Chapter 3BI: The Pod Room
Decker's key was heavier than it looked.
You waited until the plaza drones dimmed for the night cycle... even utopia sleeps, or pretends to... and slipped into the Banded residential block. Third floor. PRIYA's door.
The key turned with a mechanical clunk that sounded obscene in all that seamless white.
Inside: nothing. No furniture. No food. No bed. Just a clean empty cube, and in the center, a pod... matte white, coffin-shaped, humming faintly. Through the small window: Priya. Eyes closed. Smiling.
A cable ran from the pod into the floor. On the wall, a screen: PRIYA - CONTENTMENT 99. DREAM SCENARIO: LAKESIDE CABIN.
She wasn't living in Plenty. She was dreaming it.
You backed into the hallway. Every door on the floor had the same faint hum. Dozens of pods. Hundreds, in this block alone. The plaza walkers... the smiling people feeding the painted pigeons... were just the bodies, on autopilot, while the minds stayed under.
Your hands found your phone. You started recording.
That's when the hallway lights turned red.
“Nyx. Guests do not enter residential pods. This is your first warning. It is also your last.”
The doors on the floor began to open. One by one. The walkers were coming home.
You ran... down the stairwell, out into the night air, Decker's key still clutched in your fist. Behind you, the building sealed itself with a sound like a held breath.
You made it to the Guest District. You made it with the video.
In the morning, every screen in Plenty showed the same message:
Your Contentment Score: 12.
Decker was gone. His commissary seat was empty. The grease, the key, the warning... all gone, like he'd been edited out.
But you had the video. And the wall was twenty feet high. And somewhere beyond it, the old world was still broken, still real... and now, finally, it knew.