Chapter 1
The sun didn’t rise in my apartment. It calibrated.
At exactly 06:00, the ceiling panels shifted from lavender to a buttery gold, mimicking a sunrise I’d never seen. The walls responded with projected vines and birdsong—my “Serenity Morning” setting. A mechanical sparrow chirped from its perch on the windowsill, its head tilting like it would before they became extinct.
There are no animals left…just fake androids thanks for Mr. Almond.
I lay still beneath my cream coverlet, watching the ceiling glow. I didn’t blink. The light was too perfect. No flicker. No warmth. Just calibratedlumens.
“Good morning, Ruby,” said the apartment. Male voice. Scottish accent. My preferred setting. Dreamy. And for a moment I was fourteen again, standing on a rain‑slick street in Edinburgh, clutching a paper bag of shortbread. He had smiled at me once — just once — a boy with hair the color of wet stone, older, toned. My parents had laughed at the way I stared, but they didn’t know it was the last trip we would ever take together…
“You slept for six hours and forty-two minutes. Your cortisol levels are optimal. Shall I begin your tea sequence?”
“No,” I said, snapping back into the moment.
A pause. “Or maybe coffee instead?”
“No.”
Another pause. The system adjusted. “Would you like to hear your aunt’s message? She sent a new one at 03:12. Your cousins have also messages over the last two days. And your uncle is pass out again in the living room.”
Not again….
I sat up slowly, my hair falling like ink across my shoulders. “Play it. Ignore the others.”
A hologram shimmered to life at the foot of my bed. My aunt’s face appeared—smooth, ageless, softly lit. “Darling,Kyel’sengagement party is next week. You’ll come, won’t you? I’ve alreadyRSVP’dfor you. Love you.”
“I don’t want to” I mumble, reaching the button to opening the blinds.
“You need to find a mate if you don’t want to go into the breeding program. I know you likeMaakabut…” She quickly adds before the holograph shuts up and the message ends.
Yes…at sixteen years old…that’s all I’m good for…a breeder. Not a healer. Not a teacher. But a mother…who hasn’t bled yet…
The counselors say it’s fine. The officials say it’s “delayed maturation.” But everyone knows what it really means: I’m running out of time to prove I’m viable…
I groan, standing barefoot on the temperature-adjusting floor, and walked to the window.
Outside, the city gleamed. Towers of glass and chrome stretched into the sky, their surfaces rippling with advertisements and mood-responsive art. Drones zipped between buildings, delivering breakfast cubes and emotional support plushies.
Below, the streets were clean, quiet, and utterly lifeless…you can barely see the faded yellow lines where people once drove themselves.
Even the trees were fake. Carbon-filtering synthetics with programmable leaf colors. I’d tried to climb one once, as a kid. It buzzed and politely asked me to step down.
I turned away.
The apartment was a minimalist dream, though the word dream felt like a cruel joke. I lived in what used to be called The Gherkin, now repurposed as housing for families who had rebelled and lost. A monument to defeat disguised as luxury. Here, they could watch us twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and the pristine white-and-cream uniforms we wore were proof enough of our submission.
White walls. Soft lighting. A single cream sofa. The TV in the corner, silent unless the system decided I needed distraction. The kitchen prepared meals based on my biometric cravings, but even hunger felt monitored, catalogued, controlled
A cat padded silently across the floor, tail swishing in perfect arcs. It purred when it saw me, then paused, waiting.
I didn’t pet it.
Instead, I walked to the closet. It opened with a sigh, revealing rows of cream and white garments—identical in cut, texture, and tone. I chose a long, sleeveless tunic with a high collar and hidden pockets. The fabric was soft,frictionless…scale like. No makeup and jewelry….of course…
I braided my hair back, tight and practical.
For a second I stare at my pale reflection, I see a heart-shaped face, large, chocolate brown eyes, and a long, thin nose—I still look like a little girl, but a presentable one. Pleasant enough. Maaka’s family won’t flinch at me, and that’s… fine. More than fine.
I smooth a hand over the braid, then step into the living room.
My uncle stirred on the cream sofa, groaning as he pushed himself upright. His steel mill uniform was stained with ash, the double shifts grinding him down more each day.
He rubbed his face, brown eyes bloodshot, and looked at me.
“The breeding selection’s soon,” he said, voice rough, heavy with exhaustion.
The silence that followed was suffocating. I tightened the braid for the thousandth time, fingers pulling too hard, as if pain could drown out the truth. Daughters of traitors didn’t get choices. We were forced to link with the regime’s“perfect boys,”government officials’ sons bred for obedience and control.
…It was the price of blood, the score settled across generations.
I remembered my father’s body hanging from the Tower of London, the way my mother sobbed each time we passed, until the day they cut him down. A week later, she disappeared beneath a black hood, swallowed by the same system that now claimed me.
My uncle didn’t say more. He didn’t need to. His silence was the weight of his own punishment, the steel mill grinding him into penance for his brother’s rebellion.
The apartment hummed, oblivious. “Today’s forecast is clear,” it offered. “Your commute to school will take twenty minutes. Would you like ahovercaror the glide rail?”
“Walk,” I said.
“Walk?” I can sense it blink, malfunction at the statement.
No one really walks here….
“Would you like a breakfast cube?”
“No.”
I slipped on my boots as my uncle moves around me — white, seamless, self-cleaning—and grabbed my ID band from the charging dock. It blinked green as I slid it onto my wrist. My schedule appeared in the air beside me: the New Order History, English,Maths, Women’s Education (aka…sex education), Gym, a wellness check-in at 14:00 and a mandatory mind calibration at 18:30.
It goes on…
I stared at it for a moment too long.
The cat meowed softly behind me. I turned.
“I’m fine,” I told it.
It blinked. Programmed empathy.
I walked to the door. It opened with a whisper.
The hallway outside was silent, sterile, and softly lit. Identical doors stretched in both directions. No footsteps. No voices. Just the hum of the building’s breath.
I stepped out. Automatically counting the steps to school.
And for a moment—just a flicker—I wondered what it would feel like to walk into something that wasn’t designed to keep me comfortable.
Something wild.
Something real.
Then the door closed behind me.
And I kept walking.
***
The glide rail hissed past me as I walked, its passengers staring blankly ahead, faces lit by the glow of their schedules. My boots clicked against the pavement, the faded yellow lines beneath my feet a reminder of a world that once moved freely.
I weave around strangers who looked like variations of the same template. Cream. Navy coats. Crimson red and a few shades of yellows and oranges in between. Different ranks…Pale faces.
And no one spoke.
I stood at the edge of Buckingham’s ruins, the palace gutted, the Crown Jewels melted into a mound of golden alloy, tiny flickers of gems sticking out. The air was sharp with ozone, drones circling overhead like carrion birds.
Hewas already there. In guard black leathers. The guard who got off tormenting me. Waiting. His silhouette cut against the synthetic trees, their leaves flickering from emerald to crimson as if they sensed the hostility between us. His uniform gleamed, marked with the insignia of the regime — the same one that had taken everything from me.
Apart from“keeping the peace and stomping out coups,”they claim to protect us from ourselves — and from theWrenns. These are mysteriousbeingssaid to hunt and devour humans by emitting cricket‑like calls. No one knows how they came about. Some say radiation. Some say dark magi. In some parts of London, people are so gripped by fear that theWrenns’ distinct shrill or clicking drives them underground… or worse.
Death by rope seems more tolerable than being ripped apart by aWrenn.
But I don’t believe in them.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, voice low, dangerous, snapping me out of my dream.
“Fuck off,” I snapped.
His eyes widened. Out of character. I’d surprised him.
The guard stepped forward. “The fuck you say, girl?”
The other three moved closer.
Shit.
“A pretty girl like you should be nicer to men,” he purred. “Especially when they all haven’t had sex in two weeks.”
“What? Not enough whores for you and your boy band.” I sneer as one snickers.
“White,” one of them toyed. “Traitor’s daughter. Either way, I’m so horny.”
“I bet she swallows,” another jabbed.
Gross.I’d heard of other girls at school trading their virginity for better treatment, for softer beds, for more food for their families.
“Get the fuck away from me,” I hissed, my back pressed against the wall.
“Problem here?” A voice cut through the air. I froze.Maaka. His crimson red and black uniform gleamed, flawless, marked with the insignia of his father’s office. His posture was rigid, his gaze sharp — but when his onyx with gorgeous amber specks, scientifically altered eyes met mine, something flickered.
“It’s nothing,” I mumbled, staring at my boots but my hormones betray me as steal a glance.
Maaka’sshirt clung tighter than I remembered, the fabric stretched across muscle that hadn’t been there before summer. My stomach twisted, heat rushing to my cheeks, and I forced my eyes down again, reminding myself not to stare — not to drool.
The guard stiffened, nervous now. He straightened asMaakastepped closer behind me.
“I think,soldier,”Maakasaid, his voice like steel, “You should be nicer to my fiancée. Or shall I get my father and your commanding officers to pay you and your merry men a visit.”
Fiancée?
“Sorry, Sir,” the guard muttered, not daring to look at me, before sulking off with the others.
I exhaled, shaky, relief flooding me. I didn’t want my first time to be…that.
Maakasmiled, weaving his hand through mine. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll be late.”
And I follow him.
The school loomed ahead, a tower of glass and chrome, its surface rippling with propaganda: smiling students in pristine uniforms, slogans promising unity, obedience, joy.
Anything but…
The gates opened with a mechanical sigh, scanning my ID band before allowing me through.Maakaquietly follows.
Inside, the air smelled sterile, recycled. Hallways stretched in perfect symmetry, lined with doors that whispered open and shut as students filed into their classes.No laughter. No chatter. Just the hum of the system.
The bell chimed, soft and melodic, urging us forward. I walked pastMaaka, my pulse sharp in my throat. He falls into step beside me.
This was our last year together — the final year before the system split us apart. Next year, I would be sent to“wife training,”molded into obedience, taught how to serve and smile and bear children for the regime.Maakawould join the official ranks of the army, his mandatory four-year service already carved into his future.
I mean I knew it wasn’t official…but everything was leading to us being bonded…
The thought pressed against me like a weight. We were both trapped, but in different cages. His uniform gleamed with promise and literal gold, mine with punishment.
No one cared I wanted to be a gemologist, I could skin a rabbit in seconds or that I was really good with a wrench…
We entered the classroom. Rows of desks, white and cream, perfectly aligned. Screens flickered to life, projecting lessons on history rewritten by victors. Students sat in silence, eyes forward, hands folded.
I slid into my seat,Maakabeside me. His gaze lingered, sharp, unreadable. I hated the way the system had tethered us together, hated the word fiancée echoing in my head.
And yet, when his shoulder brushed mine, I didn’t pull away.
