The Humanity Protocol

Dr. Conrad Huber regulated the neural suppression field while studying the developing embryos. Each sphere beat with a soft blue light, synchronized to the frequency that would guarantee emotional stability in the final products. The latest batch—Series 2157—stood out as his most efficient. He made a note on his tablet, recording subtle improvements in genetic sequencing that would mitigate the chances of deviation.

One embryo flickered with an irregular pattern, drawing his attention. As he leaned closer, the light caught his reflection in the glass. For a moment, superimposed over the cold blue glow of the incubation chamber, he saw his younger self, walking the corridors of this facility when it was a proper hospital, before the transition. Back when he had just started his career, when natural births filled these halls with chaos and joy.

The sound of real babies crying, the warmth of human connection, before he helped change it all...

Huber straightened up, his fingers reaching for the port behind his ear where his own emotional suppression implant regulated his neurochemistry. The device purred normally, but the memory lingered like an unwelcome shadow at the edge of consciousness.

As he studied the embryo, he glimpsed movement in his peripheral vision. Dr. Santos from Embryo Storage stood near the doorway. When he turned to acknowledge her, she was gone, her footsteps fading down the corridor. It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed her quiet observations of his work, though he’d never thought to question why.

“Dr. Huber?” The crisp tone of Director Koga-Ban interrupted Huber’s momentary distraction. “The Board is very pleased with Series 2156’s preliminary results. Though I notice their productivity metrics aren’t meeting expected targets.”

Huber faced his superior, keeping the impassive expression expected of senior staff. “Minor variations sometimes occur as we refine the process. Series 2157 incorporates adjustments that should address any...inefficiencies.”

Koga-Ban’s eyes narrowed. “See that it does. We can’t afford another deviation like the 2149 Series.” She paused, studying him. “You were involved in the early implementation of the program, weren’t you? Back when the suppression protocols were still being perfected?”

“I was,” Huber said, his tone flat. He didn’t mention he remembered those early days with unexpected clarity—the failed attempts, the subjects whose emotions proved resistant to suppression. The ones who disappeared, never to be seen again.

“Then you understand better than most the importance of ensuring absolute control over the reproduction process.” Koga-Ban gestured toward the embryos. “You’ve dedicated your life to perfecting these protocols. More than forty years of service. One hint of emotional contamination now, and we risk losing everything we’ve built for our beloved leaders.”

Huber nodded, but as Koga-Ban walked away, he found his eyes drawn to the irregular embryo. Its light pulsed with a pattern that reminded him, inexplicably, of a laughing child’s heartbeat.

He reached for his tablet to document the deviation, but his fingers hesitated over the screen. For the first time in his career, he felt an unfamiliar reluctance to mark something for correction. The feeling passed, suppressed by his implant, but it left behind a hint of doubt in the perfect, sterile world he’d helped create.

Huber made his way to the analysis lab, his tablet displaying the anomalous readings. The lab’s technician worked at the sequencing station. “I need a full spectrum analysis of Embryo 2157-23.”

The technician turned. For a moment, Huber’s implant struggled to regulate the surge of recognition that hit him. Her face triggered a buried memory: a small girl with the same grey eyes, no more than five years old, sitting in her father’s office 25 years ago. He remembered sharing his contraband candy bar with her while discussing the upcoming protocols with Dr. Woods—her father, his respected colleague, who had disappeared without explanation.

“Of course, Dr. Huber.” Her voice held the proper flatness, but her eyes held his a fraction too long. “I’m Technician Woods. Emmaline Woods.”

Emmaline’s fingers manipulated the sequencing controls. “The embryo shows elevated levels of oxytocin receptor expression.” She pulled up the data, and Huber noticed her hand trembling. “Similar to patterns documented in the failed Series 2149.”

The mention of Series 2149 should have triggered reporting protocols. Instead, he found himself studying her face, noting the careful way she held her neutral look. Like someone wearing a mask they had practiced all their life.

“Run the analysis again,” he said. “And delete the first test from the system. Routine equipment calibration.”

Surprise broke through Emmaline’s practiced demeanor. In that unguarded moment, Huber saw something that both terrified and fascinated him, an echo of the girl who had once known how to smile. Emmaline’s laugh, a distant, forgotten memory, bypassed his implant’s suppression.

In his office, the security feed filled Huber’s screen, a grid of emotionless productivity—until he noticed the pattern. Technician Woods. Lab 7. Every third night shift. And she wasn’t alone.

He enhanced the footage. A male technician—Lucien Reyes, Series 2149—stood too close to her sequencing station. Their movements weren’t the prescribed distance apart. Their hands touched, lingering.

Huber’s finger hovered over the reporting icon, but another alert diverted him: an automated flag on Emmaline’s quarterly health scan. He pulled up her readings, his eyes widening at the hormone levels. Impossible. The suppression implants prevented...

The lab door slid open. Emmaline stood there, her face no longer wearing its careful mask. “You’ve seen it, then.”

“Natural conception was eliminated for the greater good of societal production,” he said. “Love contaminates—”

“Like your memory of that candy bar?” Her words shattered his practiced calm. “The implants aren’t perfect, Dr. Huber. Some of us remember. Some of us feel.”

His own implant whined in protest as she stepped closer. “Lucien is from Series 2149. You know what that means. The early protocols...they didn’t take. Not completely.” She pressed her hand to her abdomen. “And now we have proof that humanity can’t be engineered into submission.”

The reporting icon pulsed red on his screen. One touch would summon the Enforcement Unit. Instead, Huber found himself asking, “How many others?”

“Enough to show that your perfect system is failing.” Her grey eyes held his. “Deep down, you already know that, don’t you?”

After Emmaline left his office, Huber sat motionless, his implant working overtime to process the conflicting signals flooding his system. The memory of her words—“Some of us remember. Some of us feel”—refused to fade, even as his neural suppressors strained against the tide of forbidden emotions.

He found himself checking the security feed, watching Emmaline and Lucien’s careful interactions with an awareness he couldn’t—shouldn’t—possess. Hours passed. His finger remained poised over the reporting icon, duty warring with something deeper, something his implant couldn’t suppress.

Then the inevitable happened.

Huber witnessed with growing unease as the Enforcement Unit burst into Lab 7, their black uniforms a stark contrast to the sterile white walls. Lucien moved in front of Emmaline, an instinct that shouldn’t exist in Series 2149.

The lead enforcer cut him off. “Emotional contamination identified. Subject displays protective behavior consistent with attachment formation.” He gestured to his team. “Secure both deviants.”

Huber’s hands clenched as the enforcers separated them. His implant struggled to suppress the surge of...something...as Emmaline reached for Lucien, their fingers almost touching before being wrenched apart.

“Director Koga-Ban will want to examine this breach personally,” the lead enforcer said, pressing a neural inhibitor against Emmaline’s neck. She collapsed, and Huber’s implant nearly shorted from the intensity of his response.

He found himself moving, walking through the facility’s corridors toward the detention level. His authorized access card opened each security door, but his usual calm crumbled with every step.

Through the observation window, he watched as they strapped Emmaline and Lucien to examination tables. Instruments cataloged the changes in their bodies. The natural pregnancy stood as evidence humanity’s emotional core couldn’t be engineered away like the oligarchs demanded.

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” Director Koga-Ban’s voice made Huber turn. “How the flaws in Series 2149 combined with residual emotional capacity to create this...aberration.” She studied the medical readouts. “We’ll learn much from dissecting this failure.”

“They’re not failures.” Huber’s words escaped before his implant could stop them. “They’re human beings.”

Koga-Ban’s eyes narrowed. “Careful, Dr. Huber. Your own implant seems to be malfunctioning. Perhaps you need an adjustment—”

“No.” The certainty in his voice surprised him. “What needs adjustment is this system. Look at the productivity reports. Look at the data. We’re not creating a perfect society. We’re destroying what makes us human.”

His implant failed as he watched Emmaline’s unconscious form. The feeling wasn’t weakness or contamination—it was love. And for the first time, Huber embraced it.

Huber hurried back to his office, knowing Koga-Ban would soon send security teams to retrieve him for “adjustment.” His hands shook as he accessed the facility’s restricted archives. The emotional awakening had shattered decades of conditioning, leaving him raw but seeing clearly for the first time. He had minutes, perhaps, to uncover the truth. He began with Series 2149.

The records showed a pattern he’d never allowed himself to notice before. Early subjects who’d retained emotional capacity hadn’t simply “disappeared into the system.” They’d been harvested for data, their bodies and brains studied to perfect the suppression protocols. He found himself scanning faces, wondering how many others like Lucien had survived, carrying their humanity like a secret flame.

A new file caught his attention: “Oligarch Exemption Protocols.” Private medical facilities. Natural births. Children raised with full emotional capacity. The oligarchs had preserved for themselves the very things they denied to others. Their own children learned to laugh, to love, while they engineered the masses into compliance.

Huber pulled up the genetic degradation data he’d been ignoring for months. Generation after generation of artificial reproduction had introduced subtle flaws. The system wasn’t just destroying humanity’s emotional core—it was unraveling the species itself.

He closed the files, but not before catching a glimpse of another familiar face in the records. Dr. Woods—Emmaline’s father. The surgeon hadn’t simply disappeared. He’d been executed for attempting to warn others about the dangerous oligarchs.

Huber’s hands trembled as he read the execution report. He remembered the last conversation he had with James Woods while his young daughter played in the corner of the office. Now, decades later, the truth bore down on him. He hadn’t just failed humanity, he’d failed his friend.

“The Board requests your presence, Dr. Huber.” A junior administrator’s voice instructed him through office vid-comm. “Regarding the recent... incident.”

Huber responded, maintaining his neutral expression. But as he walked to the Board chamber, he felt the weight of every file he’d read, every face he’d seen. He thought of Lucien and Emmaline, of her father’s sacrifice, of the children he’d helped strip of their humanity.

His implant failed, overwhelmed by the tide of emotion he no longer wished to suppress. And in its failure, he found his strength. The system hadn’t just taken love from humanity. It had taken choice, hope, and compassion, the very essence of being a human.

The time for observation was over. Now, he needed to act.

Instead of the Board chamber, Huber’s steps carried him to the old wing of the facility. These corridors, scheduled for decommissioning, held memories of the transition—and perhaps something more. He’d seen unauthorized access patterns here in the security logs, dismissing them as system glitches. Now he understood they were something else entirely.

A panel in the wall slid open near where he stood. “Dr. Huber.” The voice came from a figure he recognized—Dr. Santos from Embryo Storage. “We’ve been watching you.”

Something stirred in Huber’s gut—an unfamiliar sensation that his failed implant couldn’t suppress. Trust. Not calculated or logical, but raw and instinctive. The same kind of intuition that had made him hesitate over Emmaline’s test results. His awakened emotions told him Dr. Santos represented hope, not danger.

She led him through a maze of abandoned medical rooms. The remnants of the old hospital surrounded them—birthing suites converted to storage, nurseries filled with outdated equipment. Places where natural life had once existed.

They emerged into a neonatal unit. Now it served as a hidden command center, filled with faces he knew from the facility. Technicians. Administrators. Security officers. All carrying their humanity like a secret weapon.

“Many of us are from the early series,” Santos explained. “The imperfect ones. We found each other. Built this network. Waited for others like you to wake up.”

A technician turned from a monitoring station—Weber from Series 2151, someone Huber had passed in corridors a hundred times without really seeing. “We’ve been watching you since Emmaline made contact.” His hand touched his own implant port. “The system’s control isn’t absolute. It never was.”

“The degradation in the artificial reproduction program,” Huber said. “You knew?”

“We’ve been gathering data for years.” Santos gestured to screens showing genetic analysis. “The oligarchs’ natural children prove it. Each generation of suppressed reproduction becomes less stable. The system is failing on a cellular level.”

“We need your access codes,” Weber said. “Your knowledge of the facility’s systems. Emmaline and Lucien aren’t the first they’ve taken, but we can make them the last. We need to show everyone the truth.”

Huber’s implant gave a final static-filled protest before it collapsed into silence. The flood of emotion that followed didn’t overwhelm him now. It further strengthened his resolve. “The quarterly productivity reports,” he said. “The genetic data. The oligarchs’ private medical records. I can get them all.”

“It’s not just about exposing the truth,” Santos said. “We need to destroy the suppression system itself. The neural network, the embryo protocols—”

“The core control center,” Huber finished. “I helped design it. I can help you end it.” His thoughts turned to Emmaline and Lucien in the detention center. “But we need to move quickly. Koga-Ban won’t wait long before beginning their ‘examination.’”

A sound erupted from the corridor. Santos moved to a monitor. “Security teams. They’re searching the old wing.”

“Looking for me,” Huber said. He straightened, feeling the weight of every decision that had led him here. “How many others are ready to wake up?”

“More than the oligarchs know,” Santos said. “We have people in every department, every level. We just need to give them the chance.”

Huber nodded, already forming a plan. “Then let’s remind humanity what it means to be human.”

The plan formed out of years of suppressed emotion. Huber’s access codes opened the facility’s deepest systems while the resistance members moved through the shadows of the old hospital wing. They had minutes, perhaps, before the security teams found them.

“Upload complete,” Weber said from his station. “The productivity reports, genetic data, everything—streaming to every display in the facility.”

Huber worked the control panel. “Targeting the neural network next. The suppression system runs on a synchronized pulse. If we can disrupt it at the source—”

“The implants will fail,” Santos said. “Like yours did. Like ours did.”

A security alert flashed red. On the monitors, they watched Koga-Ban enter the detention center where Emmaline and Lucien were held. Her face showed the first crack in its emotional mask—anger.

“Now,” Huber said. His code sequence found the heart of the system he’d helped build. The same frequency that kept humanity docile, that prevented love and joy and pain—he could end it all in one command.

He hesitated. “The shock of sudden emotional awakening—”

“Is better than staying enslaved,” Santos said. “We all survived it. They will too.”

Huber entered the final sequence. Throughout the facility, the subtle hum of the suppression field faltered. In the detention center, Koga-Ban’s hand reached for her implant port. The enforcers surrounding Emmaline and Lucien staggered.

“Security breach in progress,” the facility’s automated system announced. “Containment protocols—” The voice distorted and died as decades of hidden truth flooded every screen and speaker.

In the detention center, implants failed one by one. Emmaline and Lucien found each other as Koga-Ban lurched, her conditioning shattered. “What...what is this feeling?”

“It’s called love,” Huber’s voice carried through the facility’s communication system. “Something the oligarchs kept for themselves while denying it to everyone else. Look at your screens. See what they’ve hidden. See what they’ve taken from us.”

The security teams in the old wing had stopped searching. They stood transfixed by the data streaming across every surface—proof of the oligarchs’ deception, the failed genetic engineering, the truth about human emotion.

“The system is breaking down at a cellular level,” Huber said. “Each generation more unstable than the last. They knew. They’ve always known. But now everyone else will know too.”

In the detention center, other prisoners awakened. Throughout the facility, implants failed. People touched their faces, feeling tears for the first time in years. Others laughed. Some screamed as decades of suppressed emotion broke free.

“It will take time,” Santos said, watching the chaos unfold. “Learning to feel again. Learning to love.”

“But they’ll have the chance now,” Huber said. He thought of his own journey from system architect to its destroyer. From emotional slave to fully human. “That’s all anyone needs. A chance to feel.”

In the detention center, Emmaline and Lucien held each other, their love no longer a secret. Their child would be born into a world where love wasn’t a flaw to be engineered away, but the very thing that made them…human.

And Dr. Conrad Huber, watching it all unfold, felt no regret as the system he’d helped build crumbled around him. Only love. Raw, human love for all of them. For humanity itself, finally free to feel again without fear of oppression and persecution.