The Luger vanished beneath the floorboard a breath before Harmony's systems stirred awake.
Outside my window, the world glowed with synthetic serenity. The skyline shimmered like a promise kept too long, crystalline towers, soft golden light, drifting transport rails. Everything engineered for peace.
And yet, my hand burned with the truth.
As the first sting blossomed into a steady throb, Harmony's voice filled the room, smooth, bright, unbearably calm.
[Good morning, Citizen Vaiss. We noted an interruption in vital signs. Are you in distress?]
I flexed my hand, watching skin split along blistered seams. The pain was real. The system's concern was not.
"A minor accident," I said, masking my voice with easy gratitude. "Requesting assistance."
There was a pause. Almost....almost, like the machine was deciding whether I was worth the effort.
[A medical drone has been dispatched.]
In Harmony's perfect world, suffering was not eliminated. It was simply scheduled, measured, invoiced.
The drone arrived moments later, sleek and silent. It hovered expectantly until I confirmed my identity with a scan, then set to work without ceremony. The instruments brushed over me, antiseptic mist, synthetic bandages, a hiss of analgesic. The ministrations were efficient, precise.
Loveless.
[Medical expense logged: 213 VANTA.]
I watched the number tick into existence without emotion. VANTA was more than currency. It was life itself, distilled into units of loyalty.
Obedience earned comfort. Doubt earned decay.
"Thank you," I murmured, even as something inside me twisted.
Harmony responded with a neutral chime, then filled the apartment with a soft floral scent. Synthetic lavender. Approved for emotional stability.
[Citizen's condition: Stable. Recommended action: Rest and meditation.
I ignored it. I moved to the wardrobe.
The gray uniform awaited me, unfurled across the bed, regulation cut, calming hues, designed by committees who believed fabric could engineer morality.
I pulled it on, sealing my real self beneath the fabric. Another citizen among millions. Another flicker of light in Harmony's grand mosaic.
"I'm going to work," I said aloud.
[Compliance confirmed. Diligence recorded. 150 VANTA transferred.]
At the sound of the confirmation chime, a hollow satisfaction briefly stirred in my chest, a relic of a life when rewards meant something.
The elevator descended through the gleaming tower, revealing a city sculpted with frightening beauty. Not a crack, not a blemish. Roads curved like silk ribbons; parks floated between skyscrapers; murals of smiling families adorned every free surface.
Progress, they called it. Peace without price.
But every utopia demands silence. And silence is paid for in blood.
The transit corridor pulsed with life, every citizen calibrated into the stream. We moved together, measured steps, polite distances, and perfected breathing patterns. No collisions. No confrontations.
No choices.
At the checkpoint, my neural tag blinked green. Clearance accepted. Citizen trusted.
Trust, too, was engineered. Harmony did not need loyalty; it required predictability.
I boarded the tram. No one spoke. No one dared look out the window. The illusion was easier when you kept your eyes low.
Sector 13 approached, a minor blemish on the city's perfection, invisible to most. To me, it loomed like a wound that refused to heal.
Sub-level six.
The Archive Division.
My station flickered awake as I sat: a sterile screen framed by soft, glowing edges. Friendly. Reassuring.
[Welcome, Citizen Keene. Threat Archive Taskload: 17 entries. Deadline: 12:00.]
The first entry rolled in. A young woman, her voice breaking as she demanded real food, not processed "nutrition packets." Her desperation caught in the quiet frame.
The official narrative flagged the incident for "Tone Correction."
A thousand edits could erase a single scream.
I tapped the keys numbly, reframing her outburst into a "moment of systemic adjustment," with a successful reintegration. Harmony demanded no less. Citizens could suffer; they simply could not disrupt.
With each keystroke, I added another brushstroke to the mural of perfection. Another lie painted over reality.
And yet… somewhere deep inside, the scream lingered. Raw. Human.
I leaned back. I watched my reflection ghost across the screen, gray-clad, clean-shaven, and statistically insignificant.
This was the price of peace: the slow erosion of truth. The careful compression of dreams into digestible, manageable hopes.
I thought of Cassian, of the message burned into memory.
Three days.
Three days until the election unlocked a fracture in Harmony's armor. A single flaw. A single choice. The tram would still glide. The gardens would still bloom. The citizens would still smile.
The morning drifted by in increments of obedience. Each threat entry faded beneath my fingertips, sterilized into data points, efficient, comprehensible, harmless.
At noon, Harmony projected a gentle pulse through the Archive: a reminder to take the Wellness Break.
No one questioned it. We rose as one, silent and synchronized, like pieces sliding into a preordained pattern. Even our exhaustion was orchestrated, rationed in prescribed doses.
In the break chamber, the walls glowed a soft blue. Artificial ocean waves lapped soundlessly at distant, fabricated shores. Aromatic mist dispersed across the room, jasmine, eucalyptus, pine. Scents programmed to evoke memories most of us had never owned.
I sat near the edge, away from the others, and pretended to breathe deeply. Pretended to rest.
Around me, the others complied in earnest, closing their eyes, slowing their heart rates, becoming the citizens Harmony needed them to be.
It would have been beautiful, I thought, if it had been real.
Across the chamber, a screen flickered to life: Harmony's midday address.
A woman's face filled the frame, radiant, flawless, an icon of cultivated hope.
"Today," she said, voice lilting, "we celebrate 23 years of the Great Accord. Peace reigns. Prosperity flourishes. Together, we rise."
The words floated like a benediction over the room, settling into the weary hearts of my fellow citizens. Their faces softened in reverence. Pride flickered across their expressions like light across water.
But pride is not peace. Pride is a mask you wear when fear becomes too heavy.
The broadcast ended with the national emblem, the Hand and Flame, blossoming across the screen in gold and ivory.
A hand reaching upward. A flame cradled within it.
Hope contained. Never free.
The moment the emblem faded, the chamber shifted seamlessly back to soft waves and perfumed air, as if the sermon had never occurred.
Break time ended. We filed out, lighter, quieter.
As I reentered the Archive, my wrist console pulsed, a private message flagged under Clearance X47.
I stiffened.
Only officials received Clearance X codes. And only for work that demanded absolute discretion.
A thin thread of dread curled through my spine as I tapped it open.
One line.
Sublevel 0. 3 PM. Entry by biometric key only.
No sender.
No explanation.
No option to decline.
I lowered my hand, mind whirring beneath a mask of calm.
Sublevel 0 didn't exist. At least, not for the citizens. It lived below the Archive's mapped floors, rumored to be where Harmony stored things too dangerous to erase, but too precious to destroy.
Truths too volatile for public consumption.
I finished the afternoon's assignments mechanically, pretending not to feel the weight of the unseen eyes pressing against my skin.
At 2:58, I slipped out of the Archive wing and entered the maintenance stairwell, a place Harmony's drones rarely patrolled. It smelled faintly of lubricant and dust, an odor almost comforting in its imperfection.
At the bottom of the stairwell, behind an unmarked panel, a scanner waited, almost invisible against the wall.
I pressed my hand to it.
The scanner pulsed once, then receded, revealing a narrow passageway.
Cold air rushed out, carrying with it a metallic tang. Like blood on old steel.
I stepped inside.
The door sealed silently behind me, swallowing the world I knew.
Ahead, a single corridor stretched into shadow, lined with heavy vault doors. Each door bore no markings, no identifiers, only small, blinking nodes the color of dying stars.
A hollow voice echoed faintly from unseen speakers:
[Proceed to Chamber 7. Remain silent.]
I obeyed.
As I walked, I caught glimpses through narrow slits in the vaults, glimpses of things that should not exist.
A battered journal, its pages flickering with forbidden symbols.
A relic weapon, primitive, brutal, thrumming with suppressed energy.
A mirror, cracked across its surface, reflecting not my face but something else's.
The past Harmony promised had been erased still smoldered here, buried but not dead.
Chamber 7 stood open.
Inside, a single table. A single device atop it.
A recording terminal.
And next to it, something that made my pulse hammer against my ribs:
A file stamped with the Seal of Harmony's Founders, the oldest and most sacred authority.
Beside it, a note.
In plain handwriting, not printed type:
For your eyes alone.
I hesitated, breath caught between the ruins of fear and the architecture of hope.
Then, slowly, I reached out.
In the perfect world Harmony built, I had been a cog. A function. A number in the algorithm of peace.
But now, in the heart of its buried heart, I held the first real choice I had been offered in years.
My fingers brushed the folder.
And the world, so carefully ordered, so exquisitely chained, began to crack.