22:30, February 1, 2295

  87F, Amber Moon Spire (琥月塔), ZenFusion Taipei branch, No. 7, Section 5, Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan, Imperium of Dragons territory

  For generations, his people had been held captive in their own land. But they were content with their oppressive overlords of the Imperium. Everything was fine as long as they followed the rules and made money. Freedom was never needed. Or so they were told.

  The woman's scream pierced through Zhi-Xin Wu's noise-canceling headphones. He adjusted the volume on his workstation, trying to drown out the interrogation feed he was required to monitor, but the Bloodtrooper supervisor had locked the audio at minimum twenty percent. There would be no escaping the sounds of ‘Imperial justice’ tonight.

  Behind his black-rimmed glasses, Xin's sharp features tensed with each new scream. The black of his short cropped hair, his white dress shirt and charcoal vest marked him as another corporate drone in ZenFusion's endless ranks. At forty, he was now a Senior Software Engineer in Data Solutions, his skinny frame and the dark circles under his eyes marking the cost of such advancement in his career.

  Through the surveillance display next to his quantum terminal, Xin watched Dilinur Altai work.

  "The Crystal's location," Dilinur's voice came through with crystalline clarity. "You've spent enough time playing the martyr."

  Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the 87th floor, Taipei's transformed skyline blazed against the night sky. Dominated by the iconic pagoda-shaped tower of ZenFusion's headquarters, while smaller skyscrapers clustered around it like courtiers around an emperor, their surfaces alive with neon and status displays for the Imperium.

  Xin's fingers flew across his advanced workstation, where multiple holographic interfaces floated at different depths. The central display projected a three-dimensional quantum interface, its circular patterns rotating and shifting as he manipulated data with practiced precision. Secondary screens surrounded him in a semicircle, each running different monitoring protocols.

  Another scream. The rebel's skin was beginning to bubble where Dilinur's fingers had touched her.

  "This is the eighth hour," the rebel managed between gasps. "Your Imperium...may have taken over Taiwan. Broken it…but by Buddha, you shall not break me!"

  "Nine hours would be excessive," Dilinur replied softly. "We'll finish in eight."

  Looking down through the transparent floor panels beneath his feet, he could see tubes of luminescent green Helionite being cycled to the building's lower levels for storage, while behind him, a Zephyrium shard the size of his fist pulsed with orange and blue light in its containment chamber, powering his entire floor of the Amber Moon Spire.

  Around Xin, rows of other engineers worked mechanically, their faces lit by the glow of quantum displays, all pretending not to hear the torture session being broadcast to their workstations.

  "We won’t." the rebel shot back.

  "You Sand Lotus lunatics are stubborn. Let’s see…" Dilinur’s voice came again, but her following sentence carried a powerful cadence. "Maa-nik-ya Yaa-ta-naa."

  The rebel's next scream was cut short by a wet gurgling sound. Xin looked at the surveillance display involuntarily. Dilinur had activated an Eclipse spell, her fingers weaving crimson patterns that pulled at the woman's blood vessels, making them visible through her skin like dark rivers about to burst.

  "Somewhere on Osram," the rebel choked out. "The Crystal... it's on—"

  "Specifics!" Dilinur commanded. "Or the next hour will feel significantly longer than the previous seven."

  Xin's hands trembled slightly over his keyboard. He was supposed to be documenting this, tracking every detail revealed for the Imperium's database. Instead, he found himself wondering how many others had disappeared into rooms like this, how many of his own people had screamed their last under the Imperium's tender ministrations.

  "Wu-san," a tired voice called from the next cubicle. "I did it."

  Xin turned to see Nakamura's weathered face lit by the glow of various machines running around them. The middle-aged engineer was holding up a holographic document, his hands trembling slightly with exhaustion or excitement – perhaps both.

  "The loan papers?" Xin asked, grateful for any distraction from the interrogation feed.

  Nakamura nodded, a rare smile crossing his features. "Final payment on the house. My house. Twenty-three years of overtime, but I've done it. Just three more years until retirement, then my wife and I can finally—" He broke into a coughing fit, waving off Xin's concerned look. "It's nothing. Just tired. Haven't slept more than four hours these past weeks."

  "You should rest, Nakamura-san," Xin said softly, eyeing the Bloodtrooper supervisor stationed at the end of their row. "The quantum cores can process the fusion data without—"

  "Can't stop now," Nakamura interrupted, turning back to his display. "The Imperium rewards diligence, Wu-san. You'll understand when you're older. Ah, my retirement plan... just three more years..."

  The older man's voice trailed off. His fingers froze over his keyboard.

  "Nakamura-san?" For a moment, Xin thought he had simply dozed off – until Nakamura's head hit the desk with a dull thud.

  Xin stood up, his chair clattering backward. "Someone help! Mister Nakamura here…he needs a doctor!"

  The surrounding engineers remained fixed at their stations, faces illuminated by their displays. Only their eyes moved, darting between Xin and the approaching Bloodtroopers.

  "Sit down, citizen!" commanded the first trooper, his crimson armor reflecting the pulsing lights of the Zephyrium chambers. Spikes adorned his broad shoulderplates and his horned helmet concealed his expression.

  "We should take him to the med bay!" Xin's voice rose. "He's been working sixteen-hour shifts for weeks without extra pay, without breaks—"

  The second trooper's armored hand clamped down on Xin's shoulder, forcing him back into his seat. "The Imperium rewards diligence," he recited mechanically, his voice sounding artificially deep from inside his dark red horned helmet that resembled a demonic figure from ancient folklore. "And it punishes disobedience! Return to your work."

  Xin watched helplessly as they dragged Nakamura's body away, the dead man's retirement papers still glowing on his display. Through his own screen, the rebel woman's tortured screams continued, but now they seemed to carry a different meaning – not just the sound of Imperial justice, but of a system that consumed its own people without mercy. A small price to pay for living in a society where few would starve. With the Universal Basic Income and the Employee Accountability System, poverty was nonexistent in this society — or so they were told.

  The neighboring engineers had already resumed typing, the rhythm of their keyboards never missing a beat. Every month or so, Dilinur would carry out one such methodical interrogation as his team worked on finding information about the legendary Moondust Crystal. Nothing in the Imperium's great machinery had changed at all.

  The interrogation feed cut out mid-scream. Xin's terminal flickered, its quantum display rippling as if disturbed by some unseen force. The air in the office grew heavy with the taste of ozone – the telltale sign of approaching psionic power.

  "Wu Zhi-Xin," a contralto voice called from behind him. Even without turning, he knew who it was. The same voice he'd been forced to listen to for hours, now stripped of digital distortion.

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  Dilinur Altai stood by his desk, her presence commanding even more attention in person than through the surveillance feed. At thirty-seven, she was a testament to the Imperium's advanced cosmetic technologies – her porcelain skin unmarked by time, maintained by treatments that cost more than most people earned in a year. Her features were striking: dark eyes that seemed to pierce through pretense, high cheekbones that could have been carved from white jade, and lips painted the same deep red as freshly spilled blood. Her hair was gathered in an elaborate updo, secured by a hairpin bearing a blood-red gem that caught the light from the Helionite tubes overhead. A few loose strands framed her face with calculated carelessness.

  Her traditional robe was still immaculate, showing no signs of her recent activities. The black silk was embroidered with golden dragons that seemed to writhe in the shifting light, while the crimson inner layer revealed itself through strategic openings that somehow made her seem more dangerous rather than alluring. The only evidence of her work was a few droplets of blood on her hairpin.

  "Prefect," Xin acknowledged, keeping his eyes on his display. Whatever beauty Dilinur possessed was like that of a venomous snake – best admired from a safe distance, if at all. "I assume you’ve obtained the information from the Sand Lotus agent?"

  "Eventually." Dilinur's fingers traced the edge of his desk, coming to rest near his haptic keyboard. "Though I'm more interested in what you've been doing. The Crystal's coordinates should have been processed by now."

  "I've been occupied with the fusion core data —"

  "A task that could be handled by any miserable junior in this office," Dilinur cut him off. Her hand moved from the desk to his shoulder, her touch deceptively gentle. "You're special, Xin. That's why ZenFusion gave you Ume, isn't it? Such a generous gift."

  Xin's hands froze over his keyboard. The mention of Ume's name from Dilinur's lips sent ice through his veins.

  "She's waiting for you at home right now, yes?" Dilinur's grip tightened fractionally. "It would be a shame if she were...recalled. ZenFusion's generosity has limits, after all. Just ask your colleague Nakamura about corporate benefits." She smiled, the expression never reaching her dark brown eyes. "Oh wait."

  "W-what do you want?" Xin's voice was barely a whisper.

  "The Crystal's data. Compiled, encrypted, and stored in the level 117 cluster, with admin-level access for Governor Qin. You have twenty minutes." She leaned closer, her breath warm against his ear. "I'll be watching. Try anything clever, and Ume gets terminated."

  Around them, the other engineers kept typing, their keyboards a steady rhythm beneath the hum of fusion cores. None looked up as Dilinur straightened, adjusting her bloodstained hairpin.

  "Twenty minutes," she repeated. "Show me why ZenFusion considers you so valuable."

  Xin's fingers flew across the haptic interface, each keystroke echoing his racing heartbeat. The Zephyrium shard behind him pulsed faster, responding to the increased power draw as he initialized multiple quantum processors simultaneously. On his main display, a three-dimensional map of Osram began taking shape, its craters and valleys rendered in crystalline detail.

  "Nineteen minutes," Dilinur announced, standing so close he could smell the metallic hint of blood beneath her jasmine perfume. "The encryption protocols for level 117 are particularly complex. I do hope you're not wasting time."

  He wasn't. The Sand Lotus rebel's interrogation had yielded coordinates, fragments of ancient maps, and cryptic references to lunar formations. Now those pieces floated around his display as he wove them into a cohesive dataset. Each fragment had to be verified, cross-referenced, and encoded with quantum encryption that would make it accessible only to Governor Qin's biometric signature.

  "Thirteen minutes," Dilinur's voice carried an edge of anticipation. "You know, when that rebel wretch broke, she mentioned something interesting about Ume's model number. The Da-Ji series has such fascinating vulnerabilities."

  Xin's hands trembled, nearly mistyping a crucial encryption key. He forced himself to breathe, to focus. The map was almost complete – a topographical nightmare of dark craters and unexplored regions. Somewhere in that lunar wilderness lay the Crystal, its location now taking shape in his database.

  The Helionite tubes beneath the floor pulsed with a sickly green light as his systems processed the massive dataset. Other engineers had stopped typing, their faces illuminated by the glow as they watched him work. They knew the cost of failure in the Imperium's service.

  "Seven minutes," Dilinur whispered. Her hand came to rest on the back of his chair. "I'm curious, Xin. When you visit Ume tonight, will you tell her how close she came to deactivation? Or will you hold her in the dark, grateful that your skills proved... adequate?"

  The final pieces of data fell into place. The encryption protocols wrapped around the dataset like a serpent, securing every byte with quantum-locked protection. Xin initiated the transfer to level 117's secure cluster, watching the progress bar with desperate intensity.

  "And — transfer complete," he announced, his voice hoarse. "Stored on Cluster 6865. Encoded to Governor Qin's biosignature specifications, with an additional master key. You can verify—"

  "Rest assured, I will." Dilinur's fingers traced up from his chair to his shoulder, her touch like ice through his shirt. "For Ume's sake, I hope your work is perfect."

  The quantum displays dimmed slightly as the system processed his massive data transfer. In that moment of shadow, Xin caught his reflection in the darkened screen – a face he barely recognized, twisted with fear and barely contained rage.

  Dilinur leaned closer, her finger tracing along a section of code on his display. "This sequence here," she said, her voice carrying a dangerous edge of curiosity as her ebony fingernail paused above a function. "It seems redundant. Explain."

  Xin's heart skipped. She'd found the foundation of his backdoor – the fragment that would later allow him to access what should be inaccessible. He recalled the days when they had both studied Information Management at Taipei Imperial Institute, back when Dilinur was not a cruel, heartless Prefect but 'Dinu the Flower of Class C'. She had selected virtually the same courses as Xin, not because they thought alike, but because she was too busy attending after-class social parties, cultivating connections with authorities. He would always lend her his assignments to ensure they both passed with straight A grades. In return, Dilinur would pretend to be his girlfriend during Imperial Population Management inspections, shielding him from the mandatory social integration evaluations that had sent so many "abnormally introverted" citizens to reeducation facilities.

  He wondered if Dilinur still remembered that chapter of their lives.

  But now was not the time for things that could never be. His mind raced, assembling a technical lie that would satisfy her. She didn't need to understand. She only needed to believe that she did.

  "Pattern regeneration protocol," he answered, forcing his voice to remain steady. "If someone attempts to hack or corrupt the Crystal's data from outside, this segment creates dynamic replacement matrices that preserve the original structure." He gestured to the code, his movements deliberately casual. "It's standard practice for high-value datasets."

  The lie tasted bitter in his mouth. If there was one thing Xin despised more than the Imperium's casual cruelty, it was dishonesty. As a child, he'd once refused to speak for three days after his mother lied about their family history to an Imperial census taker.

  Even now, he could recite the lesson his grandfather had whispered when they were alone: "Truth is the only wealth that cannot be stolen from you."

  Yet here he was, spinning falsehoods with ease. In the Imperium of Dragons, survival meant learning to lie convincingly – to superiors, to colleagues, even to yourself. Making everyone present look good was practically a second occupation for anyone hoping to live past forty. The irony wasn't lost on him: he was lying to protect his chance to finally reveal a truth.

  Dilinur studied him for a moment, her dark eyes revealing nothing. Then she nodded once, seemingly satisfied. "Acceptable work. I’ll test the master key later this week."

  She turned to leave, then paused. "Remember to document the interrogation footage. The Imperium's records must be thorough."

  The click of her heels faded into the hum of fusion cores. Around him, the other engineers gradually resumed their work, the rhythm of keyboards building like a funeral dirge. Through the windows of the Amber Moon Spire, Taipei's neon skyline blazed against the night, a testament to the Imperium's power – every light fed by Zephyrium, every shadow hiding its cost.

  Xin let out a sigh of relief as his hands moved mechanically over his keyboard, transcribing the torture he'd witnessed. But as he typed, his fingers created something else: a hidden subroutine, buried beneath layers of routine code. A backdoor into the very data he'd just encrypted.

  His heart pounded with each keystroke, knowing discovery would mean worse than death. It would mean losing Ume.

  He glanced at Nakamura's empty workstation, the retirement papers still glowing on the display. They'd probably be processed anyway – the Imperium's machinery never stopped, even for the dead. The tubes of Helionite beneath his feet pulsed their sickly green light, carrying away the waste of progress, feeding the very monsters they feared.

  A message flashed on his display: ‘SHIFT COMPLETE - 23:30’.

  Xin shut down his terminal, pocketing a dark green quantum drive so small it barely made a bulge. Standing made his head spin – how long had it been since he'd eaten? Slept? The dates blurred together in an endless cycle of coding and compliance.

  "Goodnight, Wu-san," one of his colleagues murmured as he passed. The man's eyes never left his screen, his fingers never stopped typing. They all understood. In the Imperium, survival meant keeping your head down, your opinions silent, your conscience blind.

  But as Xin walked toward a Quantum Lift at the end of the hallway, past the bloodstains where they'd dragged Nakamura away, he felt something crystallize within him. A truth as hard and sharp as the Zephyrium that powered their world: The Imperium's machinery would never stop on its own.

  Someone would have to break it.

  The elevator’s doors closed on the 87th floor of the Amber Moon Spire, carrying him down toward home, toward Ume, and toward a decision that would change everything. Behind him, the interrogation room waited for its next victim, while somewhere on Osram, a Crystal held secrets worth dying – or killing – for.

  "Wait for me, Ume," he whispered, invoking the name like a talisman.

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