The holographic assembly chamber was a circle of perfect, sterile white. Fifteen floating holo-podiums were arranged in a ring, each occupied by a shimmering, life-sized avatar of a person who was not physically present. The air, scrubbed of all particulates and personality, smelled faintly of ozone and carried the low, constant hum of the life support systems that kept the chamber’s climate at a precise twenty-two degrees Celsius. It was the sound of managed consensus.
Ambassador Corvus of the Purity Arcology Coalition materialized in his designated podium, his form resolving from a shimmer of blue light into a sharp, tailored suit of non-porous grey synth-fabric. His face was a handsome, algorithmically smoothed mask of concerned authority. He did not look at the other silent, floating figures. He looked at the empty space in the center of the room, where his words would be recorded for the public record.
— We are here to discuss a matter of significant concern to the cognitive wellness of our shared municipal ecosystem, — Corvus began, his voice a warm, resonant baritone calibrated for maximum sincerity. — Specifically, the unilateral kinetic containment of Sector Gamma-7 by the Cognitive Immunology Division.
He paused, letting the accusation hang in the sterile air. His aide, a young man with an unnervingly placid expression, took a delicate sip from a bottle of Ataraxia, its label glowing with a soft, reassuring cyan. The water was infused with a mild emotional suppressant, a popular choice among the political class.
— You have sealed an entire sector, — Corvus continued, his tone shifting from concern to polite injury. — You have done so without the declaration of a Class-Three ideological threat. This is, by any reasonable metric, an act of extrajudicial overreach that undermines stakeholder confidence in our established protocols.
From a podium directly opposite, the avatar of Wardell Holland, Chief Commissioner of the CI-Div, remained perfectly still. Holland’s avatar was intentionally nondescript: a man of average height and build, with forgettable features and flat grey eyes. He wore the simple, high-collared uniform of his office. He was a function, not a person, and his digital representation reflected this.
Holland’s response came not from his unmoving lips, but from the podium’s external speaker. The voice was a synthesized monotone, stripped of all emotional inflection.
— The Division acted in accordance with biosecurity exigency protocol 1138.
The statement was a wall. Protocol 1138 was a classified directive, a black box of authorization that could mean anything or nothing. It was the final word in any argument the CI-Div wished to end. The Ambassador’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. His objective was to force a concession, but he had run into the system’s most basic obstacle: a rule he was not allowed to read.
The omniscient eye of the chamber’s recording system caught a flicker of movement. In the public gallery, a designated observation space behind the ring of podiums, a man in a dark, expensive suit leaned toward the Ambassador’s aide. The man was Kaelen, the chief lobbyist for Panacea Protocols. No words were exchanged. Kaelen simply gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. The aide’s fingers brushed against his data-slate.
Ambassador Corvus adjusted his tactic. If he could not break the wall, he would put the wall on trial.
— Protocol 1138, — Corvus repeated, his voice dripping with condescension. — A convenient fiction. The citizens of this sprawl deserve transparency, Commissioner. Not opaque directives that allow your Division to operate as a state within a state. Your budget is predicated on managing belief, not creating voids of information.
Holland’s avatar did not react. His stillness was a form of aggression. He was a machine, and the Ambassador was feeding it invalid commands. The machine’s only response was to wait for a valid input.
— I see you will not be forthcoming, — Corvus said, his voice hardening. He was now playing to the other members of the assembly, the silent avatars who represented other corporate and municipal interests. — Therefore, the Purity Arcology Coalition formally demands a full and immediate inquiry into the operational protocols and budgetary discretion of the Cognitive Immunology Division.
This was a valid input. A formal inquiry was a recognized procedure. Holland’s synthesized voice responded without a moment’s delay, the lack of hesitation more insulting than any argument.
— The Division acknowledges the request. We will comply with all procedural requirements of the oversight committee.
A holographic gavel materialized in the center of the room and fell with a soft, synthetic click. The hearing was adjourned. The avatars of the assembly members flickered and vanished one by one, leaving only the low hum of the empty chamber.
Deep within the brutalist concrete fortress of the Synecdoche Complex, in the absolute silence of the Redaction Hub, Cyprian Hasek watched the recording of the hearing terminate on a secondary screen. A flicker of something that might have been a smile touched the corner of his thin mouth. The political theater was an irritation, but the outcome was a gift. The inquiry gave him exactly what he needed: leverage.
He dismissed the screen with a wave of his hand. The chaotic noise of the debate was gone, replaced by the clean, 400-hertz sine wave that filled his sterile sanctuary. He turned his attention to the main holographic display, a tactical map of the city. He entered a command. The messy, unpredictable data streams of memetic outbreaks and public sentiment vanished. The map resolved into a perfect, clean grid of sectors and operational zones. It was a stable, ordered diagram, a dark reflection of the mental space Croft fought to maintain. This was Hasek’s ideal state: a world of pure geometry.
The inquiry meant oversight. Oversight meant a demand for control. And control meant that unpredictable assets like the Hybrid were now liabilities. Or, rather, they were liabilities that needed to be managed with a much firmer hand. He pulled up Dr. Julian Croft’s operational file.
— In light of the pending inquiry and the need for stringent operational oversight on high-risk assets, — Hasek dictated to his private log, his voice a low baritone that the room’s acoustics absorbed completely. He was creating the paper trail that would justify his actions. He was using the system’s own logic as a weapon.
He accessed the resource allocation for Croft’s mission in Sector Gamma-7. With a few keystrokes, he increased the surveillance parameters, routing all of Croft’s sensory data directly to his own console. The operational freedom Kennet had tried to give his agent was gone. The surveillance level on Croft jumped by 50%.
Hasek felt a profound sense of calm settle over him. The messy ambiguity introduced by Holland’s procedural weakness was being corrected. The system was being purified. He had been forced to deploy a contamination, but now he had the political justification to watch it, to document its every failure, and, when the time was right, to erase it.
The air in the Redaction Hub was cool and clean. The light from the holographic grid cast long, sharp shadows on the polished floor.
His fingers typed a single command to the field surveillance team: 'Priority Alpha: Observe. Do not engage.'
