Chapter 1: Out of Bounds
Pinstripe Revival
Deep cleans happened on Tuesdays.
Although they tended not to reach the top of the dome. Whether that was due to incompetence or indolence, one may never be certain. But the familiar morning litany, the boundary hummed; that much was constant. It was a unique warble, subsonic in nature, that Kai felt more than heard through the reinforced platform where he crouched with his maintenance kit. Roughly ninety meters below, sat the Catamore Biosphere Reserve pressed against its containment membrane like the labored wheeze of lungs trapped in a too-tight ribcage.
Kai fiddled through the calibration scans. Data poured across his vision in soft blues and the reassuring greens of pressure differentials, field strength, filtration rates, and several other metrics that anyone outside his profession wouldn’t understand. All within normal parameters, yet something felt wrong. The numbers told one story; the heterochromic eyes that marked Kai’s genetic modification told another.
His modified eye—a stark yellow, complete with a thin slitted iris akin to a serpent’s—caught patterns the birth brown couldn’t. Subtle asymmetries in the field readings, particularly in terms of strength, stood out. Micro-fluctuations that shouldn’t exist in a properly functioning containment system. Like viewing static through a prism.
A prickly sphere of moss had worked its way through a microscopic breach in the membrane—no bigger than a pinprick, invisible to standard sensors but glaringly obvious to Kai. They never cleaned this high up. The Guild couldn’t even bother using a drone.
He could report it. He should report it. Instead, with the stillness of a priest passing through a pleasure district, he carefully extracted the knot with ceramic tweezers. Kai peeked over his shoulder as if his misdeed was of a criminal nature. Technically, it was, and technically, he had a duty as a boundary technician to be…technical.
Its root system dripped with trace amounts of condensation, soaking the moss in a nostalgic aroma of a time before his own. A feeling that made his chest tighten with longing for a world he had never known. He held the delicate green in front of him; the contrast of its vibrancy against his gray, sharply angled world was striking. A shapeless green dot on an empty canvas.
Without looking away from his treasure, Kai reached into his thigh pouch and grabbed a clear, empty vial. He clicked the bottom of it on his knee, causing the top to open. With a steady hand, he released the moss and watched it float freely into a resting position at the bottom of its new home. The specimen tube sealed with a soft hiss, soon to join two dozen others in Kai’s hidden collection. Each one a violation. Each one was a private rebellion against the perfection that surrounded his optimized existence.
Below the platform, the Reserve pulsed with the kind of chaotic vitality that had been scrubbed from the outside world. Ancient oaks twisted through the dome’s framework, their bark scarred and magnificent. Ferns unfurled in patterns that defied the precise order they’d grown so accustomed to. And underneath it all, barely visible through the canopy, the Catamore House sat like a monument to humanity’s abandoned past.
Society members received optimization at birth, but Kai was…complicated. Early test samples told the story in bruised flesh and angry welts. Where the serums had been injected, his infant skin erupted in raised, mottled patterns that refused to heal. His body rejected the full optimization, and the world responded in kind. His condition affected less than one percent of the population at large. Society was against co-mingling with the under-optimized. Fear of ancient illnesses and barbaric habit infections ran rampant in the minds of so many. The unfortunate recommendation had been to dispose of him before he could properly coo. But as loving parents so often do, they opted for—begged for—the alternative.
His genetic package had cost them everything—their savings, their social standing, every favor you could imagine just to keep him from being chastised, kidnapped, or worse. He was a boy unfit for the world. Destined to live on the cusp of antiquity and modernity. A half-measure. A compromise child. But as he watched ferns unfurl, he knew it had given him something invaluable.
The optimized elite saw the modifications as crude and incomplete. Kai’s skin lacked the subtle glint that marked true enhancement, his reflexes fell short of surgical precision, and his intellect remained merely gifted rather than transcendent. But Kai had always been determined. His mods gave him the advantage of a work ethic. In a world of complacency, it was easy to be underestimated.
The last of the unmodified saw something worse—contamination dressed in human form. They look at the outside world and see a Hell born from the failed imaginations of idealists. Thus, Kai was useful and necessary, but never quite trusted. The boundary keeper who could cross between worlds but would never truly inhabit either.
The interface chimed, drawing Kai’s attention back to the data stream. The fluctuations were now more substantial, following patterns that made their modified eye ache. Organic patterns. Growth patterns. They looked unnervingly like the fungal growth he’d once seen in an archive, weaving through nutrient substrate.
Impossible, of course. The Reserve was sealed, isolated, and monitored. The Catamores, the aristocratic survivors of the old world, were the only human inhabitants. They’d lived in careful equilibrium with their environment for centuries. What Kai was seeing had to be an equipment malfunction—aging systems finally showing their wear.
He flagged the readings as routine variance and continued the calibration. Some truths were too much for official reports, and the pay was often too little for credible documentation. The barrier between the outside and the Reserve wasn’t just physical—it was conceptual, philosophical, perhaps even spiritual. To suggest that something within the Reserve had evolved beyond its original parameters would be to question the fundamental assumptions that kept the two worlds separate.
The morning shift was ending. Soon, replacement technicians would arrive to monitor the afternoon cycle. Kai packed his equipment with deliberate care, ensuring the specimen tube remained hidden in the kit’s false bottom.
“That makes twenty-five now,” he said to himself with a smile.
Fragments of a dying world that felt more alive than anything the city had to offer. The platform’s descent mechanism engaged with a sigh, riding the curve of the dome carrying Kai back toward the surface. The Reserve looked massive from the ground—a green bump in the earth’s otherwise gray flesh, beautiful and terrible in ways that defied explanation. A bridge rose, connecting the membrane’s outer layers. Kai stepped off the platform and was ushered away from the dome by two men in navy blue and gray uniforms. He felt the familiar sensation of crossing between worlds as he passed over the sea of lead and molten metal, segregating the outer layers of The Reserve. The air grew cleaner, colder, emptier.
At the edge, the boundary station’s antiseptic walls welcomed him with indifference. Automated systems scanned for biological contamination while one of the guards inspected his bag. They found only the usual acceptable trace amounts of ick and granted passage back to the world of perpetual improvement.
Kai submitted his shift report and prepared to leave for the transport station. Still, the interface data lingered in his mind like an unfinished melody. He thought about those patterns. How something in The Reserve was trying to grow, or evolve in ways that its original architect had never intended.
He would return tomorrow, as he had every day for nearly three years. The boundary required constant maintenance, careful attention, and dedicated service. And perhaps—though he would never admit it on the record—it deserved something more than mere containment.
The transport bore Kai through the city’s veins like a corpuscle in the bloodstream of a giant. Silent magnetics guided safe passage with algorithmic precision through tubes that curved between sharp spires of steel and concrete. Each tower ascended toward heaven in geometries that pleased the modded eye while disturbing some deeper instinct for organic asymmetry. Through the transport capsule’s transparent shell, the metropolis spread in its terrible beauty—parks where synthetic sod grew in precise layers, walkways that followed curves calculated to minimize psychological distress while maximizing productivity, citizens moving with the choreographed grace of efficient nonchalance.
Kai pressed his palm against the cool surface, watching the populace flow past like figures in a dream. Each possessed that subtle glow beneath semi-translucent skin, the telltale elongation of limbs that spoke of comprehensive modification, movements too fluid for natural joints. They were beautiful as angels—perfect, distant, and somehow less human despite being more than Kai would ever be.
The transport’s voice whispered through bone conduction:
“Approaching Residential Complex Eighty-One Northwest Grid Block D-916. Next spot in two minutes. Designation Zone: Partially Modified.”
Even the automated systems marked the distinction. Not quite optimized enough for the Optima Districts that crowned the city’s heights. The Baseline Quarters that sprawled in the shadow of the great towers always sat at the edges of cities. Another boundary, like everything in Kai’s existence.
Kai glimpsed other transports carrying other passengers toward different destinies. A family of optima parents with their enhanced children, skin gleaming like polished marble, conversing in the rapid syllables of cognitive amplification. A lone maintenance worker with the subtle scarring that marked corrective genetic therapy, hunched over a portable terminal. An administrative clerk whose eyes held the flat sheen of upgraded data processing implants, reviewing files that scrolled across their retinas.
The transport shuddered—a barely perceptible tremor. The city’s evening cycle began its graceful descent toward night, panels dimming in sequence to mimic the sunset that citizens would never see through the atmospheric processors.
Kai’s reflection stared back from the transport’s window. The heterochromia was functional, but it also clearly marked Kai. He saw others on the transport grimace at the very sight of him.
“Please prepare for deceleration.”
The shuttle settled into its dock, and Kai stepped out onto the platform, where citizens waited in perfect queues, their patience allowing them to stand motionless for as long as efficiency demanded. No one acknowledged his presence. He was visible, but not worth seeing; functional, but not worth engaging.
Kai’s residence occupied a nameless building on an unnamed street. The corridors were clean but not pristine, functional but not beautiful, lit with panels that provided adequate light without the warm radiance reserved for higher status Optima. Other partials passed like ghosts. Some had their mods stripped as a penalty for a crime or two; the rest had been in accidents so severe that they were no longer fit for the life of a fully modded person. Regardless of reason, they were all corralled together and relegated to a place where the world could forget mistakes existed.
The apartment door recognized Kai’s genetic signature and slid upward into its housing with a faint sizzle of energy. The space beyond was small but private, furnished with the standard accommodations a typical twenty-two-year-old would have. A single room outfitted with a nutrition center, waste processing unit with privacy screen, and an entertainment terminal positioned too close to the deflating gel sofa. Towards the rear of the cubicle sat an archway that fed into a narrow hallway containing a sleep alcove and a closet. Home, such as it was.
Kai had barely crossed the threshold when the communication panel pulsed amber. The sight of it sent a chill through his nervous system. It was his boss, Malcolm, right on schedule.
Kai stared at the pulsing amber light, feeling the weight of Malcolm’s scrutiny before even answering. The anxiety was nauseating. Every cell grinding against one another like pestle against mortar. Guild rules demanded a response within the hour. Still, Malcolm’s calls always carried implications that Kai wasn’t prepared to navigate tonight.
He turned away from the insistent pulse and moved toward the apartment’s only privacy-a narrow closet near his bed that served as both wardrobe and sanctuary. The door slid open at his approach, revealing a space barely wide enough for a person to stand, lined with his uniforms and a few garments he’d snagged on the net. Primarily functional items, with nothing that might suggest individual preference or aesthetic choice.
But behind the hanging fabrics, pressed against the back wall, lay a desk holding Kai’s true happiness. Small containers, each no larger than a thumb, filled with fragments of the Reserve that had somehow found their way through decontamination.
Kai’s thumbs traced the hidden compartment’s seal, feeling the slight warmth that emanated from within.
Where the rest of the apartment exuded his signature boy stench, this room breathed with the wild aroma of organic chaos. Each tube held carefully maintained samples collected over his time working the boundary.
Kai grabbed his pop-up chair and sat at his makeshift workstation, a hybrid of Guild-standard analytical equipment and improvised tools that enabled the examination of unmodified biological material free from contamination. His scarred hands navigated the junkyard science equipment and the latest addition to his collection.
Data unfurled as Kai’s chest tightened with each passing moment.
“Mutation rates?” he muttered.
The moss samples exhibited cellular changes that exceeded any natural curve of adaptation. At the same time, the fungi exhibited genetic drift, suggesting external pressures rather than mere chance. Most alarming were the bacterial cultures he identified. They seemed to display patterns reminiscent of primitive communication networks.
Kai leaned back in the chair, memories flowing back to a childhood visit to the Museum of Natural History, where his seven- or eight-year-old self had recoiled in fascination at the preserved specimens. Colorful beetles with worn chitin, flowers marred by decay, and tree bark showing the scars of relentless fungal growth and parasitic predation.
“Why do people want to keep things that are broken?” young Kai had asked, eyes wide and innocent.
Their mother had knelt to their level, concern shining in her enhancement-brightened eyes.
“They’re not broken, sweetheart. They’re…” She paused to find the right word. “…unique. And that makes them special, just like you.”
Those words changed something in Kai. Imperfections became tales woven in scars, narrating stories of survival against all odds, of environmental challenges surmounted, and of adaptation etched into the fabric of living tissue over the slow passage of time. That realization came later, but as an eight-year-old, Kai was just happy to feel special.
The optimization that gifted his parents perfection and longevity had grievously siphoned away such narratives, leaving behind only the cold sheen of engineered biology.
Seeing the ad for boundary technicians years later was a gift that sprang from nowhere. It opened a passage to unchained narratives, a chance to get closer to the things that fascinated him the most.
The workstation chimed softly. Kai leaned forward to examine the analysis results. The data he couldn’t eyeball. He was expecting the usual facets of cellular activity intrinsic to Reserve—yet, what greeted him was different, forcing his cognitive faculties into a paralysis of disbelief.
The moss wasn’t mutating; it was organizing.
Kai struggled to connect the dots. The hum of the idle analysis machine in the background amplified the pressure of unlicensed knowledge pressing down upon him. Every discovery bore the dual weight of wonder and dread, teetering on the edge of promise and peril.
The amber pulse from the main room grew more insistent, its rhythm shifting from patient bureaucratic courtesy to something approaching alarm. Kai glanced behind himself in annoyance. His hands hovered over the data. The samples seemed to pulse in sympathy with the communication panel, the microscopic networks echoing the urgent cadence that now filled the apartment with synthetic light.
“Dammit.”
With reluctance that bordered on physical pain, Kai sealed the workstation and stepped back into the angular dimensions of their living space. The communication panel had escalated to a state of crimson urgency.
“Six calls?!”
The Guild allowed for delay, but not defiance—not when the comm codes carried Malcolm’s personal authorization signature. Kai closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Answer link,” Kai said with a groan.
Malcolm’s image materialized as a holographic projection, his features bearing the glowing pallor and elongated proportions that marked a full genetic Optima. Where Kai’s mods were subtle patchwork, Malcolm embodied society’s ideals. He wore the burgundy and silver of Guild authority, his collar bearing the twin serpents that symbolized boundary maintenance, containment, and the delicate dance between worlds.
“Darcy!” Malcolm refused to use first names even in casual conversations. “I’ve been attempting contact for over an hour.”
“Apologies, sir. I came home to a leak in my water well.” Kai replied, their unmodified vocal cords producing sounds that seemed rough and organic by comparison. Where Malcolm’s speech flowed like a processed symphony, Kai’s words carried the irregular rhythms of natural human speech.
Malcolm’s gaze narrowed with the calculating precision of someone accustomed to parsing truth from professional necessity.
“Your assignment log indicates you’ve spent the last six shifts in one spot for over an hour. That level of concentrated attention raises questions about efficiency allocation.”
“The boundary readings showed some…irregularities that—”
“Not why I’m calling.” Malcolm raised his hand with administrative authority, his eyes closed into expressions of bureaucratic displeasure. “I have something considerably more pressing than your extended dalliance with a single boundary segment.”
Despite himself, Kai let the confusion marinate on his face.
“Sir?” he said.
“We’ve identified a critical boundary failure at the South end. Grid Reference 847 towards the baseline. Primary containment showing stress fractures, secondary barriers registering fluctuation patterns, and there seems to be rapid amounts of overgrowth in that sector according to our surveillance, which has been confirmed by firsthand accounts from….inside.” Malcolm’s image flickered slightly, Kai’s old comm panel’s holographic card struggling to maintain clarity.
“Due to your…” he paused to find the right word, “…unique genetic makeup. You will be granted access to the interior of the biosphere to resolve the matter.”
Kai couldn’t believe it. He was silent with his mouth agape. If there was any legitimate reason to give Kai a strange look, it was the expression currently baked onto his face.
“This isn’t routine maintenance, Darcy. We’re looking at potential breach scenarios that could trigger a full containment lockdown if not dealt with.”
Kai tried to hide his excitement. Deep Reserve access—the chance to move beyond peripheral monitoring into the heart of the ecosystem itself. To see firsthand what lay beneath the membrane’s protective embrace. The foliage would dwarf his pathetic collection.
“Yes, right. When do I deploy?” Kai asked, fighting to maintain professional neutrality while excitement bubbled through his blood like a forbidden drug.
“Immediately would be ideal. But since I could not reach you in an appropriate amount of time,” Kai dropped his gaze. “I’ve coordinated with the Reserve representatives for you to arrive first thing in the morning. Full decontamination protocols, enhanced monitoring packages, and—” Malcolm paused, his features shifting into an expression that on an unmodified face might have suggested concern. “Darcy, I want you to understand something. In the last twenty years of boundary maintenance, we’ve lost over a dozen technicians to this place. Whether psychological compromise, infection, even suicide. Not a single one of them made it out.”
Kai’s excitement took a backseat. Why hadn’t he heard of any of this before?
“Listen, I’m not trying to scare you. If anything, this may help you stay focused. They all ended up fixing the issue inside, but I fear something is not right within those walls. I never thought I’d utter the phrase, but you’re sub-optimal genetics make you a superior candidate for this job.”
Malcolm winced at the words, but the backward compliment did, in fact, surprise Kai.
“I understand the risks, sir,” he said, debating whether to salute the man.
“Do you?” Malcolm said. “Because your recent assignment patterns suggest a level of fascination or fixation that borders on unhealthy. The Catamores aren’t just historical curiosities, Darcy. They’re dangerous, primitive beasts.”
Malcolm’s image began to fade as communication interference increased, but his final words carried across the static with crystal clarity:
“Fix the boundary. Complete the mission. And for your own sake, don’t let that place get under your skin. Be ready by first light.”
The hologram dissolved, leaving Kai alone with the amber afterglow and the racing certainty that tomorrow would change everything.
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