Preyme ((better)) Now

Because everyone’s a lamb, he thought. Instead, he forced a smile. “Just wait a week. I’ve got a surprise.”

His younger sister, Mira, was only seventeen—still preyme, still full of wild laughter and terrible drawings of flying whales. She didn’t know what the Reclamation meant. The Corporation had scrubbed that from school curricula. To her, turning twenty-five was just a boring medical checkup.

Kael was twenty-four years, eleven months, and three days old. preyme

He slipped into a maintenance corridor, following the Fragments’ instructions. The core was a pulsing sphere of light, humming with billions of half-processed memories. He pressed his palm against the access port. The virus—a tiny data-crystal embedded under his skin—began to upload.

Kael collapsed onto the cold floor, gasping. His mind was full of holes. He couldn’t remember his mother’s name. But he remembered why he’d come. Because everyone’s a lamb, he thought

“Don’t sign up,” he said, voice too sharp.

He stumbled home as dawn bled through the smog. Mira was awake, sitting on their threadbare couch, clutching the flying whale drawing. I’ve got a surprise

The Hub was a white marble monolith, sterile as a morgue. Inside, Kael let a guard scan his ID. The guard glanced at the birthdate. “Tomorrow’s your big day, eh? Congratulations.”