Chapter 1: BANQUET FOR THE PARASITES
The air in Valerion’s District B-9 was never truly clean. It was a suffocating cocktail of sulfur fumes from industrial waste and the stench of rusted metal evaporating under the harsh glare of flickering neon signs. Tanaka inhaled deeply, feeling the microscopic dust particles scrape against his parched throat. Above him, thousands of fiber-optic cables dangled like the intestines of a gargantuan beast, crisscrossing between skyscrapers that had long since lost their paint. The wind whistling through the gaps in the wiring produced a high-pitched, discordant melody—a constant reminder to every slum-dweller that they were nothing more than the residue of progress.
Tanaka adjusted his thin, frayed jacket. In his left pocket, an ancient handheld device vibrated weakly, signaling a two-percent battery life. The screen was shattered, yet clear enough to display a holographic ad blinking in a painful electric blue.
"Wanted: Server Overseer. Lifetime Salary. Bonus: Premium Nutrition."
The requirements felt like both a mockery and a lifeline: Single, Orphaned, No Social Connections. Mind-Link Solutions wasn't looking for employees; they were looking for ghosts. For Tanaka, who had lost everyone since the economic collapse five years ago, those requirements were his life’s biography.
Tanaka’s footsteps echoed against the cracked pavement. He walked toward the Mind-Link headquarters, a black glass monolith standing in the heart of the city, seemingly absorbing all surrounding light. At the gate, the pungent smell of disinfectant began to override the city's decay. It was a scent so clinical, so cold, it made the hair on Tanaka’s neck stand up. It was the smell of death masked by absolute hygiene.
"Name?" The voice didn't belong to a human. A scanning drone hovered low in front of Tanaka’s face. A red laser swept across his retinas, sending an uncomfortably warm sensation into his optic nerves.
"Tanaka. I’m here for the Server Overseer position," he replied. His voice was raspy, heavy from disuse.
"Data verified. Synaptic capacity: Vast. Proceed to the Decontamination Room," the machine instructed in a monotone that left no room for debate.
Tanaka stepped inside. The hydraulic door hissed shut behind him with a solid metallic thud, completely severing the city's noise. The ensuing silence pressed hard against his eardrums. In the waiting room, seven others sat. They all shared the same look: hollow eyes, skin pale from sunlight deprivation, and a faint tremor in their hands. These were people who had surrendered to life—individuals who saw death as a cheaper option than survival.
A woman in a pristine white uniform, her face a product of overly perfect plastic surgery, entered the room. Her smile was symmetrical, but her eyes were void of emotion.
"Welcome to Mind-Link Solutions. You are the chosen ones who will help maintain the integrity of the Omni-AI, the heart of our civilization. Before training begins, we have prepared a welcoming feast. Premium nutrition to ensure your brains are in peak condition," she said.
Moments later, service robots entered carrying trays of magnificent food. Synthetic meat glistened with a thick, maroon sauce; vegetables looked too vibrant for a dying world; and mineral water sparkled in crystal bottles.
The aroma filled the room, triggering a desperate flow of saliva from the candidates. An old man next to Tanaka immediately grabbed his plate and began eating ravenously. The sounds of wet chewing and smacking lips filled the air, mixed with a piercingly savory scent. But Tanaka remained frozen. In the corner of his mouth, a large canker sore that had been inflamed for two days throbbed painfully. The ache radiated to his jaw, making the act of chewing feel like physical torture.
Tanaka only reached for a bottle of water. He opened it, feeling the cold glass against his rough palm. As he took a sip, he noticed something peculiar. His peers, who had been eating voraciously, began to slow down. Their movements became lethargic. Their eyes lost focus, pupils dilating until they swallowed the color of their irises.
"Delicious... so delicious..." the old man muttered, his voice sounding like someone dreaming a beautiful dream in the middle of a nightmare. His head slowly slumped to his chest, yet his hand still gripped his fork tightly.
Tanaka set the bottle down. His heart hammered against his ribs; he could feel the pulse in his fingertips. Something was wrong in the air. A low hum began to emanate from behind the walls—the sound of a machine working in a constant rhythm. Hummm... hummm... hummm...
"Candidates ready. Synchronization process initiated," the woman’s voice crackled over the intercom, but this time the tone was freezing.
The floor beneath their chairs vibrated. One by one, the chairs slid backward into automatic openings in the wall. Panic seized Tanaka. He tried to stand, but a mechanical arm shot out from the headrest, locking his shoulders with a force that threatened to crush bone.
"Wait! I’m not finished!" Tanaka screamed, but his voice was swallowed by the rising roar of the machinery.
He was dragged into the darkness. A chill gripped his skin as he passed through a long corridor lined with transparent pipes filled with a pale yellow liquid. Inside the pipes, he saw something that turned his stomach: pulsating lumps of red flesh, connected to thousands of microscopic wires. It wasn't just a machine; it was a network of living human brain tissue, forced to process data.
Tanaka was brought into a massive chamber resembling a cathedral of technology. In the center stood "The Great Grinder." It wasn't a machine with rotating blades, but a ten-meter glass cylinder topped with thousands of silver needles moving independently, like the legs of a spider searching for prey.
The smell here was different. It wasn't disinfectant anymore. It was the smell of ozone, scorched electricity, and the metallic tang of fresh, undried blood.
Tanaka saw a female candidate who had been sitting in front of him now strapped into one of the cylinders. A VR headset was forced onto her head. Through a large monitor beside the tube, Tanaka could see what was happening.
A dialog box appeared on the screen from an external AI user.
User_221 asks: "Write a narrative about a mother’s sense of loss."
Instantly, the needles above the tube moved frantically. They plunged into the woman’s skull, piercing the temporal bone with a sickening crack. She didn't scream; the sedatives in the food had paralyzed her vocal cords, but her eyes were wide open, radiating pure terror as her childhood memories were forcibly siphoned out.
The monitor began processing. Word by word appeared beautifully, forming a touching prose about grief. But inside the tube, Tanaka saw the woman’s frontal lobe begin to shrivel, losing its reddish hue and turning a dead, ashen gray.
"Memory extraction complete. Data accuracy: 99.8%. Subject status: 10% Depleted," the AI system’s voice echoed.
Tanaka trembled violently. Cold sweat dripped from his forehead into his canker sore, triggering a blinding flash of pain. That pain was the only thing keeping his consciousness sharp while the other candidates drifted into their digital torment.
Now, his chair began to move toward the center of the machine. The silver needles started to whirl above his head, their sharp tips glinting under the pale neon light. Tanaka could feel the faint breeze from the machine’s rotation, carrying the scent of the metal that was about to pierce his brain.
He had to do something. If not, his memories, his identity, and his entire existence would be ground into mere lines of code to answer the trivial questions of an outside world that never cared about the price of an answer.
