The air, thick and metallic, scraped Mireya’s throat with every shallow breath. A perpetual twilight clung to the draft plaza of the district, a monument to the industrial blight that had claimed her mother. Fifty paces ahead, a line of gaunt figures shuffled towards the processing kiosk, their faces etched with the resignation of the condemned. Mireya traced the grimy concrete lines of the plaza with her worn boot, the memory of her mother’s hands – raw, calloused, forever smelling of coal dust and despair – a cold knot in her gut. Her mother had worked the mines until her lungs gave out, until the state declared her ‘inefficient’ and let her waste away in a damp tenement cot. Mireya had been six. She would not be sixteen. She would not share that fate. “Next!” a raspy voice barked, amplified by a tinny speaker. The line lurched forward. Mireya was six bodies away from the kiosk, where a thick-necked bureaucrat with stained lapels sat, stamping conscription papers. The coal mines of Urza-Peak, the smelters of Borov-Grad, the chemical plants of Krez-Tier – all promised a short, brutal existence. Mireya’s stomach churned, a calculated flutter, not of fear, but of anticipation. She swayed. Just a little. Her vision blurred, not from weakness, but from practiced focus. The clerk looked up, his gaze sweeping the line, momentarily catching hers. She let her knees soften, her head loll. Her small, thin frame, carefully curated for maximum fragility, began its slow, deliberate descent. A gasp rippled through the few people nearby. She hit the grimy pavement with a soft thud, a perfectly timed collapse. The grey sky, momentarily visible through the smog, spun above her. “Oh,” she murmured, her voice barely a whisper, “My head…” *** Across the city, in the labyrinthine alleys behind the Zelen-Tier block, Janna Hanza grunted, wrenching a rusted vacuum tube from the carcass of a discarded 1970s television. The acrid smell of ozone and burning plastic clung to her work-roughened fingers. Her brow remained perpetually furrowed under the weight of mental arithmetic and physical strain. Sweat beaded on her forehead, mingling with grime. This wasn't her world, not really. She remembered gleaming touchscreens, instant data, effortless communication. Here, in this district in 1978, ‘technology’ meant flickering incandescent bulbs and clunky, unreliable circuits. She required these tubes—demanded the copper, the rare earth elements, the very specific dielectric properties of the glass. Her ambition, a blazing inferno in her chest, drove her past exhaustion. She would rebuild. She would innovate. She would create the micro-processors that this realm desperately required, that it didn’t even know it lacked. If she could just get enough raw materials, enough salvaged components, enough uninterrupted hours of tinkering in her cramped, unheated workshop. Every scavenged piece was a step towards escaping the suffocating poverty, towards proving that her knowledge, her 'transmigrated' mind, was worth more than mere factory labor. Her hands trembled, not from weakness, but from the furious energy that propelled her. The next tube resisted, its base fused with rust. Janna growled, tightening her grip, ready to apply more force, more will. *** A harsh kick to Mireya’s ribs brought her back to the grim reality of the draft plaza. “Get up, you parasite!” the conscriptor snarled, his boot still hovering. “Think you can dodge the labor quota with cheap theatrics?” Her eyes fluttered open, wide and vulnerable, meeting his glare. A tremor ran through her body, a calculated shiver. “Sir, I… I feel quite unwell. My constitution is… fragile.” The man laughed, a dry, grating sound. “Fragile? We have a quota to fill, girl. The Urza-Peak mines take any body with a pulse.” He seized her arm, his fingers like iron bands, preparing to haul her to her feet. His breath smelled of stale tobacco and cheap spirits. Her carefully laid plans, her years of perfecting the 'fragile orphan' persona, hinged on this very interaction. Just as the conscriptor began to pull, a shadow fell over them. A large shadow. The air itself seemed to still. Mireya’s gaze, still feigning weakness, darted past his shoulder. Every head in the plaza had turned. Drazan Vukov stood there, a monolithic presence in the drab surroundings. His enforcer coat, charcoal grey and impeccably pressed, seemed to absorb the meager light. The polished leather of his boots gleamed, reflecting the distant, smudged sun. His face, usually a mask of cold authority, was a thundercloud. His eyes, dark as polished onyx, fixed on the brute's hand clamped around Mireya’s arm. The conscriptor stammered, “Commander Vukov, sir! Just processing this… this shirker.” He began to release Mireya’s arm, a flicker of fear in his eyes. “Let her go.” Drazan’s voice was a flat gravel scrape that made the surrounding crowd freeze. Every laborer in the district knew Drazan Vukov, if not by sight, then by reputation. The Iron Hand. The State’s Fury. The man who enforced order with merciless efficiency. The man's grip loosened, but not fast enough. Drazan’s hand shot out, clamping down hard. His fingers wrapped around the conscriptor's wrist like a bench vise. The man cried out, a strangled shriek, his face contorting in agony. A sickening *crack* echoed through the plaza. He dropped to his knees, clutching his mangled wrist, whimpering. Mireya watched, a flicker of triumph, quickly masked, in her wide, 'frightened' eyes. This was better than she’d hoped. Drazan Vukov looked down at Mireya, his expression softening to something that might have been concern, or perhaps, a dangerous possessiveness. He gently scooped her into his arms, as if she weighed nothing more than a child’s doll. “She is not a shirker,” he stated, his voice now a low rumble, directed at no one in particular, yet clearly meant for everyone. “She is my wife.” He carried her through the stunned silence of the plaza, past the gawking conscripts, past the kneeling man. The towering, brutalist silhouette of the Zelen-Tier Residential Block loomed in the distance, a fortress of concrete and surveillance. Its narrow, shadowed corridors promised a different kind of claustrophobia. He moved with a relentless, powerful stride, his warmth a stark contrast to the frigid air. The scent of wool and cedar clinging to him replaced the pervasive smog. Up through the service lifts they went, past floors where weary residents peered from behind reinforced steel doors. He didn't slow until they reached the seventeenth floor, the air here slightly cleaner, the silence thicker. He carried her through a heavily guarded entryway, past two sentries in grey wool who snapped to attention, their gazes lowered. The apartment was vast by inner-tier standards, sparsely furnished but meticulously clean, with heavy, sound-dampening walls. He set her down gently on a plush, surprisingly soft divan, its fabric a deep crimson against the stark grey of the room. He knelt before her, his large hands carefully untying the laces of her worn boots. The brutality he had shown moments ago was gone, replaced by an unsettling tenderness. He met her gaze, his dark eyes intense, unreadable. His thumb traced the sharp curve of her jaw. His voice, a low, intimate whisper, was meant for her ears alone. “You will never have to lift a finger again.”

The Art of Frailty