The capital was no longer the vibrant heart of the Aesthetic Imperium. Under Evelyn's Imperial Focus Initiative, it had become a clinical, high-fidelity panopticon. Every citizen was expected to maintain a "Productive Focus," and any dip in mental radiance was flagged as "Sub-Optimal" or "Cringe."
From the window of their Mourning Carriage, Felix and Rhea watched a squad of automated Sentinels of Clarity scanning a group of citizens.
"She's mapped the entire psychic landscape," Felix whispered. "Any digital signal we send will be parsed by the central AI in milliseconds. We have to use the only thing the system is programmed to ignore: the Un-Aesthetic Waste Flow."
They stopped near the servant's entrance of the sequestered administrative wing where Lord Reginald was being held. A lone, elderly street-cleaner—a man whose job was to physically remove the non-magical debris of the city—was slowly sweeping the pavement with a mechanical, non-Flow broom.
In the eyes of the high-Aesthetic elite, this man was practically invisible. He had no "Focus" to speak of, and his DF signature was as flat as the stones he swept.
"He's perfect," Rhea noted. "He has access to the perimeter bins of the sequestered quarters."
Felix took a discarded, greasy wrapper from a "Mega-Glizzy"—a popular, low-brow snack that the high-society considered the height of culinary cringe. Inside the foil lining, he used a piece of charcoal to scrawl a single, ancient symbol used by the original Chadgard Resistance: a stylized fist holding a broken mirror.
He added a time and a location: The Sub-Level 4 Boiler Room. Midnight.
As the carriage passed the cleaner, Rhea leaned out and "clumsily" dropped the wrapper. It landed in the man's bin with a hollow thud.
Lord Reginald, sitting in his luxuriously appointed prison, was staring at a blank holographic wall when his meal was delivered. The "Mega-Glizzy" wrapper was tucked inside the tray—a "mistake" by the kitchen staff that the automated guards dismissed as a lapse in sanitation.
Reginald's eyes widened as he saw the symbol. He knew that mark. It was the sign of a ruler who understood the value of the "ugly" truth.
[SYSTEM ALERT: ENCRYPTED PHYSICAL DATA RECEIVED. SOURCE: UNKNOWN. CONTENT: REVOLUTIONARY.]
He crumpled the wrapper and swallowed a piece of the snack to hide his trembling hands. The King was back. Not the King of the Flow, but a King who moved in the dirt.
Back at the Command Center, Chief Evelyn paused. Her sensors picked up a momentary fluctuation in the "Aesthetic Uniformity" of the administrative sector—a piece of trash out of place.
She stared at the data for a long second.
"Chief Strategist?" an aide asked. "The Lunio front reports a breach in the third line. Shall we authorize the Siren-Bomb?"
Evelyn turned away from the sensor. "Proceed with the bomb. The war must maintain its rhythm. Minor debris in the capital is... irrelevant."
For the first time in two hundred years, Evelyn's focus on the "Grand Design" caused her to overlook the "Small Cringe."
Lord Reginald has received the message. Felix and Rhea are heading to the Sub-Level 4 Boiler Room.