​Chapter 3. A Bag of Meat

Mark woke up at home. Above him was the familiar sterile-white plastic ceiling.

As soon as he opened his eyes, a landscape appeared on the windows: a slow river drifting past, birds circling above the water, a forest visible in the distance. The programs updated every week, and Mark had long since memorized every cycle. Today it was “Landscape-6,” tomorrow would be “Landscape-7,” and after that the “Autumn” sequence would begin.

It seemed like he’d seen real rain last night. Real lightning, too. But the memory broke off, leaving only residue—sticky, like damp concrete under his fingers. He tried to remember how he’d gotten home, and couldn’t. His mind snagged on a hollow gap.

The cuff on his arm blinked green, registering his awakening. Mark stared at it and wondered whether that Eastside call had happened at all.

“Did we take a call yesterday?” he asked.

“Good morning, Mark,” the system replied immediately. “Yes. Call in the Eastside sector. Time: fifteen oh-two.”

“Call confirmed,” the apartment added. “Protocol completed successfully. You returned home at sixteen oh-three.”

Mark grimaced. What, did they practice this line together?

Both the cuff and the apartment were telling the truth—he knew that. So why was that woman the only thing he could think about?

“What did I do yesterday after the call? List it,” Mark said.

“Fifteen oh-seven — arrival at Eastside sector,” the system recited in its flat mechanical rhythm. “Fifteen thirty-five — protocol completed. Sixteen oh-three — arrival home. Twenty-one eleven — sleep.”

At the same time, it projected fragments of the recordings onto his holo: the apartment, the body on the floor, the car ride home.

“No additional movements detected,” the system concluded.

For a moment it seemed as though a hint of mockery slipped through the electronic voice, as if the cuff were saying: “You imagined all of it, you pathetic bag of meat. Machines don’t make mistakes. Here’s the proof. And what have you got?”

“Nonsense,” Mark muttered irritably. “And turn off those stupid windows.”

“Done,” the apartment replied helpfully.

The river and forest vanished, leaving only dark rectangles of glass. The room became a plastic cell. Better that way. Reality without decorations, without illusions.

“Show me what’s outside,” Mark said tiredly.

“There’s a downpour, sir. It’s been an exceptionally rainy year!”

Just like the last twenty or so.

The windows came alive again — this time without a program. The real view appeared: glass towers, sheets of water racing down the panes, a few scattered figures beneath umbrellas.

Whether it was the apartment or the world itself, something was trying to convince him that everything from last night had been nothing but a hallucination, a product of exhaustion and burnout. But underneath, something still echoed: “You want to destroy all of this. You want to see them die. You want to kill every last one of them.”

Her voice—quiet, with that strange smile behind it, half-alive, half-dead.

“... Blood... You want them gone, don’t you?... Death...”

Mark squeezed his eyes shut, but the voice didn’t fade — it kept pulsing in his temples, insistent and rhythmic. He pressed his hands to the sides of his head. A hallucination, delirium — what else could it be? Had to be that fat bastard in his underwear yesterday.

The apartment offered him breakfast. A tray slid silently out of the food dispenser and onto the table: scrambled eggs, a slice of bread, a glass of orange juice. Everything looked perfect—the yolks smooth, the bread evenly browned, the juice a too-bright artificial orange. Mark chewed the bioprinted food without thinking. The egg white had a flawless texture, but in his mouth it felt like tasteless biomatter. Salt hadn’t been added to food for years, supposedly for the citizens’ health.

As he drank the juice with its faint plastic aftertaste, the cuff activated.

“Attention, Mark. Due to the absence of a patch, your pay rate has been reduced by another ten percent. Current level: minus twenty percent from baseline. I advise you to install a patch.”

Mark didn’t answer and forced the orange liquid down. He needed to go there in person. It was the only way to know whether it had all been a dream or not. Let the cuff say what it wanted—he remembered her breath, her touch. Who was he supposed to trust: himself or a stupid piece of hardware?

He glanced at the cuff, and the green light blinked back.

“Car,” Mark said as he got up. “To the site of yesterday’s call.”

“Ready.”

The doors closed behind him without a sound. Rows of identical doors, that same immaculate cleanliness. Mark descended the stairs. At the entrance, the dark body of the car was already glistening under the rain. Smooth panels with embedded displays, contoured seating. No steering wheel or pedals—unlike the old models still used in the Ring. The seat adjusted to his body, and the cuff’s neural link synchronized with the vehicle.

“Route established,” the car announced. “Have a pleasant trip.”

“Go to hell,” Mark said politely. He leaned back and stared out the window.

The City slid past. Towers rose one after another—straight lines of glass and steel. Their perfectly smooth surfaces reflected the sky so clearly that for a moment it seemed as though they weren’t buildings at all, but vertical cuts leading straight into the clouds. A mirage-City. A simulation.

The light was diffuse and sullen, and in it everything looked the same—facades, windows, even the people. The City was flawless. And dead.

Mark ran his hand along the car window. Raindrops slid down in blurred streaks, as if the towers were about to melt and disappear. The whole world outside felt like nothing more than a random trace on the glass. Ahead, the line of the Barrier came into view. Beyond it lay the Ring.

At first—a black wall, mute and blank. As they drew closer, Mark made out two gun towers and the silhouette of a guard, motionless, like someone had cut him out of metal. The turret beside him stared into the distance, indifferent to passing vehicles.

The car slowed, went through identification. The cuff blinked on his wrist. The guard looked straight at him. Mark was certain that behind that tinted visor the man was calculating whether to let them through or not. Or did the Contour make the decision instead?

The barrier arm lifted. The car glided forward. The landscape outside changed abruptly.

If the City was steel and glass—perfect, shining—then the Ring was filthy concrete. Rows of identical, half-collapsing buildings. Instead of manicured facades, chipped walls covered in graffiti and streaks of water. Window frames gaped empty, many boarded up with rotting plywood.

The roads were pitted and cratered; rainwater pooled in every depression. The car jolted over seams and potholes, the suspension letting out a low, weary groan.

The Ring was rotting and decaying in its flesh, but blood still ran through the veins of its streets: people huddled under awnings, traded straight out of car trunks, dug through the mud beside old engines and rusted-out machines.

Gangs ruled here. Their marks blackened the walls—crude drawings, rough letters; every sector belonged to someone. Eastside was Ghost territory, and their sign appeared everywhere: a skull with crossed bones.

The familiar tension returned to his body. In the Ring, you couldn’t afford to let your guard down.

The car stopped by the same building. The concrete entrance looked even more stripped and peeling than it had yesterday. Rainwater streamed down the walls, leaving dirty streaks behind, and the half-open door creaked helplessly in the wind.

Mark went up the stairs. Each step echoed with memories of damp walls, the trembling ceiling lamp, the crying child behind a door. But something had shifted—subtly, inexplicably—and that made everything feel more unsettling.

On the second floor, he stopped. The door the strike team had kicked in yesterday had been shoved back into the frame, now hanging from a single hinge. Beside it sat the same woman, in an old housecoat, a smoldering cigarette trembling between her fingers.

“You!” she hissed, grabbing Mark by the sleeve. “You killed my husband!”

“No, I didn’t kill him, I—” he began, but the words sounded weak even to him.

“Don’t lie,” she snapped, getting to her feet. “I saw you yesterday, you and your little drone girl. It’s all on you. You... you’re a bringer of death!”

Not an accusation. A sentence. She wasn’t condemning what he’d done—she was naming what he was.

He shrugged. It happens. Yesterday she’d been screaming while her husband beat her half to death, and today she was mourning him and blaming everyone around her. Mark hadn’t sold the man drugs. He hadn’t pulled the trigger.

Then who had? Probably Mouth.

Standard police cleanup. In the City’s engineered idyll, there were no prisons, which meant there was no one to arrest. A threat to society was eliminated. Everyone knew that—even the ones who called the police.

He almost told her to go ask her neighbors why they had killed her husband, but he kept silent. Guilt, excuses — none of that had meant anything to him for a long time.

Higher up the staircase, the same damp and dust waited. The building sounded and smelled hollow.

Ten floors — he counted the flights just to be sure. But yesterday there had definitely been more. And the door gave way with the same dry screech. The wind struck him in the face, sharp with déjà vu. The rooftop looked unchanged: cracked concrete, murky oil-slick puddles. Even the old clothesline frame creaked on the same note as it swayed in the wind.

Everything in its place. And at the same time — empty. She wasn’t here. He listened to the wind humming through the empty space and realized he was waiting for something. But nothing happened, and nothing could. The cuff had been right.

Mark went back down: top floor, corridor, the door — the same one. He stopped, pulled the handle, and it opened without resistance, just like yesterday. But no one had ever lived in this room. There was no table, no sofa—nothing. Dust lay in a heavy, undisturbed layer built up over years.

Mark cursed under his breath. He should have checked the dust on the stairs to see whether he’d actually come up here yesterday. But that woman had thrown him off. Idiot.

He walked across the room and breathed in the thick, stale air. Behind the window, there were no glowing towers, no flicker of the Barrier’s lights. Only Eastside — the same concrete housing blocks and narrow streets, drowned in rain.

There were no signs of anyone ever having lived here. Nothing to find here. Something faint was still visible on the opposite wall: a pale marking. A circle with a broken cross and a tail inside. The lines were uneven, as if someone had scratched them on the old plaster in a hurry. Not paint — a shallow gouge, like a scar.

Mark stepped closer and ran his finger across the mark; the plaster crumbling instantly, falling to the floor in a fine powder. The symbol itself held.

“Some kids’ scribbles, maybe?” he muttered, already knowing that wasn’t true.

“It does resemble a child’s drawing,” the system replied immediately. “Stylistically, it does not match gang markings or any known symbols. Probability of spontaneous creation: three percent.”

Mark couldn’t help himself.

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

“Apologies,” the cuff said calmly. “You asked a question.”

It sounded like you were the idiot here.

There was something else in the drawing, something different. He had seen this sign before. Not here, not scratched like this, but he’d definitely seen it. A memory flickered: a hand in the dark, the sound of rain, the same symbol. On her. On the girl from the roof — the mark on her wrist had been exactly this.

But the memory kept offering something more, something left unsaid, just out of reach. At that moment, something rustled in the hallway. A faint sound, like a foot brushing against broken plaster. Mark froze, listening.

A short laugh. A child’s laugh. High, sharp, cut off at once, as if someone had clamped a hand over a mouth.

Mark turned sharply. The door was shut. Silence.

He stepped into the hallway.

His steps echoed off the concrete walls, and the dust rose in small clouds. Nothing but his own footprints. No fresh marks, no smudged trails. Only the whisper of rain from the stairwell window — the dull, endless song the Ring never stopped humming.

But he couldn’t have imagined that laugh. A child’s laugh, bright and ringing — too alive for this dead place. A cold sensation crept over him: someone was playing with him. Without thinking, Mark turned and headed down the stairs. The thud of his boots echoed through the stairwell. He forced himself to walk calmly, evenly. As if he was in no hurry, as if he hadn’t heard anything at all.

But the muscles in his legs tightened with every step, and each new step was just a little quicker than the last. His heart was pounding harder.

Mark reached the first floor, pushed the door open, and stepped out into the rain. The car waiting by the entrance flashed its headlights in greeting. He walked toward it with a brisk, purposeful pace, as if hurrying to something important — and only when the door shut behind him did he realize he hadn’t been breathing.