever.
“You’re too skinny,” she said, pulling back to look her over. “You work too much. You don’t eat.”
“I eat,” Olivia protested weakly.
“You write about my hijo now,” Mrs. Morrison went on. “Make him look good, ah?”
“Ma,” Jake groaned. “She’s not my personal PR.”
“I know,” she said. “She’s better than PR. She knows when you lie.”
Olivia bit back a smile.
“I try,” she said.
Mrs. Morrison patted her cheek. “You come by after,” she said. “We make café.”
“Ma, she has her own mother,” Jake said.
“There is always room for more mothers,” Mrs. Morrison said firmly. “Don’t be selfish.”
She swept away toward a cluster of church ladies, leaving the two of them in her wake.
Jake rubbed a hand over his face.
“Sorry,” he said. “She’s been planning that ambush since I told her you wrote the piece.”
Olivia swallowed, heart still racing.
“She looks good,” she said. “Healthier.”
“TerraNova’s dental plan,” he said. “Kidding. Mostly. She finally gets to go to the doctor when she needs to.”
Something twisted in her.
“I’m glad,” she said quietly.
“Olivia.” Leah appeared at her elbow, eyebrows up. “Did my eyes deceive me, or were you just getting a mom hug from the man who controls my bus app?”
“These things happen,” Olivia said. “Leah, you remember Jake.”
“Oh, I remember,” Leah said, shaking his hand with a grip that could crush bone. “Mr. Panopticon.”
He winced. “You’re really going to make that stick, aren’t you.”
“If the shoe fits,” she said. “This your show?”
“It’s everyone’s show,” he said. “I’m just the one with the microphone for the first twenty minutes.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll steal it later.”
He smiled ruefully. “Wouldn’t expect anything less.”
“Olivia,” Ortiz called from the front. “Come sit with us. We saved you a spot.”
Olivia glanced at Jake.
“Duty calls,” she said.
“You’re not on duty,” he said.
“I’m never not on duty,” she replied.
She slipped into a seat near the front, between Ortiz and a teenage girl chewing gum with bored intensity.
Jake stepped up to the front, took the mic.
He didn’t start with a speech. He started with a question.
“How many of you,” he said, scanning the room, “have ever waited more than twenty minutes for a bus that was supposed to come in ten?”
A ripple of laughter. Almost every hand went up.
“There’s a feeling you get in your stomach around minute twelve,” he said. “You start thinking, *Did I miss it? Did it break down? Is it coming at all?*”
Heads nodded.
“That feeling?” he said. “That’s what I’m trying to get rid of.”
He didn’t say *I grew up here* until a few minutes later. He didn’t trot out his backstory as a shield. He kept it simple. Clear. Started with the system, then slid himself into it.
Olivia watched faces.
Suspicion. Curiosity. Annoyance when he said “data” too many times. Hope when he showed a map of new bus timings, the little lines shifting to fill in some of the gaps.
Leah raised a hand.
He called on her.
“What happens when you change the route and it makes it easier for cops to get to the corner where my nephew hangs out, but not easier for my nephew to get to his job?” she asked. “What’s your algorithm for that?”
Murmurs.
He didn’t flinch.
“We don’t optimize for police response,” he said. “We optimize for service coverage. If we do our job right, your nephew’s bus comes when it says it will. And—this is key—you know why if it changes.”
“Transparency,” Leah said. “Sure. Until the city decides the debate is over and closes the door.”
“That’s why you’re here,” he said. “To bang on it.”
Eyes turned to Olivia.
She sunk a little in her seat, then straightened.
He was right, much as it annoyed her.
She was there to watch. To remember.
As he spoke, as kids asked if the app would drain their batteries and an old man asked if it would work on his flip phone (“We’re working on a non-smartphone option,” Jake promised), Olivia noticed something else.
He listened.
Not performatively. Not with that glazed, *I already know the answer* look she’d seen on so many politicians.
He frowned when a bus driver talked about being blamed for delays the system couldn’t fix. He nodded slowly when Ortiz pointed out that not everyone had data plans.
He didn’t have all the answers. He didn’t pretend to.
When the screens dimmed and people started drifting toward the coffee urns and cookie trays, conversations buzzed.
“He said they won’t keep our data,” someone muttered skeptically near her.
“We’ll see,” another said.
“Better not mess with my morning bus,” a woman warned no one in particular.
Ortiz turned to Olivia.
“Well?” she asked. “You going to write that he’s Saint Jake or the Devil?”
“Neither,” Olivia said. “Both. Depends on the paragraph you stop at.”
Ortiz barked a laugh.
“He’s still the skinny kid with the laptop to me,” she said. “Just with better shoes.”
Olivia glanced at his boots.
Yeah. Better shoes.
“Come on,” Ortiz said, nudging her. “Your mother’s in the hallway, gossiping with mine. You can’t escape.”
Olivia’s stomach dropped.
“Ma’s here?” she said. “She didn’t tell me.”
“She wanted to ‘see with her own eyes,’” Ortiz said. “She also brought flan.”
Of course she had.
Olivia followed Ortiz out into the hallway.
Her mother stood near the trophy case, talking animatedly with Mrs. Morrison and a third woman Olivia vaguely recognized from PTA meetings long ago.
“Ah, mira,” her mother said as Olivia approached. “La estrella.”
“Ma,” Olivia said, kissing her cheek. “You knew about this?”
“You think I don’t know when something is happening in my neighborhood?” her mother said. “Please.”
Mrs. Morrison reached out, squeezed Olivia’s hand.
“You did good,” she said. “You told the truth. It hurt him a little. That’s how I know.”
Olivia’s throat tightened.
“Thank you,” she managed.
Her mother’s gaze sharpened. “Don’t let him use that hurt to crawl back into your heart,” she warned in Spanish, low enough that only Olivia heard.
“Ma,” Olivia hissed.
“I know that look,” her mother said. “He gets in there, he will rearrange the furniture. You don’t need that right now.”
“I’m not—” Olivia started.
Jake appeared at the end of the hall, dragged into a sidebar by Leah and a councilwoman waving a folder. He looked tired. Energized. Alive in a way she recognized from a thousand nights over glowing screens.
Yeah.
He’d rearranged her furniture once.
She wasn’t sure her heart could afford another renovation.
“I’m working,” she told her mother. “This is… work.”
“Work doesn’t text you ‘good night’ with little dots,” her mother said, suspicious of technology but astute about its patterns.
Olivia closed her eyes briefly.
“You went through my phone?” she demanded.
“I looked when you left it on the kitchen table,” her mother said, unrepentant. “You dismiss the name too fast.”
“Oh my God,” Olivia muttered.
Mrs. Morrison laughed. “Mira, we win. They are both angry at us now. That means we are doing our job.”
Olivia looked between the two women. Years of shared hardship etched into their faces. The same lines, deepened in different directions.
“Fine,” she said. “You win. But for the record? I’m not sixteen. I know what I’m doing.”
Her mother arched a brow. “Do you?”
That was the question, wasn’t it?
As the evening wound down, as kids drifted out and the screens flickered to black, Jake found her by the bleachers.
“Well?” he asked. “Hit me.”
She looked at him.
“You did okay,” she said.
“Just okay?” he said.
“You lost some people when you said ‘model optimization’ three times,” she said. “But you got them back when you talked about their actual bus stops.”
He winced. “Noted.”
“You listened,” she added.
“That’s the easy part,” he said. “The hard part is… not breaking what they already have while trying to fix what they don’t.”
“Welcome to city politics,” she said.
They stood in a pocket of silence.
“Thanks for coming,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” she said.
He shifted closer, just a fraction. Not enough for anyone else to notice. Enough for her to feel the heat of him.
“You going to write about this?” he asked.
“Probably,” she said. “Not as a follow-up profile. As a scene. For the infrastructure piece.”
“Of course,” he said. “Can’t give you a gym full of symbolism and expect you not to use it.”
She smiled slightly.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t write about your mom offering me leftovers.”
He groaned. “She already asked if you’re ‘eating enough in that expensive city.’”
“She asked you that too?” she said.
“Every week,” he said. “She thinks my fridge is full of ‘fancy air.’”
A laugh escaped her.
He watched her, something soft in his gaze.
“I missed that sound,” he said quietly.
Her breath caught.
“You’re doing it again,” she said.
“Doing what?” he asked.
“Making this into something,” she said. “This is not… a reunion tour.”
He took a breath, then nodded.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
She studied him.
“You’re really trying,” she said.
“I am,” he said. “You set a boundary. I keep stepping toward it. That’s… not fair.”
“At least you know it,” she said.
They stood there for another heartbeat.
His hand brushed hers as a kid barreled past, jostling them together.
Her pulse jumped.
He drew back like he’d been burned.
“Goodnight, Olivia,” he said.
“Goodnight,” she said.
She watched him walk away, talk to Leah again, hug a volunteer.
Her mother’s words echoed.
*He will rearrange the furniture.*
Her phone buzzed.
*Raj*: updates from the field? did he cry?
She took a picture of the emptying gym instead—the folding chairs, the scuff marks, the glow where the screens had been.
*Olivia*: no tears. just fault lines.
She tucked the phone away and went to help stack chairs.
---