The waiting room looked the same in every hospital Olivia had ever been in—too bright, too cold, chairs that pretended to be ergonomic and failed.
She sat in one of them, hunched forward, elbows on her knees. The thin plastic wristband the triage nurse had made her put on bit into her skin every time she flexed her hand.
Her mother sat opposite, hands wrapped in a white-knuckled knot around her purse straps. A Styrofoam cup of untouched coffee cooled on the seat between them. The fluorescent lights washed her olive skin a sickly yellow.
“Third time this year,” her mother said, voice small with anger. “He doesn’t listen. He climbs the ladder himself, he says, ‘I don’t need help, I’m fine.’”
“Slipped?” Olivia asked quietly.
Her mother nodded, eyes bright. “He was fixing the gutter for that señora on 12th. Fell. Hit his head, his arm… Dios sabe.”
Olivia’s stomach twisted.
They’d arrived in a blur—her sprinting from the subway, her mother’s frantic wave in front of the ambulance bay, the breathless rush of “Martinez, Miguel, fall from height” to the triage nurse. Then doors had swallowed her uncle and the ER had done what ERs did: cloaked itself in silence and long stretches of not knowing.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She ignored it.
“Your cousin is on his way,” her mother said. “He had to get someone to cover his shift.”
“What about Tía Rosa?” Olivia asked. “She know?”
“Sí,” her mother said. “She’s home with the little ones. They don’t need to see this.”
Her voice wobbled on *this*.
Olivia reached across, covered her mother’s hand with her own.
“He’s strong, Ma,” she said. “You know how many times he’s fallen off that stupid ladder and bounced back?”
“Not like this,” her mother whispered. “He’s older. The bones… they don’t heal the same.”
Footsteps squeaked on linoleum. A woman’s voice called a last name that wasn’t theirs. Somewhere, a monitor beeped steadily.
Her phone buzzed again.
She fished it out, irritation ready, then saw the name.
*Jake.*
Of course.
You left him on a street under neon. He watched you run.
She thumbed the message open.
> You okay?
> I heard “hospital” and my brain supplied all the worst-case scenarios.
She exhaled slowly.
Of all the roles he’d played in her life, *emotional support texter* wasn’t one she’d expected him to audition for.
> I’m fine, she wrote back. > My uncle fell off a ladder. ER. Waiting.
The dots pulsed.
> Which hospital?
She hesitated.
It wasn’t like he could parachute in and fix this with code. But there was something about letting him know exactly where she was that felt… exposed.
She typed anyway.
> St. Luke’s on 145th. > Don’t come. I mean it.
He replied almost instantly.
> I wasn’t going to crash your family crisis, Liv. > (Okay, I thought about it. Then I pictured your mom’s face. I value my life.)
> Do you need anything? Food? Coffee that doesn’t taste like fluorescent lights?
A corner of her mouth twitched.
> I’m okay, she sent. > Just… waiting.
> They haven’t told us anything yet.
He didn’t say *it’s going to be fine.* He didn’t send a prayer-hands emoji like certain well-meaning colleagues who barely knew her would have.
He wrote:
> Waiting is the worst part.
> Remember when we sat outside that scholarship office for three hours waiting for them to call your name?
Her throat tightened. *Don’t.*
> You wore a shirt that still had the sale tag on it, she shot back. > You thought it looked ‘professional.’
> It *did* look professional, he replied. > If they were blind.
She huffed out a small laugh, tension easing a notch.
Across from her, her mother watched her, eyes narrowed.
“¿Quién es?” she asked. “Who are you smiling at like that?”
Olivia slid the phone under her thigh.
“No one,” she said. “Memes.”
Her mother snorted. “If that boy is texting you, tell him I said to stay at his computer.”
“He’s not—” she started, then stopped. “I’m not doing this with you in a waiting room.”
Her mother opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked past Olivia’s shoulder.
A doctor in blue scrubs approached, chart in hand, expression professional-neutral.
“Family of Miguel Martinez?” he said.
Olivia and her mother both shot to their feet.
“How is he?” her mother demanded. “Is he awake? Can we—”
The doctor held up a hand, calming. “He’s stable,” he said. “He has a broken ulna—forearm bone—and a mild concussion. No internal bleeding that we can see. We’re going to keep him overnight for observation because of the head injury, but right now, he’s doing well considering the fall.”
Olivia sagged against the chair, knees weak with relief.
“Gracias a Dios,” her mother breathed, crossing herself.
“Can we see him?” Olivia asked.
“In a few minutes,” the doctor said. “They’re setting his arm now. He was more upset about the idea of not working for a few weeks than anything else.”
“That sounds like him,” Olivia muttered.
The doctor offered a faint smile. “He’s asking for his sisters,” he added. “And for… an Olivia.”
Her heart clenched.
“I’m here,” she said.
“Good,” the doctor said. “I’ll send a nurse to get you when you can go back.”
He moved on to the next cluster of anxious relatives.
Olivia slumped into her chair.
“He’s okay,” her mother whispered, as if saying it too loud might jinx it. “He’s okay.”
“For now,” Olivia said softly. “We’ll bully him into physical therapy later.”
Her phone buzzed again.
> Stable. Broken arm, mild concussion. > They’re keeping him overnight, she texted.
> That’s… relatively good news, Jake replied.
> I’m glad.
> You okay?
This time, she didn’t try to minimize.
> Tired. > Scared. > Relieved.
> You know. Feelings.
> Gross, he wrote.
> You want me to have someone send food to your mom? Or the apartment? I can get a service to—
She cut him off.
> No.
> We’ve got it. Ma’s already planning a two-week soup rotation in her head.
He sent a little smiling-face with a sweat bead. The only emoji he ever used unironically.
> Tell her I said hi, he wrote. > On second thought, don’t. She’ll tell me to stop bothering you.
> She already did, Olivia replied.
> Fair. > Text me when you get home?
She hesitated.
It was such a small thing, that ask. A line between *I care* and *I’m keeping tabs on you.*
> Maybe, she sent back. > Depends how loud my cousins are.
> I grew up with them too, he wrote. > I know the decibel levels.
> Hang in there, Liv.
She slid the phone back into her pocket.
“Was that him?” her mother asked.
“Ma,” Olivia groaned.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me,” her mother said. “He texted me too. Asking if you’re okay.”
Olivia stared. “He did *what*?”
Her mother looked smug. “He has my number, you know. From before. He said, ‘Señora, I don’t want to bother Olivia if she’s busy, is she…’”
She mimed his earnestness.
Olivia pressed her hands to her face.
“Of course he did,” she muttered. “He’s going to network his way into my feelings.”
Her mother tsked. “Your feelings are your own problem. Just don’t forget what I said.”
“About… furniture,” Olivia said dryly.
“Exactly,” her mother said. “He is very good with plans. He will rearrange everything and call it ‘optimization.’”
***
By the time Olivia finally made it back to her apartment—midnight, hair smelling faintly like hospital antiseptic, shoulders aching from the unyielding waiting room chairs—she was too wrung out to do anything but kick off her boots and collapse onto the couch.
Her uncle had cracked jokes through his painkillers about hospital food and “fancy machines.” Her cousins had filled the small room with their noise. Her mother had oscillated between scolding Miguel for being careless and kissing his forehead.
When they’d finally shooed her out—*Go home, mija, sleep. I’ll call if anything changes*—she’d stumbled onto the subway in a daze.
Now, in the relative quiet of her tiny living room, the day caught up to her in a wave of exhaustion so intense it was almost nausea.
Her phone buzzed once, insistently.
She considered ignoring it. Then reached for it anyway.
*Jake*: Home?
> Yeah, she typed. > Uncle’s doped up and flirting with his nurse. > So he’s fine.
> Glad to hear it, he wrote.
> You sleep? Or at least… lie down and stare at the ceiling like a normal person with anxiety?
A huff of tired laughter escaped her.
> Option B, she replied. > Though the ceiling has a crack now that looks like New Jersey. > Very distracting.
> I’ll send someone to fix it, he wrote.
> Absolutely not, she shot back. > I’m not letting TerraNova contractors into my apartment. > I like my data in peace.
> I wasn’t going to send a *TerraNova* contractor. > I was going to send my tío.
She blinked.
> Your tío is…?
> A handyman, he wrote. > Best drywall guy in South Side. > He thinks I’m “playing with computers all day” and doesn’t understand what the fuss is about. > He’d fix your ceiling for a plate of your mom’s arroz con pollo.
Her chest squeezed.
> Tell him we’re even, she sent. > I wrote about his nephew. > We’re square.
> That’s not how favors work in our neighborhood, he wrote. > There’s always interest.
> Go to sleep, Jake, she typed. > Some of us have to wake up and dismantle your power structures in the morning.
> I’m counting on it, he replied.
> Night, Liv.
She stared at the last word.
Her finger hovered over the keyboard.
> Night, she sent, and set the phone face down.
Her ceiling cracked, Jake’s jokes, her uncle’s weak grin—they all swirled together as she drifted toward sleep.
Tomorrow, Part Two.
Tomorrow, she turned her pen fully on the system Jake had built.
Tonight, just for a few hours, she let herself be tired and nothing else.
***
Part Two dropped on Monday.
If the first piece had made ripples, this one made waves.
**WHO OWNS YOUR CITY?** the headline demanded.
Subhead: *TerraNova runs New York’s infrastructure—but what happens if the city wants out?*
Olivia’s byline again. Leah’s name in the credits as a contributor.
The article tracked the contracts. The escrow clauses Hart had alluded to. The absence of any real Plan B if TerraNova walked or failed.
It quoted code ethicists about proprietary algorithms making public decisions. It laid out, in plain language, what it meant that a private company’s software sat at the center of so many city systems.
It also quoted Jake.
Not the soft lines. The sharper ones.
> “If we ever become the reason a city can’t serve its people equitably, we’ve failed,” Morrison says. “At that point, I’d rather see our code burned than used to hurt the communities we say we care about.”
The last paragraph:
> He is earnest. He is stubborn. He is, by all accounts, sincere. > > But as any South Side kid could tell you, good intentions don’t keep the lights on. Systems do. > > Right now, one company’s code is woven through the grid that powers our trains, our taps, our streetlights. We should ask ourselves—not just if we trust one founder today, but who might be standing at the controls tomorrow.
Within hours, Twitter was aflame again.
@SecondAveSage: *Terranova is the Amazon Web Services of NYC and we’re only now asking “what if it goes down?” Yikes.*
@CityWatchNY: *@oliviamwrites nails it again: the question isn’t “is Morrison a good guy?” it’s “why is our entire system perched on one stack?”*
@techlawyer88: *The code escrow section is wild. City essentially admits there’s no real exit option. That’s leverage.*
City hall issued a responding statement within four hours, full of reassurances and references to “robust contractual safeguards.”
TerraNova’s corporate account tweeted a thread about “our commitment to open standards and community input,” clearly prepped by Carla and her team.
Jake texted her once.
> It’s good.
> I look like a man who thinks he’s less dangerous than his company. > Which is… not inaccurate.
She sent back:
> You look like part of the system. > That’s the point.
He didn’t argue.
***
The council hearings were set for the following week.
Two sessions, public. One focused on the tech, one on the contracts.
Olivia got a front-row press seat. Leah got a slot on the citizen testimony list.
Jake got a subpoena.
He texted her a screenshot of the official letter, the city crest at the top.
> Guess I’m going to City Hall 😬
> You coming?
> Front row, she replied. > Bring popcorn.
> I’ll bring charts, he wrote.
She believed that.
What she didn’t know, yet, was how well he’d keep his temper when a council member tried to turn him into a cartoon villain on camera.
Or how watching him burst out of the glossy, controlled CEO mold in a public hearing would change something fundamental in how she saw him.
Not softer.
Not harder.
Just… more real.
And that, more than any carefully staged rooftop shot, was dangerous.
For him.
For her.
For the city trying to decide what to make of the man behind the grid pulsing beneath its streets.
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