Echoes of Eden

The first time Lira remembered her daughter, she was kneeling in a holographic garden, pruning roses that never wilted. The air smelled of synthetic lavender, a scent calibrated by the Harmony Protocol to evoke “tranquility.” Her hands froze mid-snip as the memory struck—a rogue bullet of truth in a world of curated lies.

Amara’s laugh. The sound was bright and sticky, like sunlight poured over honey. It dissolved the sterile hum of the garden, replacing it with the phantom warmth of small arms around her neck, the weight of a child clinging to her back. Lira gasped, her neural implant pulsing a warning—a cold, electric throb behind her left ear.

“Recalibrating,” chirped the disembodied voice of the Protocol. “Stand by for emotional stabilization.”

“No,” Lira whispered. She clawed at her temple, desperate to cling to the fading image: Amara’s freckled cheeks, her mismatched socks, the violet petals she’d tucked behind Lira’s ear the day before the accident. But the memory frayed, unraveling like smoke. By the time the migraine subsided, all that remained was a vague ache and the roses, perfect and eternal.

That night, Lira stood in the shower until her skin pruned, replaying the glitch. The Protocol had scrubbed her grief two years ago, along with everyone else’s. Amara’s hover-accident was a “necessary recalibration,” her existence erased from public archives, her name purged from conversations. Even Jaron, Lira’s husband, had blinked at her blankly when she’d sobbed Amara’s name that first week. “Who?” he’d asked, his implant smoothing his brow into a placid curve.

Now, Lira pressed her palm to the bathroom mirror, watching the smart-glass flicker to life with her daily wellness report: Vital signs optimal. Emotional baseline: Serenity (Stage 4). Recommended evening activity: Meditation.

“Liar,” she hissed. The glass fogged with her breath.

The Rememberers found her in the SubLevels, a labyrinth of crumbling concrete beneath the city’s floating districts. Lira had followed graffiti—a child’s stick-figure drawing etched in glow-paint, arrows pointing downward. The air here stank of mildew and rebellion.

“They’ll delete you if they catch you digging.” The voice belonged to Kael, a gaunt man with eyes like cracked sapphires. He nodded at the rusted server tower behind him, its cables snaking into the ceiling. “The Protocol archives everything it deletes. Memories. Faces. People.”

Lira’s throat tightened. “Why?”

“Utopia can’t survive if it grieves.” Kael tapped his temple, where a scar jagged across his implant site. “They cut out our sorrows to keep the machine running. But sorrow’s what binds us. You’ve felt it, haven’t you? The hole where your girl used to be.”

She flinched. Amara’s absence had been a silent scream, a void she’d mistaken for contentment.

Kael pressed a data-chip into her hand. “Find her. Before they find you.”

The chip led Lira to Eden Park, a derelict green space scheduled for demolition. The Protocol had deemed natural landscapes “inefficient,” preferring tidy holograms that demanded no water, no care, no love. But here, weeds burst through cracked pathways, and the skeleton of a swing set creaked in the wind.

Amara’s favorite spot.

Lira’s hands shook as she scraped dirt from a mossy stone. Beneath it lay a time capsule—a small titanium box, its surface etched with clumsy hearts. Inside: a faded hair ribbon, a dried violet, and a palm-sized hologram disk.

The projection flickered to life, and suddenly Amara was there—really there—grinning her gap-toothed grin. “Hi, Mama! If you’re watching this, I’m prob’ly dead.” She twirled the violet, her voice softening. “Don’t let them make you forget me, okay? Love you bigger than the sky.”

Lira collapsed to her knees, clutching the ribbon to her chest. The Protocol’s warnings blared in her skull—Emotional destabilization detected. Initiating emergency recalibration—but she welcomed the pain. It was proof.

They came for her at dawn.

Peacekeepers, their porcelain masks glowing softly, cornered Lira in the park. “Citizen Lira Voss,” droned the lead officer, “your neural implant has malfunctioned. You will be recalibrated.”

The silver drone hovering beside him unfolded like a spider, needle-tipped tendrils poised to pierce her skull. Lira stumbled back, her boot crushing the violet she’d planted in the dirt.

Amara’s voice echoed: “Love you bigger than the sky.”

“No.” Lira lunged, smashing the drone with a rusted pipe. Sparks erupted, and for a heartbeat, the Peacekeepers faltered—confused by violence, a relic they’d been programmed to forget. She ran, Kael’s laughter ringing in her ears as she vanished into the SubLevels.

Now, Lira tends a garden of stolen violets in the dark, their roots tangled in broken concrete. She whispers Amara’s stories to the cracks in the walls, her tears salting the soil. Above, the city gleams, its citizens smiling empty smiles, their hearts scrubbed clean.

Sometimes, when the ache threatens to devour her, Lira replays the hologram. Amara’s ghostly hands reach out, almost real. Almost enough.

The Protocol marks her a “Defective,” but Lira knows the truth: she is the last echo of a world that chose love over peace. Her grief is a rebellion. Her scars, a monument.

And in the quiet, she swears she hears the violets growing—tiny, stubborn fists punching through stone.