Chapter 2: The Boss's Command
The summoning arrived as a soft, insistent pulse in the corner of Eric’s vision, superimposed over his morning nutrient slurry. TEXT-BASED DIRECTIVE: MALONE, S. OFFICE 7-A. 0900. ACKNOWLEDGE.
He acknowledged with a blink. The text vanished. He finished the slurry, the taste of algal protein and mineral fortifiers uniform on his tongue. He dressed in his standard-issue gray suit, the fabric designed to not distract or retain organic odors. He checked his tablet’s charge: 100%. He left his silent apartment, the door sealing behind him with a sound like a breath being held.
The Ministry of Audited Intimacy occupied the central spire of the district, a needle of black glass. The lobby was a cavernous space, the floor a polished obsidian that reflected the dozens of massive screens floating in the air. Each screen displayed a live feed, sanitized and pixellated just enough to obscure identities while showcasing the acts in clear, instructive detail. The air was cool, cycled, smelling of antiseptic and ozone. The murmur of hundreds of simultaneous audits played from hidden speakers at a low, instructive volume.
Eric rode the lift to the seventieth floor. The doors opened directly into the open-plan bullpen of Sam Malone’s division. Dozens of Auditors sat at sleek terminals, their faces bathed in the blue glow of their own feeds, their fingers tapping notes, issuing fines, their voices low murmurs of clinical assessment. It was a symphony of judgment.
Sam’s office was a glass cube in the corner, its walls currently rendered opaque by a shimmering privacy field. Eric approached. The field dissolved with a ripple, and the door slid aside.
“Voss. Come in. Close it.”
Sam Malone didn’t look up from his own, larger desk-mounted console. He was a broad, solid man, his fitted ministry jacket straining slightly across his shoulders. His hair was steel-gray, cut close, and his mustache was a precise, dark line above his lip. The office was as Eric remembered: coldly efficient, the wall of monitors showing a curated selection of high-priority audits. The painting above Sam’s desk—a classical depiction of a man taking a woman from behind in a field of wheat—was still slightly crooked.
Eric stood before the desk, hands clasped behind his back, posture perfect.
Sam finally looked up. His eyes were a watery blue, sharp, and tired. “Your logs from last night. The Nexus event. Pulled it for review. Standard procedure for any auditor stabilization.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Mmm.” Sam leaned back, his chair groaning softly. He gestured to a secondary monitor. “Run it. The stabilization sequence.”
The footage from Eric’s own tablet filled the screen. Same angle. Same data streams. Eric watched himself step onto the platform, declare himself a resource, undress. He felt a faint, proprietary pride seeing the clean lines of his own movements.
Sam watched in silence, his expression unreadable. He let it play through the entire sequence, through the climax, the withdrawal, the sufficiency rating. He stopped it just as Eric was re-fastening his trousers.
“Interesting,” Sam said, the word drawn out.
“Sir?”
“Your metrics.” Sam tapped a key, and the screen isolated Eric’s biometric stream. The smooth, controlled ascent. The perfect peak. The efficient decline. “See this? Auditor Arousal Efficiency: ninety-nine percent. Neural engagement focused on task-completion sectors, not primitive limbic reward centers. That’s… remarkable. Most Auditors, when they have to step in, their data gets messy. Contaminated by personal gratification. Yours…” He swiveled his chair to face Eric fully. “Yours reads like a surgical manual. It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you, sir. I endeavor to maintain protocol.”
“I know you do.” Sam smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s why you’re one of my best. A pure instrument. You see the act, you see the data. Nothing else.”
Eric said nothing. The praise was correct. It settled in him, a validation.
“But.” Sam leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “A tool that precise can be applied to more… delicate problems.” He called up a new file on the main screen. A dossier. Two faces, a man and a woman, both attractive, late thirties. Their citizen IDs glowed beside them. “The Varden couple. Lysander and Chloe. Tier-4 social credit. He’s in architectural compliance. She’s a somatic therapist. Their quarterly intimacy audits have been… problematic.”
Eric’s eyes flicked over the data. Six recorded coupling attempts in the last ninety days. Two fines for “Performative Hesitation.” Three for “Biometric Disharmony.” One for “Aesthetic Repetition.” Their aggregate passion score was a dismal 41.2.
“They go through the motions,” Sam continued, his voice dropping to a confidential rumble. “Technically, they complete. But the soul isn’t in it. The data is… anemic. Lifeless. It’s a mismatch that reflects poorly on our district’s averages. We’ve issued the standard tutorials, mandated sensory-enhancement gels, even prescribed a weekend at a compliance retreat. Nothing takes.”
“A persistent dysfunction,” Eric stated.
“A persistent problem,” Sam corrected. “High-profile enough that whispers start. If the system can’t fix its own, what good is the system?” He steepled his fingers. “I’m assigning them to you. Not for a standard audit. For a deep-dive stabilization. A full reset.”
Eric blinked. “A full reset, sir? That would require a series of sanctioned interventions, potentially across multiple sessions. Co-habitation monitoring.”
“I’m aware of the protocols, Voss.” Sam’s tone held a hint of impatience. “I’m authorizing it. You’ll be embedded in their residential unit for a minimum of seventy-two hours. You will observe their daily interactions. You will audit their scheduled couplings. And you will, using your unique skill set,” he glanced back at the frozen image of Eric on the screen, “stabilize them. By any means the data dictates. Your authority will be total. Your goal is to get their mutual sync score above eighty-five and keep it there. We need to see genuine peaks. Not this… flatline.”
The assignment was unprecedented in Eric’s career. It was a validation of his highest order. “I will not disappoint, sir.”
“I know you won’t.” Sam’s smile returned, wider this time. It was a strange expression, a mix of professional satisfaction and something else, something greasy and knowing. “Sometimes, people forget what the real thing feels like. They need a… reminder. A calibrator. Your report from The Nexus shows you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty for the sake of the data. That’s what this couple needs. Someone to get his hands dirty. To show them the proper waveform.”
A soft chime sounded at the office door. Before Sam could respond, the privacy field dissolved and the door slid open.
A woman stepped in. She was perhaps fifty, but maintained with the rigorous care of the high-credit class. Her hair was a cascade of artfully arranged bronze waves. She wore a dress of shimmering graphite fabric that clung and moved with a life of its own. Eric recognized her from ministry social files: Elara Malone, Sam’s wife.
“Sam, darling, you said ten, and it’s—oh.” She stopped, her eyes—a vivid, calculating green—landing on Eric. They traveled up his lean form, from his polished shoes to his sharp gray eyes. Her lips, painted a deep, compliant-approved crimson, curved. “I’m interrupting.”
“Just finishing, sweetheart.” Sam’s voice changed, becoming softer, yet somehow more strained. “Auditor Voss, you remember my wife, Elara.”
“Ma’am.” Eric gave a slight, formal nod.
“Auditor Voss,” she said, his name a slow purr in her mouth. She took a few steps into the room, her perfume cutting through the ozone—something organic, floral, and deeply out of place. Her gaze drifted past Eric to the large monitor, which still displayed the frozen, pixellated image from The Nexus, Eric’s own nude form a blur of pale skin amidst other blurs. Her eyebrow arched, almost imperceptibly. “Reviewing field work?”
“Performance metrics,” Sam said quickly, tapping a key. The screen went dark. “Voss here is our top calibrator. Just gave him a special project.”
“A calibrator.” Elara repeated the word, her eyes locking back onto Eric. There was a knowledge in that look, a glint that wasn’t just curiosity. It was recognition. It was the look of someone who had been audited, many times, for many things. Who knew the feel of a stranger’s clinical gaze on her skin. Who knew, perhaps, what it was like to be “stabilized.” “How fascinating. Sam’s always said the best Auditors have a… practical understanding of the material.”
She let the statement hang. The air in the office felt thicker, charged with an unsanctioned current.
“We’re done, Voss,” Sam said, his voice regaining its firmness. “The Varden files have been transferred to your tablet. Deployment is tomorrow at 0800. Dismissed.”
“Sir. Ma’am.” Eric turned on his heel and walked out. He felt the weight of Elara Malone’s gaze on his back until the door sealed shut, the privacy field buzzing back to life.
He walked through the bullpen, the murmurs of audits now sounding like whispers. The praise, the assignment—it should have been a pure triumph. But the meeting had left a strange residue. Sam’s hungry look when he called him a “pure instrument.” The crooked painting of the rutting couple. The way Elara had looked at him, not as a functionary, but as a physical object of known utility.
He reached his own small workstation. He sat, activated his terminal. The Varden dossier opened automatically. He began his preparation, scrolling through their detailed biometric histories, their preference logs, their failure patterns. It was a complex puzzle. His mind, trained for analysis, leapt into the work.
But beneath the focus, a tremor, faint as a faulty sensor. Sam’s words echoed: By any means the data dictates.
And beneath that, the image of Elara Malone’s knowing, crimson smile. A smile that suggested the line between auditor and participant, between calibrator and subject, was not just fine, but often, deliberately, crossed.
He pushed it down. It was irrelevant data. Noise. The assignment was clear. The Vardens were a problem to be solved.
He would solve them. He would stabilize them. He would get his hands as dirty as the metrics required.
He began drafting his preliminary observation strategy, his fingers flying across the interface. On the edge of his screen, reflected in the dark glass, his own face looked back—sharp, observant, and utterly calm. The perfect instrument.
For now.