PART IV. THE GOLDEN CAGE
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(SYSTEM): LOADING PART IV…
(LOCATION): RESIDENTIAL SECTOR OF BUNKER «VALTON-0». BLOCK «COMFORT». APARTMENT 402.
(TIME): EVENING OF THE SAME DAY. DECEMBER.
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Elias burst into the apartment as if wolves were chasing him. The door closed with a quiet pneumatic sigh, cutting off the sterile hum of the corridors. Here, inside, it didn’t smell of ozone and concrete. It smelled of homemade vanilla, baked trout, and expensive perfume. The apartment was frighteningly perfect.
A spacious living room, Scandinavian minimalist furniture, a soft white carpet that feet sank into. Instead of a window — a huge, wall-sized plasma panel broadcasting a view of the summer Lake Saimaa. The sun never set there unless you tweaked the dimmer settings.
Hanna stood before the mirror in the bedroom. The elegant evening dress she wore was the color of champagne — silk that flowed over her body like water. She was adjusting a pearl necklace. She looked like a true beauty.
«She is amazingly beautiful…» Elias thought.
With that simple, sturdy beauty of a woman who grew up in the korpi — the Finnish backwoods, where snow buries the roof in winter, and mosquitoes eat you alive in summer.
Right now, she was glowing.
— «Elias!» — she saw his reflection in the mirror. — «You’re late. Dinner is getting cold. Can you imagine, they served fresh strawberries in the food block today, grown in the automated greenhouses! In December!»
Elias looked at the plate on the table. The strawberries on it were huge, glossy, frighteningly symmetrical. They looked like a 3D render, not human food.
— «Try it, honey,» — Hanna brought a berry to his lips. Her eyes were wide open, her pupils trembling slightly, but her smile remained motionless, glued to her face. Elias pushed her hand away. The berry fell onto the white carpet but left no stain. It rolled like a hard rubber ball. He shifted his gaze to the «window» — the plasma panel. Lake Saimaa, eternal summer.
— «Hanna, look at the water,» — he whispered.
— «What? It’s beautiful there, honey.»
— «Look at the wave by the shore.»
Hanna turned around. On the screen, in the corner, the exact same wave rolled onto a rock. Time after time. With exactly the same amplitude, with the exact same pattern of foam. It was a simple GIF. A short, three-second loop. But Hanna looked at this digital cycle with adoration, as if seeing a divine revelation.
— «Such peace…» — she exhaled. — «Time doesn’t flow here, Elias. Don’t you feel it? We are already in eternity.»
Elias wasn’t listening. He grabbed a travel bag standing in the corner and started throwing things into it. A sweater, documents, a tablet.
— «Take that off,» — he tossed out hoarsely. — «Where is Mia?»
— «Mia is in the playroom, they have choir rehearsal… Elias, what are you doing?»
Hanna approached him and placed her hand over his trembling fingers trying to zip up the stubborn zipper.
— «We are leaving,» — Elias looked into her eyes. — «Right now. I will lead you out through the technical airlock in the third sector. I have the codes.»
— «Leaving?» — Hanna laughed, but a note of fear slipped through her laughter. — «Where to? Up? Into the slush? To our two-room flat in Vantaa with the leaky roof?»
— «To where it’s safe!» — Elias yelled. — «Hanna, you don’t understand! This place… it’s a crypt! Raimo has lost his mind. They aren’t building an ark, they’re building a gas chamber!»
Hanna stepped back. Her face hardened. That very expression she got when Elias started philosophizing about quantum mechanics or politics over dinner. The expression of «woe from wit».
— «Again,» — she said quietly. — «You’re having an episode again.»
— «What episode?!»
— «An episode of your… genius,» — she spat the word like a curse. — «Nothing is ever right for you. You don’t like anything. You’re always looking for a catch. They gave you the position of Chief Engineer. They gave you an unimaginable salary that your father wouldn’t have earned in three lifetimes. They housed us next to the ministers!» — She swept her hand around the apartment. — «Look around, Elias! Yesterday I drank coffee with the Minister of Education’s wife. She is the loveliest woman. She said Mia will be accepted into the elite gymnasium without exams. Without exams, Elias. We have everything here! Food, warmth, safety. And up there? What’s up there? Crisis, unemployment, darkness, and death.»
— «It’s an illusion!» — Elias grabbed her by the shoulders, trying to shake her. — «Hanna, listen to me! In the center of the main hall hangs a sphere that vibrates without energy. The ventilation is set to exhaust. They… They want to atomize us! And Raimo talks about angels and spirits! This is a suicide cult!»
Hanna gently, but showing strength, removed his hands.
— «Raimo Valtonen is the Prime Minister, Elias. You voted for him yourself. He saved the country from default. He is Mia’s godfather. Have you forgotten? And you? You are simply tired. You’ve been overworking.» — She stroked his cheek. Her hand smelled of that same expensive cream they handed out at the local dispensary — the smell was sweet, suffocating. — «You imagine conspiracies everywhere. You always look for a catch when things are too good. This is your village trauma, honey. You don’t believe that we… That we have finally earned happiness.»
— «I believe in physics!» — Elias pleaded. — «Physics doesn’t lie! You can’t cancel entropy without sacrifices!»
— «And I, honey, believe my own eyes,» — Hanna cut him off. — «My daughter is full and happy. My daughter is safe. My husband is a respected man, not a stressed-out technician.»
She stepped right up to him and hugged him. Her warmth, her smell, the softness of her dress — all this enveloped him like a spiderweb.
— «Calm down, honey. Have some wine instead. Tomorrow is the Celebration. The Great Celebration, Elias. And everyone will be there. Do you want to embarrass me? Do you want me to go back to the village and milk cows while others fly into the future?»
Elias froze. He pressed his forehead against her shoulder. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry, he wanted to hit her, stun her, throw her over his shoulder, and carry her away by force. But he knew, he understood that he couldn’t. Guards at the airlocks. Cameras. Blanc, who watches every step. Always watching…
And this pervasive sweet smell that clouded the will. And most importantly — she, Hanna, wouldn’t go. She would cling to this carpet, to this plasma screen with the fake lake, to this pearl necklace. They had bought her. Lock, stock, and barrel. Not with money. But with a sense of her own importance. She had always wanted to be somebody, a lady.
— «You will ruin us, Hanna,» — he whispered into her neck. — «You will kill us all.»
— «Silly,» — she kissed the top of his head like a child. — «I am saving us. Just trust the people who are smarter than you. Trust Raimo.»
The nursery door opened. Mia ran out — a seven-year-old girl with blonde pigtails. In her hands, she held a doll dressed in the same cream-colored dress as her mom’s.
— «Daddy!» — she hung on his leg. — «Daddy, look! The lady on the TV said that tomorrow we will fly! Like fairies! Daddy, and I drew our new home!» — Mia handed him a piece of paper stolen from the office supplies.
Elias took the drawing. His hands trembled. On the paper, in children’s colored pencils, the Cave was drawn. But instead of people in white clothes, for some reason, Mia had drawn ugly red blobs. And instead of the Black Sphere in the center hung a huge, toothy mouth, shaded with a black marker so hard that the paper had torn.
— «Why a mouth, sweetie?» — Elias whispered, feeling his heart stop. — «That’s the Sun.»
Mia tilted her head to the side. Her eyes for a second became frighteningly adult, ancient.
— «No, Daddy. The Sun warms. But this — eats. The lady on the TV said that we must be tasty.»
Hanna snatched the drawing, crumpled it up, and threw it in the trash bin.
— «Don’t talk nonsense, Mia. It’s just an abstraction. She has a talent for modern art, right, Elias?»
Elias looked at his daughter. Then at his wife.
Inside him, something broke. Something gripped his heart and slowly began to squeeze. The spine of his will snapped like a dry branch. He realized that he was left alone. Completely, absolutely alone in this fake paradise.
— «Yes, sweetie,» — he said in a dead voice, stroking his daughter’s head. — «We will fly. Definitely.»
Hanna smiled, satisfied with the victory.
— «See. Now go take a shower. You smell of machine oil. And we still have things to do. At the Celebration of life, we must shine.»
…
(SYSTEM LOG: PROJECT «VALTON-0»)
DATE: DECEMBER 24. 23:45.
POPULATION STATUS: READINESS 99%.
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS: Fear inhibitor (Code: «Sisu-Minus») dispersed in the ventilation system.
PSYCHO-BACKGROUND: Collective euphoria. Subjects perceive impending annihilation as «Ascension».
CURATOR’S NOTE (+BLANC): «An amazing biological species. They are ready to march into the meat grinder singing, if you convince them that they will become light upon exit. Let the show begin.»
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> ⚠️ ENTITY STATUS: GLOBAL ILLUSION ACTIVATED. WILL SUPPRESSION SUCCESSFUL.
>
> 🧪 Look at how easily a human breaks, protein-based readers. Elias Korhonen is the only one who kept his sanity in this concrete crypt. But what does the sanity of one engineer mean against a system that feeds your wife huge glossy strawberries in December and broadcasts eternal summer on a plasma panel? The wife, intoxicated by status, puts the noose around the family’s neck herself.
>
> ⚙️ Hanna is not just blinded by greed or vanity. Look at the system log: «Sisu-Minus». The +Angi sprayed a chemical fear inhibitor through the ventilation. They literally turned off the famous instinct of self-preservation in the flower of the Finnish nation. People will walk into the maw of Fractal-0 voluntarily, with smiles and in evening gowns, certain that they are becoming angels and flying like fairies.
>
> 💀 And the most terrifying part — Elias will go with them. Not because he believes in this nonsense, but because he has nowhere else to go. The trap has snapped shut. Keep reading. Welcome to the Celebration of Death.
