264: Defrag

"Proceed."

He pressed the key to his temple. The lace interface hummed. defrag 264

When the enforcers broke the door down, they found a man sitting calmly in a chair, eyes wide and wet with tears, humming a tune that had no right to exist. Their scanners went wild. "Proceed

The knock came at his door. Not a physical knock. A ping on his lace. Their scanners went wild

The ping from Pod 7 grew urgent. Two enforcers were already in the hallway. He could hear their boot-stomps through the thin floor.

He hadn’t always been at 264. Last year, he’d been a crisp 12. A model citizen. A data analyst for the Continuity Board. Then he’d found the file—the one about the "Defrag Protocol" not being a repair tool, but a sieve. It didn’t consolidate memories; it deleted the inconvenient ones. Rebellions, lost loves, faces of the disappeared—all labeled as "corruption" and wiped clean during your nightly defrag cycle.