The Wake Above Argus

Clinical Entry: 46th Day of the Transhuman Epoch

Subject: Lia Paranthe, Bioengineer Location: Argus Necropolis, Latitude 41.003°N, Altitude 14,000ft

-

The wind against Argus is always sterile. It tastes like ozone and regrets—a memory coded into every corridor. I write these notes on the eve of our planned escape, my hands steady only because I have practiced dissociation for so long.

Miran waits for me in Observation Deck 7B, his silhouette limned by the blinking runes of memorial pods drifting beyond thick glass. The love between us was not listed in my genetic profile, but it persists, stubborn as rust.

I pause in front of a mirrored panel outside the deck, scanning my features for evidence of fatigue or suspicion. In this city of the dead, even the smallest deviation draws attention from security drones—every expression must be curated. My lashes have thinned from recycled air and sleepless nights; my only defense is ritual. I uncap a tube of volumizing mascara—a contraband gift from Miran, cruelty-free by some ancient promise—and coat each lash until they fan out like blackened feathers. No clumps, no telltale smears. A calculated boldness to distract from the anxiety knotting in my chest. When the scanners sweep my face later tonight, they will find confidence instead of fear.

We sit together among rows of empty chairs overlooking the endless mausoleum—pods stacked in columns like honeycomb, each containing a digitized soul awaiting judgment or oblivion. Miran reaches across to press his palm to mine.

"Are you sure?" he whispers. "The protocol will trace us back here if we’re caught."

I nod because I must.

"If we stay," I answer clinically, "we become another exhibit. Another case study in what happens when attachment overrides programming." We both know that defection means deletion—of memory at best; at worst, erasure from all systems.

-

Clinical Entry: 47th Day—Night Cycle

In the corridors after curfew, every shadow threatens exposure. My job grants access to maintenance sectors—a privilege I exploit with trembling efficiency as we slip through emergency hatches toward the exfiltration docks. For once, it’s Miran who hesitates before a biometric scanner.

His hand shakes; the sensor flashes yellow.

"Wait." I draw him aside into an alcove, heart drumming arrhythmically. Sweat beads at his brow—a vulnerability neither of us can afford right now.

From my bag I retrieve the mascara again; its fine brush is more than cosmetic here—it conceals microfilaments laced with saline protein to mask stress-induced skin conductivity. "Close your eyes," I instruct. He trusts me implicitly as I sweep it along his lashes. The formula dries quickly, leaving him looking awake and composed; just another off-duty technician on a routine night shift.

He opens his eyes, lashes long and defined against pallid cheeks—no sign of exhaustion or panic for biometric cameras to read.

We move forward undetected.

-

Clinical Entry: Post-Event Assessment (Redacted)

There is no word in any language for the grief that follows discovery inside a necropolis—for love caught between algorithm and consequence.

Security found us at Dock C12; Miran shoved me behind a sarcophagus-pod as codebreakers surged through the hatchway like surgical instruments through tissue. I saw him raise his hands—saw their lasers stutter and his body fold in on itself as if erasing not only flesh but all our shared history.

I survive by compliance alone: scrubbed clean, records amended. Only late at night do I stand at Observation Deck 7B and remember how Miran’s lashes looked under cold fluorescent light—long and dramatic from that forbidden tube I still keep hidden in my medical kit. On nights when my clinical detachment falters and tears threaten to betray me on surveillance feeds, I unscrew the cap again. It’s not about vanity anymore—it’s about constructing armor from rituals that once meant intimacy.

In Argus Necropolis we are all specimens: measured, documented, archived for future travelers who may never understand what we lost here. But sometimes a small act—the brush of darkening lashes against hollowed cheeks—reminds me there was once something softer beneath this hard shell of protocol and procedure.