Atrium Assessor

My number doubled when I looked toward the elevators. It had risen when I touched the rail. When I lied about why we'd come, it flashed red.

We stood on flooded marble under a twenty-story fall of light. Perfume lingered beneath the mold. Inside the square of sun waited the Assessor, a transparent column of suit cloth and escalator teeth with contract tags drifting through it. It had no eyes. Gold numbers floated over all our heads. The building answered them: escalators ran backward into deep water, and glass doors opened only for the lowest value.

Mae broke a display case and threw the gems into the flood. It couldn't decide what to make of the unpriced ruin. We crossed while the tags argued.

It assigns value before restricting movement. Possessions and credentials change the number. So do injuries, stated purpose, and the old institution's surviving prejudices. The architecture then favors high or low values according to that institution. The Assessor stays inside it and makes the building prevent departure.

A lie raises suspicion. A truthful act it cannot classify is harder to process. Gifts and shared credentials can blur individual prices, especially with collective movement. Destroyed valuables create a brief contradiction. Repeat the vandalism and it learns to price that as a liability.