The number above my head has been 51 for three years. I stopped checking six months ago.

Not because I made peace with it. Because checking made it worse. Every glance at a reflective surface, every store window, every rain puddle, and there it was. Fifty-one. Amber holographic text, three inches above my hairline, tracking me through every mundane hour of my mundane life.

The algorithm called it my Romantic Value. The Bureau of Romantic Standards called it a public service. I called it a leash I couldn't see.

I swiped my transit card and stepped onto the 7:42. Same car, same seat by the door. The train was full of numbers. A 73 in a tailored coat. A 44 with headphones, chin on chest. Two 60s sitting close, their scores nearly touching when they leaned together.

Nobody looked at me.

That was the thing about being a 51. Not low enough to pity. Not high enough to notice. The exact center of irrelevance.

The processing center where I worked occupied the fourteenth floor of a building the color of old teeth. I scanned in at the lobby. The reader flashed green and displayed my name, my department, my number. As if any of those things might have changed overnight.

"Morning, Kouri." Jessup from the next pod. He was a 54. We had a careful, tier-appropriate cordiality.

"Morning."

My desk was a rectangle of beige in a sea of beige. Monitor, keyboard, the succulent I overwatered on principle. Above every workstation, numbers hovered like small suns. You could read the entire office hierarchy without checking a single title.

I processed data. Specifically, I processed consumer intake forms for a housing insurance company that used RV scores as a risk factor. The irony was not lost on me. I chose not to think about it, which was its own form of irony.

Lunch was leftovers at my desk. Rice and whatever vegetables had been cheapest at the tiered grocery near my apartment. Tier-50 pricing. Functional, not fresh.

Ren called at 2:15. "Drinks tonight?"

"Where?"

"Kepler's. Mid-tier. That place between the 40 district and the 60 border."

I almost said no. I'd been saying no for months, building a life small enough that nothing in it could disappoint me. But Ren's voice had that edge she got when she was checking on me without admitting she was checking on me.

"Sure."

"Seven?"

"Seven."

Kepler's was amber light and scratched wood. A bar that didn't require a minimum RV to enter, which made it the kind of place where 40s and low 60s mixed without pretending they were equal. The bartender was a 58. I ordered whiskey because it was cheaper than wine and faster than beer.

Ren arrived late, her pixie cut freshly dyed a shade of indigo the algorithm probably flagged as nonconforming. Her number read 44, down from the 58 she'd had before the public mental health episode three years ago. She never talked about it. I never asked.

"You look like you didn't sleep."

"I slept."

"You look like you slept badly."

I took a sip. "I slept. It wasn't interesting."

She ordered something with ginger and told me about a project at her design studio, a client who wanted a brand identity that "transcended numerical bias," which meant they wanted to sell products to all tiers without admitting that's what they were doing.

I half-listened. The bar filled. Numbers floated above every head like a constellation of human worth, amber and gold and the occasional bright flare of someone above 80 who'd wandered in from a better neighborhood.

The door opened at 8:47. I know the time because Ren was mid-sentence about font choices and I glanced at my phone.

The room shifted. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just a subtle recalibration of attention, the way attention reorganizes around a disruption.

He was tall. Dark hair, cropped close on the sides. A wool coat that fit like it was made for him, because it probably was. And above his head, in bright gold text that made everything else look dim: 97.

Ninety-seven.

A 97 in a mid-tier bar.

Conversations didn't stop, but they stumbled. Eyes tracked him the way they track anything valuable in a room full of people trained to measure value on sight.

He sat at the bar. Four stools from me. He ordered a beer, which seemed wrong somehow. Too ordinary for a number that high.

Ren followed my gaze. "Don't."

"I'm not doing anything."

"You're staring."

I looked away. Drank. Listened to Ren's font anecdote. Did not look at the man with the 97 above his head.

I looked once. He was looking at the television above the bar. Score ticker. Celebrity numbers scrolling in real time. He watched it the way I used to watch mine in store windows.

Like the numbers bored him.

The train home was nearly empty. I stood by the door, watching the city smear past in streaks of light. Numbers on the platform, numbers on the billboards, numbers floating above the heads of strangers who had no idea they were being graded.

A man with a 97 had sat four stools away from me in a bar where he didn't belong, and I was thinking about it.

I leaned my temple against the cold glass.

Stop it.

The thing about being a 51 is that wanting things above your station isn't just foolish. It's data. The algorithm tracks desire, too. Where your eyes go. Who makes your pulse rise. Who you search for on the public directory. Every want is a variable, and every variable gets scored.

I got off at my stop. Walked the three blocks to my building. The hallway smelled like dryer sheets and old carpet. My apartment was small, clean, the same. The RV display board across the street cast amber light through my window, a billboard showing the neighborhood's average score. Forty-nine.

I ate leftover rice. I washed the dish. I brushed my teeth.

In the bathroom mirror, the number floated above my head. Fifty-one. Amber text.

I turned off the light before I could read it clearly.

On the train home, I thought. A man with a 97 sat across from me. Not across. Four stools down. Same difference. He didn't look at me. He looked at the ticker.

But when I left, I caught movement in my peripheral vision. His head, turning.