Chapter 1
This Tuesday had managed—somehow—to ruin a mood that was already far from cheerful. Another day beginning with a heavy sigh, as if the body already knew: ahead lay the same old routine. Work. A monitor. His boss’s voice as if every word were wrenched from her lips with pliers.
Above the rooftops hung leaden clouds, low and oppressive as a prison cell’s ceiling. The wind swept dry leaves across the pavement. They swirled, folding into spirals. Then, abruptly, the wind flung them wide—arranging them into a path. Right at his feet. Straight toward the subway. Toward a future he hadn’t chosen, yet repeated every day like a prayer he’d long since stopped believing in.
He tried not to think. Especially about his boss. But the image surfaced anyway—her face, perpetually twisted in disdain, as if he were a smell. A stench. In his mind, she became a caricature: enormous nose, narrowed eyes, hands always outstretched, as if handling something filthy with surgical tweezers. Jack pushed the picture away.
He breathed in the damp air, trying to reclaim a moment when he was simply himself—not an employee, not a number in a database, not a debtor—but a person. He glanced at girls carrying transparent umbrellas. They walked like phantoms from another world—light, untouched by the weight of daily grind. The umbrellas were closed. The rain hadn’t started yet.
In the park, it was quieter. Leaves lay still. No whirlwinds. No signs. The world seemed normal. A guy in a hoodie smiled at him. A young mother pushing a stroller laughed into her phone.
But the closer he got to the subway, the stronger the feeling grew: something had broken.
People were looking at him. Not past. Not through. But *at* him. At first—just mild confusion. Then—unease. A woman with a little boy suddenly pulled him close, shielding him with her body. She shot Jack a look—not angry, but afraid. As if he were no longer a man, but a threat. A contagion. A glitch in the code of reality.
At the turnstile stood a security guard—the kind of guy Jack sometimes exchanged a few words with. They both rooted for the “Wolves,” talked about games, complained about referees. Today, the man froze, staring at Jack, his face rigid—like a mask.
“Everything okay?” Jack asked, forcing a smile.
The guard didn’t answer. No smile returned. Instead, his eyes narrowed. He glanced sharply at his smartphone, then back at Jack. Then at the screen again.
*What the hell…?*
And then—a firm hand landed on his shoulder.
He turned.
Behind him stood a woman. Dark hair pulled into a messy, dishevelled bun, as if she’d been running. Young face, but her eyes—no fear there. Only fury. Or despair. Or whatever comes *after* fear, when only resolve remains.
“Don’t speak,” she mouthed silently. “We’re in deep trouble.”
Jack instinctively looked at his phone. The screen, usually bright and familiar, was now alien. Black. And in white letters—like a verdict:
> **Access denied. Security protocol violation detected. Scanning complete. Threat Level: High.**
He blinked. One second. Then another. Brought the phone closer to his face.
The system replied:
> **Dangerous criminal detected.**
“What’s happening?” he whispered, a cold shiver crawling down his spine.
The woman gripped his hand tightly.
“Move! Now!”
He glanced back. The guard stood motionless—no longer just watching. He was *reporting*. Lips moving. Eyes locked on Jack.
And then, obeying the firm, unyielding hand that had seized his wrist, Jack followed the woman—away from the turnstiles, away from order, away from the world he thought he knew.
Straight into the unknown.
They burst out of the subway, cut quickly through the park where a machine trundled along the sidewalk, sucking up leaves. No more spirals now. No signs. No paths. Just gone — crushed under stiff brushes, turned into yellow-red dust. They hurried down an alley, then sprinted toward a bus stop. And suddenly, the woman stopped. She let go of his hand and sharply turned into an archway, where a pink sign with floating letters glowed:
> **SKIN+TONE**
> *Waxing. Cleansing.*
> *15% off for cash payments!*
“Here,” she said, and pushed the door open.
“Seriously?” Jack glanced back. “A salon?”
Under the main sign, a smaller blue one read: *Skin+Tone. Helping your beauty shine since 2041.*
By the entrance stood a vending machine. Inside the glass, tubes of cream were piled like sand. A bold label read: **“FORGET” Cream — for fine lines. We erase emotions from your face.**
“Yes,” she said, shoving the door.
“Nobody looks at anyone here.
Cameras exist, but not in recognition mode. They scan only payment and procedure type.”
Stepping over the threshold, she added quietly, a faint smirk on her lips:
“And faces? Not important.
All that matters here is *your skin type*.”
Inside, the air smelled of lemon and cheap air freshener.
Screens on the walls pulsed with floating ads:
> **You’re beautiful — you’re fine! You’re clean — you’re safe!**
> **97% of metro residents show signs of facial stress. Get a cleanse — and a discount on your insurance.**
> **New face, new life. Today only: flaw concealment at a discount.**
Behind the counter sat a woman in a pink robe, scrolling through her feed on a tablet. Her blue badge read: **Lina, Level 3 Trust**.
Dark circles shadowed her eyes. On her wrist, a stress monitor blinked yellow, edging toward orange. Red was just a spike away.
“Two ‘Cleanses’,” said Jack’s companion, tossing a card onto the counter. Impatiently:
“Payment went through?”
The woman glanced at the monitor.
“Yes, confirmed. Please go in.”
Her voice was polite, but Lina, Level 3 Trust, never looked up, continuing to scroll.
“And please don’t forget to fill out the feedback form after your procedure,” she added, with no enthusiasm.
A narrow corridor with dim lighting greeted them with a strange, unfamiliar smell. Jack sniffed. Hydrogen peroxide? The worn linoleum, peeling at the edges, reflected the dull glow of overhead lamps.
On the walls, barely visible, hung “before and after” photos: smiling people with flawless skin.
All had the same teeth, the same lips, the same gaze.
Like dolls off an assembly line.
They entered a small cabin. The woman sank wearily onto a treatment bed and nodded Jack toward a chair — dental-style, with sensors on the armrests.
On the wall, a plasma screen flickered with messages:
> **Your comfort is our priority. Relax.
> System monitors your pulse. If stress exceeds normal — calming stream will activate.**
She leaned back against the wall, still studying him as Jack settled into the chair. They were face to face. He felt awkward, eyes down. She was too beautiful, despite the messy hair and baggy clothes. Her slender fingers spun her phone. Her eyes were on him — but not really. As if she were solving a complex equation.
She pulled a small device from an inner jacket pocket — looked like an old USB stick with an antenna and a piece of electrical tape.
“This’ll wipe your trace from the local network. Should last a couple of hours.”
She nodded slightly toward the corner. “Don’t look at the camera there.”
Jack shifted, turning sideways. The chair wasn’t wide. He was afraid of pressing some hidden button. Hunched over, he tried not to look at her.
“It’s not for recognition,” she said, glancing at the camera, “but it can flag suspicious behavior.”
“And just sitting here, silent — that’s normal?” he whispered.
“Whispering? Definitely not.” She spoke in a normal tone, not looking at him. She kicked off her heavy boots and pulled her feet onto the bed.
“For God’s sake, relax.”
Jack nodded. His hands still trembled. He clasped them in front of him.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Cora. Hacker.” There was a hint of defiance in her voice. “But not the kind who breaks into banks. Though…” She gave a vague, ambiguous chuckle.
“I break facial recognition systems. Been doing it for three years. My hobby.
Worked at Nexa until I realized we’d all been scanned long ago. Not for our safety — for their convenience. For order.”
“And why… did you pull me out?” He still avoided her gaze. Her eyes were like a deep pool — look too long, and you’d be pulled under.
“Because your phone had the same message as mine. And you were standing right there.
And because you looked completely lost. I could tell by your face.
So you’re either an idiot…
or you might be useful.”
He suddenly remembered his phone screen going black, the white text:
> **Access denied. Security protocol violation detected. Scanning complete. Threat Level: High.**
He remembered the cold crawl down his spine when the next line appeared:
> **Dangerous criminal detected.**
And the guard’s sharp, unblinking stare.
He tried to smile. It didn’t work.
“What now?”
“Now we sit. We wait. And we think — who put us in the system, and why? Because this isn’t a mistake.
Mistakes like this don’t happen. If the system marks you, you’re *supposed* to be marked.
The question is — for what purpose?”
He shrugged. And they fell silent.
Behind the thin partition, water dripped. It was quiet. Probably no one was undergoing “rejuvenation therapy” in the next cabin.
Jack closed his eyes, trying to lean back in the chair. It was awkward. He shifted, sat deeper, and finally relaxed a little. He glanced at his watch. He should’ve been at his desk by now, checking numbers. Listening to his boss sneer at the report he’d been grinding on all last week.
Instead, he was sitting in a beauty salon with a woman he’d never seen before, waiting for the system to stop calling him a criminal. Or waiting for… what? He wasn’t a hacker. He didn’t understand any of this. Only numbers.
“Strange,” he said softly.
“What?”
“I don’t know which is worse,” Jack said, staring at his clasped hands.
“That I’ve been labeled a criminal…
or that I have no idea why.”
Cora was silent.
“It’s not about you,” she said at last. “It’s about the system. It doesn’t look for the guilty.
You’re not a person in its eyes. You’re **data that doesn’t match.**
And when data doesn’t match — it’s not checked.
It’s **corrected.**”
She looked at the plasma screen. Against a backdrop of bright green leaves, the message still pulsed:
> **Your comfort is our priority. Relax.**
“And right now,” she said, “we’re not in the data.
We’re in procedure.
While I’m ‘being treated,’ I don’t exist.
While you’re ‘being cleansed,’ you’re not a threat.
We’re just a **pause in the stream.**”
Jack nodded. Not because he understood. But because he felt it:
in this madness, there was logic. Cold, cruel logic.
She understood it. He didn’t.
But it was there.
He closed his eyes. And for the first time that day — if only for a short moment — he stopped being afraid.
Not because everything was clear.
But because, finally, he wasn’t alone.
