In the year 2099, the city of Aetheria was a masterpiece of cold, mathematical perfection. Here, the "Logic Bureau" governed every heartbeat, and emotions were treated as systemic glitches.
Shen Xiu sat in his pristine lab, his eyes reflecting the sterile blue light of his monitors. As the city's premier Logic Surgeon, his job was simple: find the "Deviants"—those whose brainwaves showed the chaotic spikes of passion or fear—and perform a "Logic Purge."
"Another clean day," Shen murmured, his voice as devoid of warmth as the steel walls around him.
But then, a catastrophic alarm shattered the silence. A high-energy signature, a literal "Absolute Deviation," was detected. Before he could react, the ceiling of his lab disintegrated in a shower of sparks and reinforced glass.
A girl fell from the sky, crashing onto his operating table. She had wild, cherry-red hair—a color banned in Aetheria for being "emotionally provocative." She looked at Shen, her eyes bright with a terrifying, beautiful defiance.
"Are you the one they sent to delete me?" she gasped, a drop of blood—real, illogical blood—trailing down her cheek.
Shen Xiu froze. For the first time in thirty years, his own logic sensors began to scream in a language he no longer understood.