Chapter2; The Audit of Souls
994 Words
POV; Third Person
The data didn’t lie.
That was the first rule.
People lied. Memories distorted.
Numbers were absolute.
Sam sat at the console in Lab 402, eyes locked on the blue glow of the holographic playback.
Four hours.
The recording looped.
Frame 1,042: Still.
Frame 1,043: Still.
Frame 1,044: Still.
No movement.
According to the system, the Ghost Bloom had never twitched.
The glitch didn’t exist.
Sam stared at his right hand.
Steady.
But his palm still remembered it.
A faint vibration. A resonance that hadn’t shown up anywhere in the data.
“You’re looking for a c***k in the glass, Sam.”
The voice slipped into the silence.
Sam didn’t look up.
“The sensors recorded zero kinetic displacement,” he said.
“I’ve run diagnostics twice. There was no movement. It was a visual artifact.”
“And yet,” the Rebel said.
He leaned over the console.
The scent hit first.
Orange.
Sharp. Acidic. Wrong.
“We both saw it.”
A soft clink as his finger tapped the casing.
“Unless you think we’re both losing our minds at the exact same frequency.”
Sam’s grip tightened on the edge of the desk.
“It was a rendering error,” he said.
“You want it to be an error.”
Another segment of orange peeled free. A mist of citrus oil broke into the air.
“Because if it moved, the Architect’s notes are wrong.”
The Rebel leaned closer.
“And you can’t solve a variable you can’t name.”
Sam opened his mouth—
The lift chimed.
No.
Not a chime.
A warning.
Low. Heavy. It settled into his teeth.
The Audit.
Sam stood immediately.
His spine locked straight.
He smoothed his coat. First button. Second. Third.
The doors opened.
Dean Halloway didn’t walk.
She colonised the room.
Behind her, two proctors followed—silent, precise. Opaque visors. No faces.
They didn’t look at Sam.
They looked at their tablets.
Recording.
Measuring.
Reducing him.
“Candidate Sam.”
Her voice was silk stretched over steel.
She stopped at the specimen.
Didn’t look at the plant.
Only the monitor.
“0.02%.”
She let it sit there.
Heavy.
Unforgiving.
“Your father’s reputation is the foundation of this institution, Sam.”
Now she looked at him.
Sharp. Assessing.
“But foundations can be cleared away if they prove to be… inefficient.”
Sam fixed his gaze just above her shoulder.
Not meeting her eyes.
Not challenging.
Not yielding.
“The specimen is in deep dormancy, Dean,” he said.
“You are identifying excuses,” she replied.
She stepped closer.
Too close.
“The Board is asking questions. They wonder if the ‘Greatness’ we were promised was… overstated.”
Her gaze shifted—to the Rebel.
“And you have been paired with a Variable.”
A pause.
“A boy from the Unmapped Zones. A statistical tragedy.”
Her voice dropped.
Quiet. Dangerous.
“Is the mess starting to rub off on you, Sam?”
Something cold spread through him.
Reassignment.
Not a punishment.
A deletion.
The Under-City.
Where failed results went to become invisible.
“We will show progress by the end of the week,” Sam said.
The lie scraped on the way out.
“I expect nothing less.”
She turned toward the door.
“Because if you don’t, the Ghost Bloom will be incinerated.”
A beat.
“And you, Sam… will learn exactly how much your father values a failed experiment.”
The doors closed.
The silence she left behind wasn’t empty.
It was counting down.
Sam sat.
Slowly.
99.8% symmetry.
Perfect.
And still—
replaceable.
“She’s a real ray of sunshine,” the Rebel said.
Sam didn’t respond.
The Rebel moved to the casing.
Hit the manual lock.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked.
His voice felt… distant.
“She said we need progress,” the Rebel replied. “So we give her progress.”
He pulled something from his pocket.
A shard of black rock.
Jagged. Unprocessed.
Real.
“Old Earth mineral,” he said. “Unfiltered.”
“That’s a bio-hazard,” Sam whispered.
“I’ve looped the feed.”
The Rebel held up a small data chip.
“No one’s watching, Sam. Not the Dean. Not your father.”
He looked at him then.
Direct.
“You saw it move yesterday.”
Sam didn’t answer.
“It didn’t move for the nitrogen,” the Rebel continued. “It moved for us.”
His hand hovered over the override.
“Because you were shaking.”
A beat.
“Because for a second… you weren’t a decimal point.”
Sam looked at the shard.
Then at the flat red line.
If greatness was inherited…
what did failure mean?
“Do it,” he said.
Quiet.
Final.
The seal broke with a hiss.
The chamber opened.
Air rushed in.
Warm.
Imperfect.
Sam’s sweat.
The Rebel’s orange.
The raw dust of the stone.
Sam held his breath.
The monitor flickered.
Then—
A spike.
0.05%.
0.08%.
“It’s feeding,” Sam breathed.
He stepped closer. Too close.
His forehead touched the glass.
Under the grey bark—
Green.
Faint at first.
Then brighter.
A thin vein of emerald.
Alive.
“It’s not the minerals,” Sam said.
His voice was unsteady now.
“It’s the acidity. The salt.”
He turned.
Met the Rebel’s eyes.
“It’s us.”
The Rebel smiled.
Crooked.
Unbalanced.
Real.
“We’re going to need more than sweat to hit five percent,” he said.
Sam looked back at the plant.
At the green vein pulsing under dead bark.
Then toward the door.
Toward the Hall.
Toward the portrait waiting outside.
“Then we’ll give it everything,” Sam said.
A pause.
“But if we get caught…”
His voice steadied again.
“I’m logging that you forced the override.”
The Rebel laughed.
“Spoken like a true Architect.”
- Writer
