An Affinity Undesirable
The Synthetic Conjugal Program of Sector 3 was entirely legal, perfectly optimized, and completely devoid of soul. Citizens with compatible genetic profiles and matching civic tiers were paired by the central algorithm to maximize workplace efficiency.
Tech Grade-5 engineer Edward M. sat alone in his standard-issue micro-apartment, staring at his reflection in the polished screen of his terminal. He was fit, with striking deep brown eyes that contrasted sharply against his pale skin and closely cropped blond hair. Yet, standing at just five feet, four inches, his below-average stature made him an invisible ghost—a pariah—to the women in his technical tier. They looked right over him, scanning the horizon for the taller Grade-6 supervisors.
He wasn't without opportunities. The Ministry’s matching service frequently pinged his terminal with legally sanctioned candidates. There was Clara, a kind-hearted hydroponics worker who laughed at his jokes, but her heavy, asymmetrical limp turned his stomach. There was Janine, a brilliant archivist, but the severe, blotchy chemical burns scarring her neck and jaw made him cringe. Edward wanted beauty. He craved the pristine, unblemished aesthetic he saw in the state’s digital propaganda loops. His refusal to compromise left him utterly isolated.
Then, a classified notification blinked on his terminal, stamped with the seal of the Restricted Technologies Division.
The Ministry was quietly beta-testing a new neural upgrade: the Aesthetic Re-Filter. For a massive deduction in his monthly credit allocation, Edward could permanently graft a visual overlay onto his optic nerves. The law permitted it under the "Psychological Stabilization Act." The technology would digitally scrub every physical blemish, proportional flaw, or scarring from his field of vision. Every woman he looked at would appear as a flawless, genetically idealized masterpiece tailored specifically to his subconscious desires.
The price wasn't just financial. The disclaimer at the bottom of the legal waiver read in tiny, gray font: The optic filter requires the suppression of the user’s primary emotional empathy sectors to prevent cognitive dissonance.
To achieve the perfect romantic life, Edward wouldn't be changing the world, or himself. He would be legally lobotomizing his own capacity to feel genuine pity, grief, or connection, forcing his mind to fall in love with a beautiful, digital lie.
Edward paced the steel floor of his apartment, the text of the Ministry’s waiver glowing on his terminal like an accusation. His failure to see the flaw in his own thinking had brought him to this agonizing junction. In his mind, he rationalized the optic filter as an act of mercy for both parties—he would escape his crushing loneliness, and a woman like Clara or Janine would finally receive the devotion they deserved. He thought lying to himself was the solution. He convinced himself that losing his emotional connection was a fair trade, yet deep down, he desperately wanted to feel. He wanted genuine love; he simply let his superficial programming and the city's plastic propaganda loops get in the way.
"There has to be a middle ground," Edward muttered, his deep brown eyes scanning the terminal's rigid code. "If I lock away my empathy, I’m just a machine looking at a painting. That’s not a marriage."
He refused to sign. Instead, Edward decided to look for a technical loophole. As a Grade-5 engineer, his knowledge of the sector's central mainframe was extensive. He spent the next three hours mapping out an alternative: a bootleg, sandboxed variable within the optic filter's firmware. If he could bypass the Ministry’s mandatory empathy-sector suppression, he could theoretically retain his deep emotional capacity while still utilizing the visual enhancement. He would rewire the patch to focus not on a digital lie, but on altering his own neuro-chemical attraction centers—forcing his brain to find genuine, unedited physical beauty in imperfection itself.
It was a dangerous gamble. Splicing into a Restricted Technologies Division program without a state-monitored uplink was an automatic treason charge.
Edward pulled a portable soldering iron and a wireless logic analyzer from his maintenance kit. He jacked his personal handheld terminal into the optic graft device resting on his desk. His fingers flew across the keyboard, isolating the gray-coded suppression algorithms. He began to slowly scrub the code, building a firewall around his brain's empathy core.
Just as the analyzer reached forty percent calibration, a sharp, authoritative chime echoed from his front door terminal. A text alert flashed yellow across his main screen: Scheduled Civic Companion Review. Candidate: Janine (Archivist, Grade-4) at the door.
Edward quickly slid his modification deck beneath a stack of technical manuals just as the door chime rang for the third time. He smoothed down his standard-issue uniform, adjusted his posture to mask his short stature, and opened the door. He was going to go through with this meeting, determined to keep up the facade of a willing companion while his unfinished code sat waiting on his desk.
Janine stood in the threshold, holding a small container of state-allotted synth-yeast rations meant for a shared dinner. Her posture was timid, her gaze dropping slightly before meeting his deep brown eyes. In the harsh fluorescent light of the hallway, the severe, blotchy chemical burns across her jawline and neck were stark and pronounced. Edward felt his throat tighten. His internal programming screamed at him to look away, but he forced a tight, artificial smile and stepped aside to let her in.
"Thank you for having me, Edward," Janine said softly, her voice carrying a gentle warmth that didn't match the clinical coldness of the room.
For the next hour, Edward performed flawlessly. He spoke of his engineering shifts, nodded at her descriptions of the Ministry archives, and kept his eyes strictly locked onto her forehead or the wall behind her to avoid looking directly at her scars. He was rationalizing every second—telling himself that if he could just get his optical bypass patch working, he could make this work. He could give her the love she deserved by permanently lying to his own eyes.
Then, the facade shattered.
Janine grew quiet, encouraged by what she perceived as Edward's genuine attentiveness. She leaned across the small metal dining table, her expression softening with a vulnerability that Edward found terrifying. She reached out, her fingers brushing past his blond hair, and gently began to caress his cheek. Her thumb grazed a small, raised mole right near his jawline—an asymmetrical physical blemish he loathed about his own face.
Janine didn't seem to notice or care about his imperfection. Her touch was filled with a raw, unfiltered human desire for connection.
But to Edward, the proximity was suffocating. The reality of her unedited face inches from his own, combined with the sudden intimacy, made his skin crawl. The touch felt incredibly awkward, jarring, and wrong. Before he could stop himself, his instincts took over. He recoiled, sharply pulling his face away from her hand.
Janine’s hand froze in mid-air, the sudden rejection hanging heavy between them.
Janine’s hand lingered in the empty air for a fraction of a second, her expression dropping into a flat, unreadable mask. She didn't yell. She didn't ask what was wrong. She simply pulled her arm back, packed the remaining ration containers into her bag with a practiced, methodical silence, and walked out the door without looking back. She didn't seem to care—as if she were already entirely numb to the rejection, expecting nothing less from the broken world they lived in.
The moment the lock clicked, Edward crumbled. The guilt was a physical weight pressing down on his chest, but his superficial aversion was louder. He couldn't live like this. He couldn't face her or anyone else without a shield.
"I can't do it raw," he muttered frantically, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "I need the filter."
Edward rushed to his engineering desk and ripped the stack of manuals away. He grabbed the unverified, half-compiled optical graft device. The progress bar on his logic analyzer was still trapped at 72 percent calibration. The bypass code meant to protect his empathy sectors wasn't fully stabilized, but the ringing silence of his apartment was driving him mad.
He didn't care anymore. The fear of loneliness overrode his fear of the system.
With trembling fingers, Edward positioned the heavy, multi-pronged neural needle at the base of his skull, just beneath his blond hair. He didn't wait for the diagnostic cycle to finish. He hit the manual manual-inject sequence.
A sharp, electric spike shot directly through his occipital lobe. Edward screamed, his hands locking onto the edges of the desk as his vision violently fractured. The room dissolved into a digital kaleidoscope of blinding white light and cascading green code. His heart hammered in his chest, a frantic rhythm that suddenly, chillingly, began to slow down.
When the static cleared, Edward blinked.
The peeling wallpaper of his apartment was gone, replaced by a perfectly rendered, pristine ivory finish. He looked down at his grease-stained hands; they appeared immaculate. He walked over to the mirror. The small, asymmetrical mole on his jawline had been digitally erased, replaced by flawless, airbrushed skin. His own deep brown eyes stared back at him, but they looked hollow, like glass beads reflecting a sunset.
A soft chime echoed from his door terminal. It was an automated notification from the Ministry. Janine had logged her departure.
Edward looked at the interface. He knew he should feel bad. He knew he had just broken a woman’s heart and butchered his own brain with illegal code to escape his shallow reflection. But as he stared at the alert, he felt absolutely nothing. The guilt was gone. The panic was gone. The incomplete patch had frozen his empathy sectors in mid-glitch.
He felt a bizarre, artificial serenity. He was completely, beautifully, and permanently alone.
Janine walked into her cramped apartment, the heavy security door sealing out the low hum of Sector 3. She didn't turn on the overhead lights. Instead, she let the soft, ambient glow of the city grid illuminate the room as she walked over to the kitchen counter.
With a practiced, fluid motion, she reached up to her neck. Her fingers slid beneath the edge of the severe, blotchy chemical burns. With a faint hydraulic hiss, a thin, flexible dermal overlay peeled away from her skin, revealing smooth, unblemished flesh underneath.
Janine set the synthetic mask on the counter next to her ration bag. Right beside it, she placed a small, glowing neural chip—the core processor of an illegal, military-grade aesthetic optical device.
She stepped closer to the bathroom mirror, looking at her reflection. There were no scars. There was no asymmetry. Her skin was flawless, her features striking and perfect—a natural beauty that the Ministry’s central pairing algorithm would have immediately exploited for state breeding programs.
Her expression was entirely blank. She didn't look proud, or relieved, or sad.
"Having a virtual mask comes in handy when judging the hearts of man," Janine said to the mirror, her voice a flat, chilling monotone.
She leaned against the sink, staring at her own pristine reflection. Edward had failed the test, just like the Grade-6 supervisors and the Grade-3 mechanics before him. They all wanted a pristine painting, completely blind to the reality that the system was rotting from the inside out. By using the illegal filter to make herself look broken, she had found the perfect way to filter out the monsters. And Edward had just lobotomized his own soul trying to escape a lie she had created.
Janine reached for her data deck, her fingers tapping a sequence that opened an encrypted, underground network channel. "Subject Edward M. has compromised his own neural net," she whispered into the transmitter. "He's neutralized. Move to the next target."