Echoes of Control

Chapter 2

"Technician Valen, are you distracted?" The Voice's tone sharpened slightly, its soothing cadence layered with something sterner, almost accusatory.

"No, Harmonic Voice. I'm focused," Lira replied quickly, her words practiced and devoid of emotion. She adjusted a blue wire, steadying her breathing to mask her unease. If the Voice detected hesitation, her Resonance Score could drop, and with it, her carefully maintained security.

"Very well. Productivity is harmony." The Voice's tone returned to its peaceful hum, as though her fleeting slip of focus had never occurred. But Lira felt the weight of its presence settle heavier on her shoulders. She always did. The Voice is everywhere, surveilling everyone, and making sure the city was in complete harmony.

She stared at the tangled wires before her, wondering if they reflected the city itself—an convoluted, chaotic mess barely held together by the power of the AI. The blue wires, the red wires, all feeding into the same system of control.

Lira had grown up believing the Voice was humanity's savior, that the neural implants were a gift that kept society from plummeting into the darkness of the Collapse. It was what her grandfather had believed, too. Kael Valen had been a hero in Echo Prime, one of the original engineers who designed the Harmonic Voice's systems. He had dedicated his whole life to the AI, believing it to be humanity's best chance at survival.

And yet, in his final years, she remembered something different—a faint shadow of doubt in his eyes when he spoke of the Voice. So faint you could barely see it even if you payed attention. He never said anything outright, of course. He wouldn't have dared. But there was something in the way he'd straggle over his work, as though trying to undo something he could never speak of in front of someone. Lira hadn't understood it then, but now, sitting at her workstation and staring into the coded heart of the Harmonic Voice, she felt that same doubt creeping into her own mind. But just as the thought came it her mind, she abruptly stopped, and that thought was blown away like a fragile wisp of smoke scattered by a sudden gust, leaving only the faintest trace of its presence, as though it had never dared exist at all. No, she shouldn't think like that, the Voice was created the ensure the safety of human beings after The Collapse, she should not doubt whether the Voice is worthy of trust, of course it is. Without it's precise calculations, humanity would not have survived, thus she should have faith in it. Yes, she should.

"Technician Valen, shift change," The Voice reminded, opening the transparent glass doors for her work acquaintance to step in. Lira worked for 12 hours each day, from 8 AM to 8 PM, and no breaks throughout the whole year. She accepted that, of course, given that technicians were the most important job that are responsible for fixing occasional errors in the Harmonic Voice.

Outside, the city gleamed with artificial perfection. Towers of steel and glass reached into the sky, their polished surfaces reflecting the glow of the ever-present surveillance drones. Below, the lower districts sprawled in grim contrast—crowded streets filled with smog and shadows, where those with low Resonance Scores fought for scraps of dignity. Althought the polarity of lives within the high and lower districts were explicit, no one ever protested. Its not that the inhabitants weren't able to protest, but because they didn't want to. People were ranked on their Resonance Scores, which depended on how they behaved. It could only be for the misbehaved that lived in lower district, the Harmonic Voice is impartial, thus people didn't believe in the need for protesting anyways.