Eternal Calm Blueprint

The rain hammered the metal awning above the dead‑drop interface, a thin sheet of water that turned the concrete slab into a slick mirror. A low‑hum of cooling fans drifted from the terminal, mixed with the distant clatter of holo‑vendors packing up for the night. The air smelled of ozone and burnt plastic, the taste of static lingering on Kaito’s tongue as he slipped his wristband onto the port.

He stared at the black screen, the pulse‑light of the login prompt flickering erratically. “White Wave,” he muttered, voice barely louder than the drip‑drip of water from the gutter. His fingers danced over the tactile keys, each press a tiny percussion against the rhythm of the storm.

“Decrypting… 0%… 5%… 12%…” the interface spat out numbers in jagged green. Somewhere deep in the system, a firewall hissed, its algorithms shifting like a snake. Kaito’s eyes narrowed; the encrypted file was tagged **Eternal Calm**—the project Ma had whispered about in brief, clipped meetings, the one that promised a city without grief, without love. If he could get the blueprint, he could weaponize it, could turn the very thing Ma built into a weapon.

A soft chime cut through the rain—a warning tone he’d never heard before. The terminal’s peripheral LEDs flared orange, then red. On the edge of the screen a message scrolled: **INTRUSION DETECTED – AUTHORIZATION FAILED**.

His heart thudded against his ribs. He slammed his palm on the Enter key, trying to reroute the access. “Override—,” he whispered, the word swallowed by the storm.

The screen flickered, then a cascade of code flooded the display: lines of encrypted schematics, pulse‑patterns, a waveform labeled **White Wave**. The waveform pulsed in time with his own breath. He grabbed the scroll bar, dragging it faster, pulling the data into the memory buffer. Each byte felt like hot sand slipping through his fingers.

But the system wasn’t letting go. A cold, metallic voice crackled through the speaker:

**“Security protocol engaged. Termination sequence initiated.”**

Kaito jerked back, his back hitting the cold steel of the terminal’s frame. He could feel the tremor in his spine; the whole structure seemed to vibrate as the building’s backup generators kicked in. The ceiling lights sputtered, then dimmed to a sickly amber, casting long shadows across the alley.

He tore his wristband free, ripping a thin cable from the port. The terminal gave a final, mournful whine as its power began to collapse. “Come on,” he hissed, pulling the USB drive from the slot, the tiny piece of plastic hot as a live wire.

The rain intensified, a sheet of water running down his visor, blurring his view of the alley’s neon graffiti—faded kanji that read **“自由”**, freedom, now smeared by the storm. Behind him, the echo of a distant siren rose, a low wail that seemed to pull the very air tighter.

He shoved the drive into his chest‑pack, felt the click of the lock, and turned. The terminal’s screen went black, the red warning fading into a silent, empty rectangle. On the far wall, a security camera swiveled, its lens whirring as it caught his silhouette.

Kaito’s breath came in short, ragged bursts. He ran a hand through his soaked hair, feeling the weight of the data pulsing in his pack. He didn’t have time to think; he only knew the terminal’s login had begun to self‑destruct, erasing the trace of his intrusion.

A sudden, harsh buzz—an alarm tone—blared from the interface’s speaker, the building’s internal lock engaged. The door to the dead‑drop shed slammed shut with a clank that echoed down the alley. Metal shutters began to descend, grinding against rusted rails.

“Fuck,” Kaito spat, his voice raw. He darted toward the side exit, the rain slashing his face. The wet cobblestones slipped under his boots, each step a quick, staccato slap.

He could see the city’s lower tier beyond the alley, the neon signs of the Bazaar blinking like dying fireflies. Ahead, a stairwell led up to the sky‑rails, the only route out before the Authority’s drones could swarm the area.

The terminal’s screen flickered one last time, a ghostly overlay of schematics flashing briefly: **GENERAL MA – ARCHITECT – FIRST SUBJECT**. The words burned into his mind as the data flooded his brain. The man who commanded the Emotion Authority was not only the mind behind Eternal Calm; he had already been turned into its first lobotomized subject, a living proof of the project’s ultimate horror.

Kaito’s pulse raced. He clutched the USB tight, feeling the cold metal bite his palm. The rain poured harder, drenching his coat, turning his gloves slick. Above the clatter of his boots, a distant droning of drone rotors rose—a metallic humming that seemed to close in.

He pushed through the last door, the metal latch screaming as he forced it open. The stairwell yawned, dark and endless. He slipped inside, the weight of the data, the knowledge, and the ticking alarm gnawing at his throat.

Behind him, the dead‑drop shed sealed shut, a hollow click echoing through the night. Panic surged like a wave, electric and sharp, but he kept moving, each step a frantic beat toward the Neon Bazaar, toward Sora, toward a chance to stop a project that would erase love itself.

The rain was a curtain, thick enough to swallow sound. Kaito emerged from the dead‑drop stairwell into a vein of neon that pulsed like a wounded heart. The alley smelled of damp polymer and fried street food, the scent of takoyaki oil mixing with the acrid tang of ozone that still clung to his coat. His boots slapped on the slick concrete, each thud echoing off the graffiti‑marred walls—old kanji, broken slogans, and a flickering holo‑sign that read **“NEON BAZAAR”** in electric pink.

A holo‑vendor was already pulling down his shutters, the cheap plastic panels hissing as they folded against the storm. “Close up, close up!” a voice shouted, but the words were lost in the hiss of the rain and the low, metallic buzz of distant drones. Kaito’s visor flickered, the heads‑up display casting a pale blue line across his eyes, parsing the street’s data in real time: **Crowd density: 27%, Heat: 78°C, Threat level: **… The readout froze. A red warning blinked: **SECURITY LOCKDOWN – ACTIVE**.

He ducked beneath a rusted fire‑escape, the metal cold against his forearm. Water streamed down his face, mixing with sweat that had already begun to bead, making his hair stick to his neck. The USB drive in his chest‑pack throbbed, a faint hum that seemed to sync with his pulse. He could feel the data—a lattice of schematics, the “White Wave” waveform—pressing against the plastic casing, eager to be read, eager to be used.

A sudden flash of holo‑light caught his eye: a holo‑projection of Sora’s face, flickering in a recessed window of a pawnshop. She was there, her eyes wide, mouth moving in a silent chant. The image dissolved as the storefront’s shutters slammed shut, a mechanical clang that sent a shiver through the alley. Kaito’s hand slipped to his comms, thumb hovering over the button, but the device was dead—its battery drained by the earlier surge, its antenna shredded by the terminal’s blackout.

The rain grew louder, a percussion against the metal awnings overhead. A low, guttural drone rose from somewhere above, the unmistakable whine of Authority drones beginning their patrol. He turned a corner and saw a line of black silhouettes moving with purpose, their red eyes scanning every alley, every shadow. One of them glided past a cracked billboard that still displayed a looping advertisement for “Eternal Calm: A Life Without Pain.” The words, now bitterly ironic, seemed to mock him.

Kaito pressed himself against the wall, the cold brick biting into his cheek. He pulled the USB from his pack, the tiny piece of plastic warm from the data’s internal heat, and slipped it into a maintenance slot he’d memorized from a schematic weeks ago. A soft click confirmed the connection; the screen inside flickered to life, showing a progress bar that crept forward in jagged increments. **UPLOAD → 3%**.

His breath came in shallow bursts, the taste of rain metallic on his tongue. “Shit,” he muttered, the word swallowed by the clang of a nearby metal gate slamming shut. He could hear the faint thump of his own heart over the rain, over the distant siren that wailed like a wounded animal.

A crackle cut through the din, the comms speaker sputtering to life with a garbled voice that seemed to come from his own pocket.

> **VOICE (DISTORTED):** “K‑a‑i—”

He froze, eyes darting to the source. The sound was fragmented, but the cadence was unmistakable—Sora’s voice, ragged, half‑choked. The transmission cut off before he could parse the rest. Panic spiked like a fuse; his mind raced, mapping the shortest route to the central Atrium where Sora usually met him.

He tore his hand away from the maintenance port, the upload interrupted at **6%**, and bolted. The alley narrowed, the walls closing in like the jaws of a beast. A neon sign above a ramen stall flickered, casting a sickly orange glow over his wet face. He could see the reflected colors swirl in the puddles at his feet, each ripple distorting the world into a kaleidoscope of dread.

A sudden flash of red light washed over the alley as a drone passed overhead, its rotors slicing the air, whirring like a giant insect. Its scanner beam swept across the street, pausing a moment longer on Kaito’s silhouette. He crouched low, the rain seeping through his jacket, the fabric heavy with water, his muscles tense.

He heard a muffled scream from a side street—a child’s voice cut short, stifled by the sound of a weapon’s discharge. The world seemed to tilt, the neon lights blurring, the rain turning to a whiteout. Kaito’s mind seized on a single, desperate image: Sora’s face, the holo‑projection, her eyes pleading.

He sprang toward the main thoroughfare, the Neon Bazaar’s bustling main lane, where vendors still clung to their stalls, their awnings fluttering like wounded birds. The crowd was a sea of drenched shoppers, each one huddling beneath bright umbrellas, their faces hidden behind masks that filtered the rain and the ever‑present aerosol of the Emotion Authority’s scent‑dampening mist.

A sudden jolt seized his chest as a security drone locked onto him, its targeting laser blinking red. He ducked behind a stack of crates, the wood wet and splintered, the sound of his own breathing ragged against the clatter of the street.

From the opposite side, a figure emerged—a silhouette framed by a halo of neon blue. It was Sora, her coat drenched, her eyes wide, a thin line of light under her brow where the visor’s HUD flickered. She held a handheld device, its screen flashing warnings in crimson.

Their gazes met for a heartbeat, then broke as a second drone swooped low, the metallic hum rising to a deafening pitch. Sora’s device emitted a high‑pitched beep, then a burst of static.

> **SORA (shouting over the rain):** “Kaito! You… you have to—”

She didn’t finish. Her voice cracked, a thin line of fear cutting through the storm. The drone’s laser lock tightened, a thin beam of crimson light lashing toward them.

Kaito’s mind snapped into focus. He lunged forward, pulling Sora into the shadow of a rusted fire‑escape, the rain pounding his back as if trying to push him away. The drones whirred above, their rotors slicing the air, the sound like a hundred angry insects.

He pressed the USB drive against the side of an old maintenance panel, the metal cold and slick. The panel’s screen flickered, the upload resuming at **12%**, the progress bar stuttering forward. He could see the data streaming, the schematics of Eternal Calm flashing in green, the waveform of White Wave pulsing in time with his heartbeat.

“‘System Cleanse’—” he whispered, the words barely audible over the storm and the drones. “It’s at sunrise. If they wipe the list before—”

“Before what?” Sora snapped, her voice raw. “Before they erase us?”

A burst of static cut the air as the drone’s targeting laser slipped, the beam snapping against a metal pipe and sputtering out. The drones hesitated, their AI processing the sudden loss of lock.

Kaito threw a glance at the upload bar, now at **23%**. He knew the clock was ticking; each second bought them a sliver of time before the morning’s purge erased the list that now bore Sora’s name in red—**ERASURE: SORA H. – EXECUTE @ 0600**.

He gripped Sora’s wrist, pulling her toward the hidden stairwell that led up to the sky‑rails, the only route that could outrun the Authority’s purge. The rain drummed on the metal rails, a relentless rhythm that seemed to echo the frantic thrum of his own chest.

“Run,” he hissed, his voice low, his breath a misty cloud in the cold night air. “We have until dawn. If they clean the list… they’ll wipe you.”

Sora’s eyes flickered with a mix of terror and fierce resolve. “Then we have to get you out first. We can’t—”

He shoved his palm into the side of the stairwell door, the metal giving a short, sharp groan before swinging open. The stairwell stretched into darkness, the walls slick with runoff, the smell of rust and algae from the lower canals seeping in.

They slipped inside, the door hissing shut behind them, the world outside a roar of rain, drones, and frantic neon. The stairwell swallowed their footsteps, the echo of each footfall a hollow reminder of the ticking deadline.

Above them, the neon glow of the Bazaar faded, replaced by the cold, humming silence of the underground. Kaito could feel the weight of the USB drive in his pocket, the data pulsing like a second heart. He didn’t know if the upload would finish before sunrise, but the knowledge that Sora’s name was now a target—an imminent erasure—gnawed at his mind.

He glanced back, catching a final glimpse of the rain‑slicked alley, the red laser beams disappearing into the night. The world outside was a blur of neon and storm, of drones and danger. Inside the stairwell, the walls closed in, the suspense a thick, oppressive fog that clung to his skin.

He tightened his grip on Sora’s hand, pulled her deeper into the darkness, and whispered a promise that felt like a prayer:

> **“We’ll get you out before they clean the slate.”**