She walks the north loop later than usual. The apartment suggested a movement break, so here she is, moving.
The upper walkway arcs through the garden level, a controlled canopy of synthetic trees and filtered blue-white skylight. Thin shadow lines track across the walking path in even rhythm. A soft breeze stirs from recessed vents in the railing.
She’s alone.
Halfway across the arc, the light shifts.
It doesn’t flicker—it fades. Not a system-wide transition, but this section only, as if the world forgets how it’s supposed to behave for just a moment.
The trees are wrong. Their edges jitter. One of the trunks—a stone pine—stretches upward without texture, a pure smooth gradient for a second too long before detail snaps back into place.
Then the sky brightens. Behind her, a voice whispers something she doesn’t catch.
She turns.
Nothing.
The garden level is exactly as it should be.
But her sleeve is colder than the air. She touches it, finds a faint powdery residue clinging to the fabric. Pale, golden—like dust from a different surface.
She keeps walking. Quicker now.
No prompt appears, no recalibration notice. The corridor ahead is silent.
When she passes through the next proximity arch, the system chimes politely.
“Movement break complete. Mood index stabilized. Thank you.”
She doesn’t return home right away. Instead, she walks a closed loop of Tier 2’s observation corridor—a stretch of transparent outer wall and low ambient lighting designed for contemplation. Here is an unobstructed view of Celloria’s vertical arc and the sky beyond it.
Below, rows of habitation domes stretch out like coins arranged by size. Pale blue, soft green, glass panels tuned to filter glare. Her own building is somewhere in the stack—unseen from here, indistinguishable. She watches the edge of the dome farthest out catch the fixed light of the sun.
It’s exactly where it should be.
She’s always known that.
But there was a second light, earlier. It came from nowhere. It touched her sleeve.
She looks down at the faint dust again. Attempts to brushes it off with quick flicks of her hand.
Around her, the corridor remains empty. The ambient audio isn’t playing—no windtrack, no soft chord loops. The silence isn’t a comfort.
She tries to reconstruct the voice she heard. It had been male. Or shaped that way. She doesn’t recall the words, only the shape of breath: close, real, bare.
She closes her eyes for ten full seconds.
The system doesn't interrupt; no prompt appears.
When she opens them again, the light hasn’t changed. But she has.
She turns away from the railing and begins to walk, purposefully, toward the nearest system terminal she can think of.
It stands at the junction between residential and maintenance tiers, tucked into the wall with a display surface that responds before she touches it. Pale blue grid. Welcome text. Her name, spelled cleanly:
SONAT CEYLAN / RESIDENT-LEVEL ACCESS / CELLORIA-8
She hesitates before selecting a category.
Environmental inconsistency, visual irregularity?
None of the options quite fit. The flicker wasn’t a fault. The trees corrected. The voice—she can’t verify it even happened.
She selects OTHER, then types.
“Abnormality in upper garden corridor. Section C-9. 18:14. Possible lighting misalignment or crossfeed. One instance only. Dust residue observed. Foreign.”
She rereads it twice, then taps SUBMIT.
The screen loads for less than a second.
Thank you. The system has acknowledged your input.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
No further action is required.
Your feedback has contributed to ongoing comfort optimization.
The text lingers, then fades.
A new screen appears, unprompted.
Based on recent inputs, your wellness index suggests mild overexertion. Please consider the following:
– Visit your assigned greenlight rest zone.
– Engage in a mood-balancing audio track.
– Enjoy a comfort supplement from your local dispenser.
There is no button to dismiss it. Only a single prompt at the bottom:
ACCEPT
She stares at it, then places her palm against the side of the terminal. The panel warms beneath her skin, scanning for confirmation. The system chimes once—soft, pleasant—and closes the session.
She stands there a moment longer. Not frozen, just unwilling to step back into motion.
Should there have more confirmation? No log, no receipt. Just permission to forget?
She doesn’t return home. Not right away.
The most direct route from the kiosk would take her through the garden level, back along Walkway B, and into her unit. Lights would warm slightly. The scent profile would be selected to calm her pulse. Her sleep schedule would begin adjusting.
She turns left instead. South loop.
The corridor here is mostly unused—scenic, intentionally inefficient. It arcs toward a dormant exhibit space once meant for social projection: rotating art loops, citizen performance, now blank.
She walks it slowly. The sound of her steps follows her—soft-heeled, even. At midpoint, the corridor widens into a shallow alcove, half-ringed with synthetic stone benches. A sculpture occupies the center: smooth chrome folded into itself like static caught in motion. It reflects only the light, not the space.
She sits.
Across from her, a row of lights pulses with faint corrective rhythm. Her pulse doesn’t match. She watches them anyway.
She doesn’t know how many minutes she stays past when she should have moved on. The sculpture does not change.
She looks at her wrist. The band is still on the counter.
Eventually, she stands. Takes the long loop back.
The apartment is dim when she returns. Not dark—never dark—but on the lowest cycle, colors cooled toward blue-grey, with the windows tinted. She doesn’t adjust the light.
The door seals behind her. The scent hasn’t changed. Mint again, maybe softer. The kind with vanilla underneath it. The kind she associates with sleep.
She crosses the room slowly. The counter where she left the object is clean.
Her hand stills at the edge. Not panic. Just awareness and a tingle of unease. She checks the laundry slot—empty. The disposal bin—empty.
Then she opens the cupboard above the counter. There it is.
Nothing else has been disturbed.
She takes it out carefully. It’s warm—not heated, but ambient, as if it’s been handled recently. The shape inside hasn’t changed.
She stares at it. Then, quietly, she walks to the bedroom, opens the drawer beneath the bed, and places the case inside. When she steps back into the living space, the room lights rise gently. Not all the way. Just enough to imply attention.
“Sonat,” says the room. “A check-in has been scheduled.
A ripple passes across the far wall, as though the room takes a breath.
A figure coalesces by the seating alcove. Neutral height, neutral build, clad in soft fabrics that suggest health, calm, ease. Their face is androgynous and symmetrical, with a voice tuned just slightly warmer than default.
“Good evening, Sonat. You’ve been flagged for a minor check-in. Just a brief adjustment to support your comfort trajectory.”
She stands still, halfway between kitchen and lounge. Doesn’t respond.
The avatar smiles. It’s a smile meant to go unnoticed.
“Have you experienced any difficulty maintaining affect regulation today?”
Silence.
“You’re not required to answer aloud. Logging your baseline.”
The avatar makes no movement. No note-taking gesture. But a soft ping chimes through the room’s audio layer, and her name flashes briefly on the wall screen:
SONAT CEYLAN – GUIDED OPTIMIZATION: ACTIVE
“Adjustment protocols have been refreshed. We recommend sensory grounding: warmth, hydration, rest. Thank you, Sonat. You’re doing well.”
The figure vanishes mid-blink, not quite smoothly.
The air doesn’t change, but the room feels smaller.
Sonat turns away.
Eventually, she moves to the kitchen.
The lights warm a few degrees. A glass of water dispenses without command—temperature-neutral, mineral-balanced. She drinks half of it, then places the rest on the counter without looking.
The apartment has already adjusted: the air thickens slightly, humid enough to read as tactile. The ambient music is back—subtone chords, distant and low. It isn’t unpleasant.
In the bathing alcove, the floor warms as she steps in. Mist envelops her shoulders, laced faintly with lavender. One of the deep-tracked scent profiles, not one she’s chosen in recent memory.
“Hydration: optimal,” says the room. “Muscle tension: 12%. Ambient adjustment will proceed.”
She closes her eyes. Not out of agreement. Just to finish the routine.
Later, she lies down. The bed aligns to her shape. The remaining overhead light fades in increments too small to see. The ambience is still playing—looped now, almost inaudible.
She doesn’t feel tired. But she closes her eyes again anyway.
Eventually, her breath lengthens. Her jaw slackens.
Sleep finds her the way the system always intended it to: gently, cleanly, without question.
// USER: CEYLAN.S
// CYCLE: 14490 | LOCAL TIME: 22:41
// STATUS: REST STATE ACTIVE
// AFFECT TRACE: NOMINAL
// PHYSIO STABILITY: GREEN (MINOR DRIFT)
// GUIDED OPTIMIZATION: ENGAGED > 4.1.0
// RESPONSE LATENCY: ACCEPTABLE
// COGNITIVE LOAD: 0.27 (↑)
// ANOMALOUS OBJECT INTERACTION: LOGGED
— ORIGIN: DISPENSARY NODE / UNCATALOGUED ITEM / MANUAL RETENTION
— SYSTEM RESPONSE: DEFERRED
// USER FEEDBACK: FILED > SELF-RESOLVED > NONACTIONABLE
// DEVIATION INDEX: 2.03%
// STABILITY THRESHOLD NOT BREACHED
> FLAG: OBSERVER-LEVEL MONITORING (SOFT)
> PATCH HANDLER: PENDING
