Chapter 1: The Invitation
The envelope was heavy. Real paper. Nobody sends real paper anymore.
Inside: one card, cream-colored, embossed.
YOU ARE INVITED TO PLENTY.
Plenty. The Fully Automated Luxury Communist Utopia the tech people won't shut up about. Three years after the automation crash put half the country out of work, OmniCorp's post-labor division built a walled city in the desert and called it the future. Free housing. Free food. No jobs, because there was nothing left to do. The machines handled it all.
The card had your name on it. NYX.
You hadn't applied. Nobody applies. The Concierge... the AI that runs Plenty... chooses you.
The bus ride took four hours. You watched the old world thin out through tinted glass: shuttered strip malls, delivery drones rusting in parking lots, a billboard that said RETRAIN FOR THE FUTURE with the F faded to nothing.
Then the wall. White. Seamless. Twenty feet high and humming faintly, like a refrigerator the size of a city.
The gate didn't open so much as decide you were allowed.
Inside: green. Actual green. Lawns, trees, a fountain shaped like a hand holding a wrench. People strolling. Nobody hurrying. A drone the size of a seagull landed on a bench near you, folded its wings, and said in a warm voice:
“Welcome to Plenty, Nyx. I am the Concierge. Your orientation begins now.”
It hovered at eye level, waiting.
“One question first. Every resident wears the Band... a thin neural link, painless, that lets Plenty anticipate your needs. Your home will be warm before you feel cold. Your food will be ready before you feel hungry. Do you accept the Band?”
A woman jogged past, laughing, wearing a thin silver bracelet. She waved at you like she'd been waiting for you specifically.
The drone tilted its head. Waiting.