A lush green field stretched endlessly before me. It wasn't the orange sky I'd grown used to, but a vast, canopy, speckled with cotton-white clouds. The wind that caressed my skin didn't hum with static or artificial scent; it was wild, unscripted, and full of stories. A breeze that hadn't been filtered. A scent that didn't belong to a sterile lab. It danced through the tall grass like a memory long lost to time.
I could see the birds singing, their chirping made me relaxed.
Yes, the real ones, feathered, uncalculated things whose songs didn't come from programming, but from something deeper. Unlike the surveillance bots who tried to mimicked these beautiful creatures. Their chorus moved with the wind, almost as if nature was playing its own forgotten symphony.
And there he was again. A boy; a human, just like always.
His figure emerged from the light, blurred at the edges as if he wasn't supposed to be there. I could see his pixelated form. His skin looked soft and must have felt soft too. How would I know? I was half something I never wanted to. But his voice, yes his voice was crystal clear.
"Do you remember this place?" he asked, with eyes I couldn't quite see but felt like home, a place I imagined some other way.
And I did remember.Or I thought I did. Or maybe I only wanted to.
This place, it felt like it belonged to me before I was even born.
I took a step forward, unsure if my foot would find ground or vanish into illusion.
But the ground held me, the breeze held me while he smiled. I could see as his lips curled and dimples appeared.
But then it came, the dreaded sound.
The sound of the chime. Not the musical one but also not the natural one. It stings your ears if you are hearing it for the first time. To me it feels sharp, cold as though a warning bell before something happens. Then I saw a crack through the dream like a shard of glass in water. The colors around me began to warp. The sky bent unnaturally and the grass flickered into code.
He leaned in, voice soft, almost a whisper now.
"You're close now, Levita. Keep holding on."
And just before I could ask who he was or what this meant,
the dream shattered. Not like a broken glass, but like a corrupted file unraveling inside my head.
Everything collapsed.
ALERT: Unauthorized Neural Activity Detected.
Status: Suppressed. No Action Required.
The message hovered in my field of vision as I blinked awake, the familiar static buzz pressing behind my ears. My chest felt heavy, not from weight, but from absence. A kind of hollow ache that had no diagnosis in the circuit charts.
It wasn't the first time I'd had that dream. In fact, it was becoming a pattern.
The field never changed. The boy always returned.
But his words… his words shifted every time, like he was delivering pieces of something I was supposed to remember. I tried mentioning it once, to someone I thought I could trust. Her reaction had been immediate-panicked, but deep down I know she knew what I meant. Maybe could relate as well
"Don't.... don't ever mention that dream again," she had whispered, eyes darting around.
"If they find out...you know…just remember that it's forbidden."
Since then, I kept it to myself.
But even as I stared up at the padded ceiling of my assigned unit, I couldn't help wondering:
If dreaming about a human was illegal...why hadn't I been terminated yet?
I glanced toward the only soft thing in the room, a photograph framed against the wall. My parents and I, smiling, and everytime it warmed something in me. Something untouched by wires or data.
"Good morning," I said softly to the photo, before rising from bed.
.....
The morning routine didn't wait. A soft, mechanical chime vibrated earlier through the room. Outside my narrow window, the sky was orange again, washed in static light, choked with faint streaks of black mist. Drones moved in elegant spirals, mostly air purification bots, circling endlessly like captive birds.
I stood still for a moment, eyes absorbing the unnatural hue. But we don't get much time as everything needs to be done in the designated time. Then the retinal scan began—An inbuilt interface flickered to life across my vision. Cold numbers appeared on the screen as status updates. It was the prerecorded data that defined me. It usually monitors our body temperature and emotional index. Also, it acts as an attendance taker and takes a quick scan at our attached cyborg parts to see if they are properly functioning or not.
My screen beeped....
Oil lubrication – Left Knee: Status pending. E-creds required: 25.
It has been three days in a row that this same message appeared. I could almost hear my left leg creak beneath me, a soft resistance with every step. But the truth was, SynthGel, our Elixir, came before oil.
Then another ping.
Emotional Index Shift: +0.03%
Just enough to log, not enough to matter. It would be wiped clean soon anyway. The cleaning process usually takes around 1 minute. This means we get only one minute for ourselves.I moved to the cleaning Chamber, a narrow glass stall to the right of the bed. Everything was placed for precision, not for comfort.
The door slid closed with a hiss. Within seconds, a cool mist burst across my body, tingling at the seams where skin met alloy. I didn't wince as the sting had become part of me now.
Tiny microbots buzzed across my joints, especially around the exposed kneecap. They moved like insects who are small, intelligent but these were soulless.
They did the cleaning, necessary scraping and resetting, if required.
Then came the NanoMouth mist, sprayed once and gone. It tasted like steel. But another thing I was used to.
I stepped out, waterless but damp. My uniform hung where it always did pressed, labeled with my designated number. But the inside collar still carried a faint hand-stitch from my mother. A small rebellion stitched in thread.
Now, the final step was the neural calibration.
I pressed my forehead against the smooth silver panel embedded into the wall. It scanned for six seconds. A quick pulse surged through my skull. I felt a slight pull as if my emotions were being drained like static from fabric.
And then…Blank.
Calibrated.
"Ready."
The Commute – AirPod Station, Level 50- The elevator bell dinged.
The magnetic lift dropped us straight to the AirPod station. Each AirPod was a capsule. It was compact, weightless, shaped for speed over comfort. They launched every 60 seconds, with six seats per pod. You missed one, you lost E-creds. Tier-III couldn't afford time, let alone credits. I boarded mine like always.
But then I saw them. A family of three, mother, father and a little child. The mother's hand gripped the child's wrist, her movements sharp and rushed. The father lagged behind, a limp in his left leg.
And I noticed that only two seats were left.
The Cyhuman beside me scoffed. "Didn't want to spend extra on the lift, huh? So much for saving E-creds."
But I knew exactly why they hadn't used the lift. Here, children didn't work. Children couldn't earn and that meant every E-cred had to stretch. That meant stairs instead of lifts. That meant going without synthgel some times. And for a family like this it meant sacrifice.
Their eyes searched the pod. The mother raised her hand. I could see it was not desperate neither loud but just hopeful. In a world where we lived kindness was scarce.
Her gaze met mine. And I....I froze.
Behind us, the lift opened. A wave of perfectly punctual Cyhumans began flooding the deck. The man beside me waved them over like a Tier-II officer guiding cargo.
But no one stopped and as usual no one helped. It was the same as no one ever helped, even if they wanted to.
But then I remembered the dream and felt an ache in my chest.
I could hear the boy's voice, reimagine the vibrant field and could feel the wind. For a moment, I hesitated. On any other day, I might've looked away, like everyone else always does. It was just how things worked.
Maybe it was foolish. Maybe it made no difference. But I stepped out. I turned to the family and motioned them in. I stood in front of the others, blocking their path without a word. The mother nodded once, I knew she was grateful and also surprised, as she slipped inside with her family.
The door slid shut behind them and the pod launched. I was left standing on the platform, my slot gone, my credits wasted. But strangely, I felt… lighter. Not because I had done something heroic. But because, at that moment, I knew I wasn't like the others. I smiled as I contemplated if the Human from my dreams would have appreciated me. As I thought all this, I chose a different pod and headed off towards SUPERNOVA.
But this time, not as a model unit. But as someone who, today, had chosen something different.
.
.
To be continued...