> This is the tentative opening chapter of a novel in progress. The setting is still under review, and the entire draft is likely subject to a complete rewrite.  The air on Roulettenburg Station tastes of wet copper and stale ozone. A metallic tang that lingers in the throat, as if you’d held a coin in your mouth for three standard cycles. Probably the atmospheric filters, unchanged for months, or maybe it’s the smell of people like us. I try not to breathe it in. Just as I ignore the threats floating above my head. My attention is entirely focused on the hum of servo-motor number four, the support for the General’s right knee. An irregular, asthmatic _whirr_. «One more minute,» I murmur. I am kneeling on the synthetic carpet of Zhang’s office. It’s the color of faux moss and reeks of lemon disinfectant. A pathetic chemical effort. I try in vain to cover the other smell, the acrid, sickly-sweet one. It hits me every time the General moves: overheated metal and old age. Before my eyes, General Della Rovere’s right leg trembles. The hydraulic actuator is twenty years old; it vibrates against the floor, discharging the owner’s nervous tension into the planks. «The situation is... complex, Zhang. You have to understand.» The General’s voice arrives muffled from up there, cracked by a metallic resonance—a symptom of wear on his synthetic vocal cords. I tighten the calibration screw with my multi-tool. A thick, black drop oozes from the knee joint. Lube oil mixed with bio-condensate. It falls onto the pristine carpet, inches from my grease-stained fingers. _Plip._ The General is leaking parts. A Della Rovere pissing oil onto his creditor’s floor. If there is a metaphor for our situation, it is this dark stain spreading on the synthetic green, impossible to clean. «Complexity is a luxury the Bank does not grant, General,» Zhang replies. I look up, still crouching. Behind the holographic mahogany desk sits only Zhang’s _render_. This low angle betrays what others ignore. The edge of his collar flickers every time the compression algorithm recalculates the shadows. 50 Hertz. A business-class projection, but a projection nonetheless. Zhang isn’t even here. He’s probably in a sensory deprivation tank on the penthouse level, or perhaps he died three years ago and we are talking to a financial subroutine left on a loop. «I’m done.» I stand up and wipe the multi-tool on the pants of my tech jumpsuit. «I bypassed the pressure limiter. It’ll hold, but it’s going to run hot. If you smell burning, try not to scream.» General Della Rovere does not thank me. He jerks upright in the chair. He runs a hand over his jacket to smooth a non-existent crease, but the trembling of his fingers makes the medals chime against the plastic buttons. I take two steps back and retreat into the shadows behind him, the position reserved for servants and technicians. Zhang shifts his eyes—two spheres of onyx without capillaries—onto me. He aims his gaze past the General’s shoulders. «And the technician?» the hologram asks. The voice comes from a surround system hidden in the walls. It envelops us. «Is he part of the warranty?» «He is Ivani.» The General dabs his forehead with a soaked handkerchief. «My... private specialist.» «Private specialist?» Zhang repeats. The avatar tilts its head, and a stream of binary data flows rapidly through his artificial pupils, illuminating them from within. The smile widens, revealing teeth of a ceramic too white to be real. The eyelids do not blink. His algorithms have stopped simulating human eye movements. Now he is targeting me. «General, you have a delightful sense of humor. This is Alessandro Ivani. Badge number 89-B, Infrastructure Maintenance Sector.» Zhang makes a gesture, and my personal file appears in mid-air: service hours, disciplinary warnings, tunnel access logs. «He is one of my employees,» Zhang concludes, with an amused tone similar to a system notification. «Or rather, he is on the payroll of Roulettenburg SpA. Which, technically, makes him mine.» The General turns toward me, twisting his neck with an audible creak. The skin of his face is ashen under the neon lights. «You work... for him?» «I work for the Station, General.» I fix my eyes on a spot above his head to avoid meeting his gaze. «I fix breakdowns. Whether it’s your leg or Zhang’s generators, to me, they’re just jammed gears.» «Exactly,» says Zhang. «And he is a Level 4 Technician. He doesn’t just change parts; he knows how to read raw data. He knows how to distinguish an optical illusion from a load-bearing structure.» Zhang observes me again. For a millisecond, the rendering of his right ear lags. It detaches from his head and floats in the void. _Glitch._ I decide to take back control of the conversation. «Speaking of breakdowns...» I point to an empty spot to Zhang’s left. «Your projector needs recalibration. There’s a 3% packet loss on the vertical axis. It undermines your authority, Chief. Makes you look less threatening than you’d like.» Zhang’s avatar freezes for a frame, then the animation resumes, smoother. «I like you, Ivani. You have an eye for structural details. It’s a pity your client doesn’t share the same attention for basic arithmetic.» A white porcelain cup materializes in Zhang’s virtual hand. He lifts it. The aroma reaches me: authentic jasmine. Real tea, or at least its perfect olfactory simulation. «My algorithms indicate that the probability of unlocking your terrestrial assets is less than zero point three percent. Debt, General, is a constant.» I look at the back of the General’s neck. From back here, the architecture of his failure is evident: the black hair dye is giving way near the roots, revealing a strip of dirty grey. On his shoulder, the golden epaulet is frayed. A single gold thread hangs loose. I want to reach out and rip it away. That thread is the only real thing in this room: a life hanging by a past that is unraveling. «But my mother...» The General leans forward, pressing his chest against the edge of the desk. «The Matriarch. Donna Isabella. Her vitals are critical. It is a matter of days. Once the succession is open...» «Betting on death, are we?» Zhang laughs, a high-definition sampled sound, devoid of breath. «General, here at Roulettenburg we bet on quantum reality. Betting on biology is vulgar. Old Italian women have a tendency to survive out of spite.» An electric impulse runs down my spine. _Spite._ The word resonates in the overly cold air conditioning. «A bridge loan,» the General insists. His voice breaks, losing all martial posture. His hands grasp for something in the air before him. «Alex here... has calculated a system. A pattern in the Wheel’s fluctuations.» Zhang stares at me. Now I feel the weight of his gaze, as if a targeting laser had locked onto my forehead. I have stopped being the General’s henchman. Now I am _his_ technician who is lying. «The logs speak clearly. Ivani knows the machine better than anyone else,» says Zhang, enunciating the syllables. «Tell the General the truth. Do patterns exist in the Synchrotron?» The General turns in his armchair again. His eyes are wide, pupils dilated, searching for mine. He stares at me the way a dog looks at its master a moment before being put down. He wants me to lie. He wants the fairytale. «Entropy has no memory,» I answer flatly. «There are no patterns.» Della Rovere’s shoulders collapse. The air exits his lungs in a long hiss. The uniform slumps, suddenly becoming two sizes too big. Zhang stands up. The conversation is over. «No credit. If you want to play tonight, you will have to use what you have left.» The avatar walks through the desk to the large holographic wall. With a gesture, the wall vanishes. It becomes a panoramic window overlooking the sidereal void. Beneath us, suspended in the black and thirty meters down, Roulettenburg Station pulses with neon light. And in the center, embedded in the floor like a luminous scar, is the Synchrotron. Schrödinger’s Wheel. A toroidal ring thirty meters in diameter. From here, it looks the size of a toy, but I know the superconducting magnets down there bend local space-time and warp light around the core. The General stares at the ring without blinking. The tremors stop abruptly. He freezes into rigor mortis. That thing down there is his firing squad. «It must die,» whispers the General, speaking to the glass. «The old world must die. It is the only variable missing from the equation.» I look out, past Zhang’s shimmering silhouette. The stars, seen from here, are fixed, frozen pinpricks. If I had courage, I would take the first cargo shuttle to the mining colonies. But then I think of Polina. I think of her obsession with smuggling routes, her desperate hunt for a flaw in the surveillance grid to escape this place. She is looking for a way out that perhaps doesn't exist. And I know that tonight I will be there again, at the General’s side, watching the Wheel turn. I hope he is wrong. And I pray I am too.