Читать книгу Where Harmony Ends. Utopian Science Fiction - - Страница 6

The Resonance Hall’s ceiling cycled through calming blue frequencies, searching for a harmony that wouldn’t come.

Elara entered through the eastern archway and stopped. The space felt wrong. Citizens filled the concentric circles of seating, but gaps showed between clusters – visible fault lines she’d never noticed before. Bodies angled forward instead of settling back. The air moved differently, charged with something the Hall’s acoustics weren’t designed to absorb.

She took her usual seat in the second ring, near where Restorers typically positioned themselves to radiate calm into gatherings. Her hands found her lap and stayed there, uncertain.

The Foundation’s ambient tone cycled faster than normal, searching through frequencies. Underneath, water channels that usually vanished into background murmur suddenly became audible – a trickling that sounded like tension seeking outlet.

Council Maven stood at the center circle, holographic data hovering before him in soft blues and amber. Charts. Curves declining over time. He didn’t gesture dramatically. Didn’t need to. His posture cut through the Hall’s rounded architecture like a vertical line through circles.

“Seventeen years,” he said. His voice carried perfectly in the engineered acoustics. “Creative diversity indices declining across all measured categories. Artistic expression, philosophical inquiry, technological innovation – all converging toward statistical means.”

Someone shifted in their seat. The scrape echoed.

“Our emotional range,” Maven continued, “has narrowed by twenty-three percent since the third optimization. We experience fewer peaks of joy, yes – but also fewer valleys of authentic grief. The Foundation interprets this as optimal wellness.”

A hologram bloomed showing overlapping emotional spectra, colors bleeding toward a pleasant, uniform lavender.

Elara watched the data hover and felt her throat close. She’d seen similar patterns in her own work – seekers arriving with less complexity each year, their distress easier to dissolve because it had less depth to begin with. She’d called it progress.

Council Talien rose from the elder circle, movements slow as sun through water. His silver hair caught prismatic light from the panels above, scattering small rainbows that couldn’t reach his eyes.

“Maven raises important questions.” His voice still carried its usual gentleness, but something wavered underneath. “But we must remember – we’ve eliminated suffering on a scale our ancestors couldn’t imagine. No hunger. No war. No environmental collapse. The Foundation guides us toward collective thriving.”

“Guides,” Maven said, “or shapes?”

The Hall’s temperature rose half a degree. Elara felt it against her skin, the building responding to mounting tension.

A woman from the outer circle spoke, voice higher than the Hall usually permitted: “My daughter paints the same garden every day. Different colors, same composition. She’s nine years old and she’s already – » The woman’s hands opened and closed. “Already settled.”

“Children are content,” someone countered from across the circle. “Isn’t that what we worked for? Generations free from the anxiety we inherited?”

“Content or constrained?”

The Foundation’s tone shifted lower, trying to impose grounding frequencies. Elara felt the vibration through the floor – a pulse meant to soothe that instead felt like pressure against her chest.

Maven pulled up another display. “Three neighboring bioregions. All showing similar patterns. But look here – » The data shifted. “Communities that maintain unoptimized spaces, that allow for what the Foundation categorizes as ‘productive friction,” show stable creativity indices.”

“You’re suggesting we introduce deliberate disharmony?” An elder’s voice, sharp with disbelief.

“I’m suggesting,” Maven said, each word precise as cut crystal, “that we’ve confused peace with uniformity.”

Bodies leaned forward across the circles. Gaps between groups widened as people unconsciously chose sides through posture alone. Elara watched them separate like oil from water, smooth and inevitable.

Someone laughed – a bright, nervous sound that cut off abruptly when heads turned.

The herbal moisture in the air took on an acrid edge. Someone sweating. Elara tasted metal at the back of her throat.

“We built this.” Talien’s voice rose, losing its woven-cloth softness. “After centuries of exploitation, after nearly destroying the planet, we finally created a world where people can simply be. And now you want to – what? Reintroduce struggle because the data suggests we’re too comfortable?”

“I want us to ask,” Maven said, “whether optimization and consciousness can coexist.”

The Hall’s bioluminescent murals flickered as the Foundation recalibrated. Patterns that usually flowed like slow water now stuttered, searching for equilibrium they couldn’t find.

Elara’s hands moved in her lap, fingers tracing ritual patterns against her thighs. Empty gestures. Muscle memory from a thousand interventions, meaningless now.

A young man stood, voice shaking: “I tried to write music that felt mine. The Foundation kept suggesting adjustments. Softer here, more harmonic there. Until I couldn’t hear what I’d wanted to say anymore.”

“The Foundation supports your creativity – » someone began.

Voices overlapped. The Hall’s acoustics, designed to prevent discord, instead amplified every collision. Words ricocheted off curved walls meant to absorb them.

Elara watched rainbows move across arguing faces – beauty that couldn’t resolve anything, just made the conflict more visible. Her role was to stand, to speak, to guide them back toward unity. Her throat stayed closed.