Lorcan wrapped himself tighter in his kilt and pressed himself against the dewey earth. The boulder at the top of the hill obscured his view as he peeped above the crest of the hill, but so far, he counted five in the hunting party. The Burns tartan blended with the land, granting him additional cover. If they caught him, well . . . The girl had been worth it. She was there, and ripe, and his for the taking.
So he took her.
Out to the world. Oblivious. Just sitting there, wearing a kilt, a comically large sword at his side, his eyes fixed and rigid on a blank, beige wall. It wasn’t the first time Bonnie had found him like this. The system did most of the cleaning itself, but Mr. Brown preferred to have someone come in and move things around the apartment every so often. He once had a spouse, or so she heard, but that was long ago. “It kept the place feeling lived in,” he’d said the one time he had deigned to speak with her.
There was nothing that didn’t belong to him, or couldn’t, should Lorcan feel the desire. The world was a better place for people like him, and that wasn’t ego. It was scientifically proven by the most advanced algorithms to ever exist. The little that others had was his, should he wish. They were compensated. If not directly by him, by the system he ennobled by his mere presence.
And that fabric. All that hand-woven fabric. Bonnie could clothe her children both in a fine suit with all that material. Should she sell it, she would not need work for years. But here he sat, wrapped in excess. Maybe . . . maybe he wouldn’t notice.
Lorcan slid back on his stomach, staying low. They were coming around the ridge, and he’d need to low crawl to his left along the hill to stay out of sight. If they spotted him, there weren’t many places to hide. It would be combat. He didn’t want to kill them. They were just protecting their clan, after all. But if it came to that. He rolled onto his back.
A clansman stood above him, sword raised. Lorcan’s bladder let go.
He jerked free from the simulation, scrambling. A woman—his maid?—stood in front of him, shears in her hand. His kilt lay around him in tatters. Their eyes locked.
Upon him she fell, slashing.
THE DIRECTIVES: CLASSIFIED ARCHIVE
In the world of The Optimised Future, the State demands perfection. The population is neatly divided into ten Categories. At the top, the elite are rewarded with the suffocating, biological permanence of the Sacrament. At the bottom, the working classes are quietly recycled, their memories wiped to keep the machinery of Central running.
You are entering the shadows of that machinery.
These Directives are weekly dispatches from the unseen corners of the State. They are not the grand political struggles of the Bureau. They are intercepted transmissions from the periphery; micro-tragedies, analog rebellions, and the quiet, devastating cost of surviving in a world that has weaponized human biology.
New dispatches are unsealed every Saturday. Read them carefully. Central is always watching.
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