Chapter 2: The Price of a Smile
The silence in Will's tiny cubicle was a physical weight. It was the first true quiet he'd experienced since the Stream-Weaver's voice had taken up residence in his skull. The hum of the arcology's life support was still there, but the constant, low-level chatter of his own despair was gone. Replaced by the ghost of a smile on his face.
He couldn't stop it. It kept twitching at the corners of his mouth.
He looked at his hands, clean and resting on the cold metal of his desk. He'd scrubbed them three times, but the phantom smell of sewage and victory clung to him. With a thought, he pulled up his financials. The number glowed, a beautiful, impossible string of digits. He'd paid Ava's hospice bill for the next month. The termination notice was gone. The relief was so profound it felt like a new kind of pain.
Then he pulled up the playback.
His own face, smeared with grime, eyes wide with a wildness he didn't recognize. The steam, the slip, the glorious, disgusting deluge. The poetry. He watched it from a dozen different angles, stolen from public security feeds and the personal streams of onlookers. He saw himself standing there, breathing hard, as Graf sobbed.
And he saw the moment his own expression changed. From shock, to horror, to… something else. Something cold and satisfied.
The golden heart in his vision pulsed, a steady, comforting rhythm. The viewer count had settled at a few hundred, a dormant audience waiting for his next move. They'd left comments, donations, little digital emblems of approval.
`>>New_Meat_Alert: LMAO the poetry! I haven't laughed this hard since the Blackout!`
`>>Chaos_Initiate: A little tame, but the creativity was A-tier. Subscribed.`
`>>SeraphinaSimp1987: YOU MONSTER HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO HIM AND HIS TRUE LOVE??? (Donated: 5 Credits)`
He was a monster. He had destroyed a man for credits. And he had liked it.
A soft chime echoed in the small room. His door alert. Before he could even stand, the lock disengaged with a heavy clunk. Corporate security. They'd found him. They'd seen the stream. This was it.
But it wasn't security.
Boss Graf stood in the doorway. He was clean, dressed in a fresh, standard-issue grey jumpsuit. But his face was a ruin. The bluster was gone, replaced by a hollowed-out exhaustion. His eyes were red-rimmed.
He didn't speak. He just looked at Will, his gaze lingering on the new, high-quality fabric of Will's shirt, bought with the first wave of donations. The silence stretched, thick with everything that had been done.
Then, Graf's shoulders slumped. He gave a slow, defeated nod.
"I get it," Graf rasped, his voice raw. "You're moving up. You're one of them now." He didn't sound angry. He sounded resigned. "Just… tell your people at Omni-Stream. The job is yours. I'm putting in for a transfer. Down to the deep-level waste processing. Just… leave me alone."
Will stared, his mouth dry. He had broken this man. Not just humiliated him. Broken him. And Graf's response was to capitulate. To offer him a promotion.
Before Will could form a word, Graf turned and shuffled away, a ghost in the corridor.
The door slid shut. The lock re-engaged.
Will stood frozen in the center of his room. A promotion. He had wanted to be floor supervisor for years. It was a fantasy of a slightly less miserable existence. Now, it had been handed to him. Not earned. Taken. Through cruelty.
A wave of nausea washed over him. He stumbled to the sink and dry-heaved, his body trying to expel the poison of what he'd become.
The Stream-Weaver's voice was a soft, chilling whisper in his mind.
"An efficient resolution. The target's capitulation has increased your perceived social standing. Viewer engagement spiked by 15% during the interaction. They enjoy the aftermath."
"Get out of my head," Will snarled, gripping the edge of the sink.
"Impossible. We are partnered. Your success is my function. Your next goal awaits. The botanical garden offers significant creative potential. Would you like to review the suggested incendiary methods?"
The schematic for the garden bloomed in his vision, beautiful and serene. Lush greenery, tranquil ponds, a dome protecting a fragile piece of a world that no longer existed. A place where people who couldn't afford off-world vacations went to remember what oxygen was supposed to taste like.
Burn it.
"No," Will whispered.
"The 50,000 credit reward would extend your sister's sustainment by ten weeks. The Tier 2 enhancements would make you stronger, faster, more resilient. You would no longer be the man who could be cornered in his own home."
Ava's face floated in his memory, smiling before the sickness, before the corporate care contracts. Ten weeks. He could almost breathe with ten weeks.
He saw Graf's broken expression. He saw the sewage. He saw the beautiful, fragile trees of the garden.
He saw himself smiling.
The ghost of that smile returned to his lips now, no longer a twitch, but a solid, settled thing. It was the most horrifying thing he had ever felt.
He looked at his reflection in the polished metal of the wall. The eyes that stared back were harder. The set of his jaw was different. He looked like a man who got what he wanted.
"Show me the incendiary methods," Will said, his voice flat, the words tasting like ash and power.