PROLOGUE — THE BOOTH IS EVERYWHERE
Tag 4417 learns the first rule of the new Hell the moment he leaves the Barn:
There is no outside that is not also inside.
The air is different, yes. The slogans are no longer welded to every surface. The plaid is brighter, almost playful—Beetlejuice bureaucracy made wearable. But the booths are there, planted like feeders in every district, clean as kiosks, polite as prayer.
VITA EXCHANGE CENTER.
Pure, vibrant Blue traded for Green sludge that is mildly poisonous, mildly addictive, and heavily controlled. Green has almost no inherent value. Its value is permission—and permission is artificially scarce.
At a street corner, a young man in a cheap suit offers his forearm like a coupon.
The clerk speaks the sedative words: voluntary, measured, safe, supportive.
A small thread of Blue travels through a clear tube. A capsule of Green returns like a prize.
The young man walks away lighter, face softened by the relief of purchased quiet.
Tag 4417 turns the Anti‑Optics Lens dial.
TRUTH MODE.
The kiosk’s canopy becomes stretched hide. The clerk becomes a handler with a memorized smile. And behind the clerk—behind the counter, behind the poster, behind the kindness—Tag 4417 sees what he didn’t see in the Barn’s showrooms:
A steel chute, narrow and polished, swallowing sealed Blue capsules as if they are receipts.
The Blue does not spill. It does not stain.
It is packaged.
Unitized.
Made clean enough to move.
A voice beside him says, “You look like someone who survived the Barn.”
A man in a plaid suit stands with the calm confidence of someone selling inevitability. He holds a black case with a green clasp, the kind used for expensive tools and expensive lies.
He doesn’t introduce himself as Dante. He doesn’t need to. The posture gives him away: docent patience mixed with auditor hunger.
“You did very well in the facility,” Dante says, as if reading a quarterly report. “But you should understand something, Tag 4417. The facility was not a place. It was a diagram.”
“A diagram of what?”
Dante opens the case. Inside is a portable Lens—same chassis, more settings. One new label glows softly: ECOLOGY.
“A sustainable Hell cannot be one building,” Dante says. “Buildings can burn. An ecology survives.”
A second voice cuts in, irritated and old.
“And everywhere that looks like a waiting room.”
The Old Investor stands nearby with a face like carved complaint. He is dressed in expensive nostalgia. His eyes are bored, not because the place is harmless, but because the place is too clean.
“I miss the screams,” he mutters. “At least screams were honest.”
Dante gestures toward Tag 4417 like a feature. “Verified asset,” he tells the Old Investor. “High compliance. High output. High optics.”
Asset. The word lands like a tag stapled deeper into Tag 4417’s skin.
The Old Investor squints. “He looks too awake.”
“We can manage awakening,” Dante replies. “That’s what Support is for.”
Support. Again. Always.
Dante clicks the Lens to ECOLOGY and raises it like a priest lifting a host.
The street changes.
Booths glow in a pattern, lines connecting them like veins. Some lines pulse Blue. Others carry Green. And in several places the ground itself appears to breathe—as if the city has a throat.
Tag 4417 realizes the second rule of the new Hell:
The Barn was never the center.
It was the demo room.
Dante smiles at the Old Investor, voice warm as a pitch deck.
“Now,” he says, “let me show you how we made suffering portable.”
LENS DIAL LEGEND
PLAID MODE: what the system wants you to see—clean, friendly, “choice.”
TRUTH MODE: what is physically happening—feeders, handlers, suction, routing.
OVERLAY MODE: what it used to look like—old Hell’s fire and iron (shown for contrast, nostalgia, investor appeasement).
INTERNAL MODE: what it does inside the cattle—self‑blame, fear loops, numbness, compliance scripts.
ECOLOGY MODE: how barns connect—booths, thresholds, eligibility, and the hidden pipes.