A System Unaligned

What if peace was just another form of control?

I used to be someone you'd cross the street to avoid. Not because I looked dangerous. I didn’t. Average height, with a forgettable face and hair always tucked under a knit beanie. But my eyes? People said there was something off in them. Like I was always watching, always calculating. Which, in all fairness, I was.

But if I’d told you ten years ago that the government was slipping behavioral trackers into your smart devices, you’d have laughed me out of the room. Now, you just ask which brand of spyware you should be using.

I didn’t start out planning to be a terrorist.

"You know you can still back out, Rae," Jonas said, tightening the laces on his boots. He never looked me in the eyes when he said stuff like that. It was a subtle tick. He'd look at my shoulder or the wall behind me.

"And let them keep playing god? No thanks."

He flinched. Maybe he still believed in the system, deep down. Or maybe he just wanted to believe in something. I used to be like that.

You can’t change a system from inside if the whole thing’s rotted.

We sat in the dusty corner of what used to be a public library, long since shuttered. Shelves collapsed. Dust motes floated like memories. A single drone buzzed past a broken window but didn’t scan. We'd learned how to spoof heat signatures weeks ago. Jonas had a knack for low-level hacking. I had a knack for getting people to look the other way.

The plan was simple: infiltrate PACE, the Psychological Adjustment and Cognitive Enhancement agency—the crown jewel of the new government. Their motto: Peace through thought alignment.

Doesn’t that sound nice? Doesn’t it reek?

I didn’t tell Jonas the whole plan. He didn’t need to know. He was better off thinking we were just getting footage, just exposing truths. That’s what he signed up for.

He didn’t sign up to help me kill someone.

The first time I met Dr. Lydia Sharpe, I was twelve. She had the kind of smile you wanted to trust. Clean lines. Blonde bob. Glasses always perched at the end of her nose like a movie scientist. She offered me a cup of cocoa and asked me about my dreams. My parents said she was with the school. It was a new program for high-performing students.

I told her I dreamed of flying. Not like a superhero. Like a bird.

She wrote that down. Smiled. Said, "We can help you with that."

Two months later, I couldn’t remember what I said. But I stopped having dreams.

Back in the present, we stood outside PACE headquarters, just past curfew. The place looked like a tech startup and a prison had a baby: steel, glass, and white lights that hummed. I checked the microbomb strapped to my ribs. I told Jonas it was a signal scrambler. In a way, it was.

"We go in, get the footage of the labs, the conditioning rooms, the patient files. Then out through sublevel three," I said, my voice flat. I was already slipping into the role.

He nodded. "And if we get caught?"

"You know the drill. Swallow the patch."

He hesitated. "Do you ever wonder if we're the bad guys?"

I looked at him for a long time. "No. But I wonder if the good guys are just too scared to do what needs to be done."

God, he had no idea.

We moved like shadows. Jonas hacked the outer systems and bypassed the retinal scanner with a contact lens trick I'd taught him. I played distraction, slipping past guards with a forged ID and a fake accent. Inside, the place was colder than it looked.

"Welcome to PACE," a chirpy voice said from an automated console. "Alignment is achievement."

I wanted to punch it.

We reached the labs. Rows of patients sat in chairs like salon stations, heads connected to humming metal halos. Their faces were blank. Drained. Eyes wide open, but seeing nothing.

"Jesus," Jonas whispered. "They said it was voluntary."

"Voluntary, the same way taxes are voluntary," I muttered. I scanned the room. No sign of Sharpe. Not yet.

We got the footage. All of it. Jonas looked shaken. Like the walls were pressing in.

"Let’s go," he said.

But I stood still. My hand itched toward the microbomb.

"There’s one more room I need to see."

He looked at me. "Rae, this wasn’t the plan."

I met his eyes. "I lied."

I’m sorry, Jonas. You’re good. But you’re not built for this part.

I left him frozen there and took the freight elevator to sublevel five. The floor no one knew about. But I did. Because I had been there.

The door was fingerprint-locked, but I’d lifted Dr. Sharpe’s print weeks ago off a champagne flute at a fundraiser. (People really should stop underestimating bartenders.)

The door slid open. I stepped inside.

Dr. Sharpe was there, waiting.

"Hello, Rae. I wondered how long it would take you."

I smiled. It wasn’t nice.

"Cut the bullshit. This isn’t a therapy session."

She gestured to the room—stark, clinical, lit with that too-white light. "You think destroying me ends this?"

"No," I said. "But it starts the unraveling."

She folded her hands. "You always were the most resistant subject. We learned so much from you."

Don’t let her get in your head. That’s her game.

"Is that why you wiped my dreams? Why did you turn half the country into docile, glass-eyed sheep?"

"We prevented war. We ended mass shootings. We stabilized a crumbling society."

"You built a cage and told us it was a palace."

She sighed. Almost sadly. "Do you really believe humanity is better off free? The chaos, the hate, the fear? We gave people peace."

I stepped closer. The microbomb clicked in its casing. Ten minutes.

"You didn’t give them peace. You took away their ability to care. To rebel. To love."

For the first time, her face cracked.

"You still have it, don’t you? The chip. You never let us finish."

I tapped my temple. "Your little miracle device? I dug it out with a scalpel and a shot of whiskey."

She stood. "Then you're not aligned. You're unstable."

"No, Lydia. I'm awake."

I raised the detonator.

"This place dies tonight. And you with it."

She didn’t run. Just watched me with something like pity.

"You're doing the wrong thing, Rae."

I nodded. "For the right reason."

Then I pressed the trigger.

The blast was contained. No civilian casualties. But PACE’s underground servers, research, and conditioning centers were vaporized. The official story blamed a gas leak.

They never found my body.

Jonas got out. The footage was released. People rioted. Some called me a murderer. Some called me a martyr.

But I didn’t die.

You don’t build a revolution by dying.

That was just act one.

Two years later, I work at a coffee shop in a city that’s learning how to feel again. People cry in public. They argue about music. They fall in love with too much hope.

I watch them. I serve them lattes.

And I wait.

Because there are still others. Other PACE clones. Other Sharpe disciples.

And when they rise again, I’ll be ready.

You probably won’t see me. But I’ll see you.

And if you start dreaming again? You’re welcome.