Watchful

Rance shifted along with the mass as they waited at the tram platform, a series of brown shoes and brown clothes, huddled in the endless half-night of the city. They shuffled forwards, one by one, as they entered the tram. Above the door, the camera revolved on its hanger, twisting and nodding with sharp, sudden movements, while its aperture audibly increased and decreased. It photographed everyone, temporarily illuminating each person's face with a flash of blue, and then it would whirl, crack, change position, and take the next photograph of the next person. A woman alighted with her baby. It took her photograph first, then immediately jerked down to take a photograph of the child.

He watched it above the stooped heads as much as it watched in return, and thought about all those thousands and thousands of photographs that the tiny little device would stream back to its ultimate master, The System. Rance had no idea, like most residents, what The System correctly looked like, but he imagined it to be a huge mass of floating power, supported by thousands of arms stretched out into the void of its existence, feeding on photographs of tram passengers.

It was his turn. The camera pointed down at his face, whirled, crunched, and flashed a blue light, then moved to capture the next. He squeezed into the tram, holding tight to his bag of varying theatre snacks, and inched his way down to the back, moving between arms, ducking around people, until his head became lodged in an intertangled web of flesh, each with a different smell. Someone moved in close behind him. He could feel their sweat against his back, their breath upon his ear. He lowered his eyes and breathed in deeply through his mouth, holding his bag as tight as he could without crushing it.

There was a flash. The blue light suddenly turned vicious red. A shout rang out. Rance jerked up his head, and between two armpits spied a man dressed just as he, being tossed to the pavement by two enforcement officers. They raised their batons, their surfaces tingling with aether, and brought them down hard, smashing the man across the face. Everyone on the tram lurched to the side, keen to get their taste of the action. The flesh web closed across Rance's eyes. He guessed that The System just did not like the taste of that man's photograph.