"Space is fundamental in any form of power."
— Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 1975
March, D-55, two months before the election
Gabriel had called that morning from the payphone at the tabac on rue de Rennes. A gesture twenty years out of date: the receiver pressed to his ear, the coin sliding into the slot. He had asked to speak with VIVRE's Division of Public Affairs. He had said his name was Gabriel Moreau, municipal councillor, interested in a public-private partnership for digital infrastructure in the 14th arrondissement.
They had given him an appointment for four o'clock.
He arrived at La Défense at a quarter to four. The station smelled of hot metal and the passage of bodies. He rode the escalator up, blinked in the daylight, and there was the tower — forty floors of mirror glass, so clean it seemed to absorb the sky rather than reflect it.
He had worn a suit he hadn't put on since the campaign. Dark grey. The white shirt ironed twice. The tie he hated.
The glass door slid open without his touching it.
Inside was an atrium of white marble and subdued light. The walls were screens: advertisements for VivreSanté, VivreFinance, VivreConnect. A woman smiled with open hands while text scrolled beneath her: VIVRE is with you in every moment of your life.
Gabriel approached the reception desk. The woman behind the counter wore her hair pulled back, an electronic badge blinking softly.
— Monsieur Moreau?
— Yes.
— Please place your hand on the reader.
He placed his hand. The machine made a brief sound.
— You're expected on the twenty-third floor. Take the lifts on the right. Monsieur Delaunay will come to meet you.
The waiting area was a circle of white armchairs arranged around a glass coffee table. No clocks. Nothing to indicate the time. The wall screens looped the same advertisements: a man jogging through a park, a woman checking her bank account on her phone, a family laughing around a table, golden light, perfect teeth.
Gabriel counted the seconds between each repetition.
Thirty-seven.
A calculated interval. Not long enough to grow bored, not short enough to notice the repetition.
He waited six minutes.
A man stepped out of the lift. Thirty-five or so. Navy suit, no tie. A smile that seemed bolted to his face.
— Monsieur Moreau? Marc Delaunay. Director of Stakeholder Relations.
He extended his hand. Gabriel shook it. The palm was dry, the grip measured.
— Thank you for seeing me, said Gabriel.
— The pleasure is entirely mine. We're always glad to speak with local elected officials. This way, please.
The lift rose without a sound. Numbers scrolled across a luminous display. Delaunay kept his eyes straight ahead, hands clasped behind his back.
— You're a councillor in the 14th, is that right?
— Yes.
— A lovely neighbourhood. I lived on rue d'Alésia when I was a student.
— It's a good neighbourhood.
— What are you working on at the moment?
Gabriel had prepared the answer. Fibre optics. Digital coverage in underserved areas. Subsidies for small businesses. True words, emptied of their substance.
Delaunay nodded, eyes fixed on the rising numbers.
— Fascinating.
The lift stopped. The doors opened onto a corridor of glass and steel. The walls were transparent: you could see the open-plan offices, the rows of desks, the lit screens, the heads bent over work. Young men in white shirts. Women in tailored jackets. Badges glinting.
Delaunay led him to a meeting room. An oval table. Eight chairs. A carafe of water on a silver tray.
— Please, sit down.
Gabriel sat. Delaunay took the chair opposite, set an empty folder on the table, produced a pen.
— So, tell me about your project.
Gabriel spoke. He described needs, budgets, timelines. He used the words he had learned in municipal meetings: synergy, roadmap, deliverables. Words that meant nothing and everything at once.
Delaunay listened. He took notes Gabriel couldn't read. He nodded at the appropriate moments.
— Very interesting, he said when Gabriel had finished. Truly. We actually have an offering that could meet your needs.
He pulled open a drawer beneath the table, retrieved a tablet, slid it toward Gabriel.
The screen showed a presentation. Charts. Figures. Promises.
Gabriel watched the images scroll past. He nodded. He asked questions. He did his job.
And then, in the middle of a sentence about digital sovereignty, he said:
— I was also wondering. Do you know a company called Sémaphore?
Delaunay's smile didn't move. Not a flicker. Not a twitch.
— I don't know that company, Monsieur Moreau. What is it?
— A start-up. In data processing.
— I see. No, I don't think so. We work with many partners, but that name doesn't ring a bell.
He spoke as though reading from a script. The words came too easily. Surprise should have slowed a sentence, made a gaze hesitate. Nothing.
— Are you sure? said Gabriel.
— Quite sure. But I can check with our teams if you'd like.
— It doesn't matter.
— I'll make a note all the same. You never know.
He wrote something in his folder. The pen moved with precision. Gabriel studied his hands: no tremor, no sweat.
The conversation continued. Delaunay spoke of public-private partnerships, responsible digital practices, citizen trust. The words were smooth, polished, without edges. It sounded like a speech written by a committee, revised by a lawyer, approved by a communications director.
Gabriel listened and nodded. He studied the water carafe. He studied the glass walls. He studied the people passing in the corridor, their silhouettes blurred through the transparency.
He thought about what Kenza had said. They don't make mistakes.
Delaunay was still talking. His mouth moved. The words came out. Gabriel saw them as objects: small glass beads rolling across the table, touching nothing, changing nothing.
— ...and that is why we are convinced our solution can help you.
— Thank you, said Gabriel.
He stood. Delaunay stood too.
— I'll walk you out.
— There's no need, I know the way.
— I'd rather. You never know with the open-plan floors. It's easy to get turned around.
Gabriel followed Delaunay down the corridor. The glass walls. The offices. The screens. The bowed heads.
At the end of the corridor, Delaunay stopped.
— The lifts are on the left.
— Thank you.
— Take care, Monsieur Moreau.
He extended his hand. Gabriel shook it. The same dry palm. The same measured grip.
— Goodbye, Monsieur Delaunay.
Delaunay smiled one last time, then turned on his heel and disappeared into an office.
Gabriel stood alone in the corridor.
He glanced left. The lifts.
He turned right. Another corridor. More offices. An open door.
He went right.
The corridor was identical to the last: glass, light, silence. The same offices, the same screens, the same bowed heads. No one paid him any attention. No one spoke to him.
He turned left. Then right. He passed a coffee machine. A green plant in a white pot. A closed door with an electronic badge reader.
He didn't know where he was going. He didn't know what he was looking for.
He turned again.
And he saw something different.
The screens in this corridor were not showing advertisements.
They were showing data.
Figures. Columns. Geographic maps with blinking points. Curves rising and falling. Names.
Gabriel moved closer.
A young woman sat at a terminal, her back turned. She was typing rapidly on a keyboard. Her fingers moved like insects.
On the screen, a list of names.
Gabriel read the first few.
DUBOIS, Marie — 42 — Paris 11 — Score: 0.73
LEROY, Julien — 29 — Lyon 3 — Score: 0.81
MOREAU, Gabriel — 38 — Paris 14 — Score: 0.92
He stopped breathing.
Time split in two. Before the line. After the line. There was a world in which he didn't know, and a world in which he did. Between them, nothing.
His name. On a screen. In a building where he should not have been.
He scanned the column header.
COGNITIVE PROFILING — RADICALISATION PROBABILITY
0.92.
He didn't know what it meant. He didn't know how the figure was calculated. But he understood it was high. He grasped that it was dangerous.
He wanted to read more. He wanted to see the other columns. He wanted to understand.
The young woman turned around.
She looked at him. Her eyes went wide.
— Who are you?
Gabriel tried to answer.
— Sir?
A voice behind him.
He turned. A man in a black suit, electronic badge blinking red.
— You are not authorised to be here.
— I got lost, said Gabriel. I was looking for the lifts.
— This corridor is restricted to the public.
— I'm sorry. I'm with Monsieur Delaunay. I'm—
— I know who you are, Monsieur Moreau. Please follow me.
The tone left no room for discussion.
Gabriel followed the man down the corridor. They turned right. Then left. Then right again.
No one spoke. The man's shoes clicked on the floor. The screens scrolled past. The advertisements began again.
They arrived at the lifts. The man pressed the button. The door opened immediately.
— Please go down to the ground floor, Monsieur Moreau.
— My badge—
The man was already holding the badge in his hand.
— It's been deactivated.
Gabriel stepped into the lift. The door closed. The car descended.
He looked for his reflection in the steel door. The same face as this morning. The same eyes. The same grey suit.
But he had seen something.
0.92.
The doors opened onto the atrium. The advertisements looped. The woman was still smiling.
Gabriel crossed the lobby. The glass door swung open. He stepped out into the daylight.
He walked to the metro station. He went down the stairs. He took out his phone, held it to the reader: the NFC sensor blinked green. He went up to the platform.
The train arrived. He boarded. He sat down. The people around him were absorbed in their phones. No one paid him any attention.
He looked at his phone.
The screen was black.
He pressed the button. The screen lit up.
A notification.
You visited the VIVRE headquarters today. Would you like to share your experience? [1–5 stars]
He read the notification. A coldness rose from his stomach, up his spine, to the back of his neck.
He had no VIVRE app on his phone.
He had never downloaded a VIVRE app.
He had never authorised any app to know his location.
The notification was there. On his screen. As though it had always been there.
He looked up. The people around him were looking at their phones. A woman was smiling at something on her screen. A man was typing a message. A teenage girl was scrolling through photos.
They didn't see Gabriel. They weren't paying attention to anyone.
They were bent over their screens.
And the screens were watching them.
The train entered a tunnel. The carriage lights flickered. Gabriel's reflection in the window blurred, then sharpened, then blurred again.
0.92.
He didn't know what it meant. But he recognised what it felt like.
It was a trap, he knew that now.
He was touching the end of something he had never possessed.
The train slowed. The station was approaching. People stood, put away their phones, moved toward the doors.
Gabriel stayed seated.
He looked at his phone. The notification was still there.
[1–5 stars]
He turned off the screen.
He put the phone in his pocket.
He sat with his hands on his knees, listening to the sound of the train, feeling the movement of the carriage, watching the lights pass in the tunnel.
He thought about what he had seen. The figures. The maps. The names.
His name.
0.92.
He thought about what it meant. Radicalisation probability. The word was technical, clinical, but he could sense the fear beneath it. The fear of those who had invented this system, the fear of those who had built it, the fear of those who used it.
They were afraid of him.
He couldn't have explained why. He didn't know what he had done to deserve that score. Any more than he understood who had put him on that list.
But one thing was clear.
They knew who he was.
They knew where he was.
And they were waiting for him.
The train stopped. The doors slid open. A recorded voice announced the name of the station.
Gabriel stood.
He left the carriage.
He climbed the stairs.
He walked out into the street.
He went home.
In the empty flat, he sat on the sofa, hands on his knees, staring at the white wall.
He didn't touch his phone.
He didn't touch it.
He sat and listened to the silence.
Outside, night was falling.
And somewhere, in a glass building, a machine was running.