In the sprawling, hive-like industrial arcology of Veridian Core, where production quotas were chanted by digital overseers and the air smelled of recycled ozone and rust, there was one name spoken with a mixture of awe and unease: Kamsin the Untouched.
Valdris stood there, the pencil in his hand, the gold in his skull suddenly feeling less like power and more like a cage.
The audit ended quietly. Section 7 remained open. And Kamsin the Untouched went back to her glass cube, sharpened a new pencil, and answered a call about a weeping capacitor on line nine.
Then came the Audit.
A new executive from the Central Efficiency Bureau—a man named Cor Valdris, his own skull bristling with gold-plated implants—descended upon Section 7. He carried a mandate: optimize or shut down. He found Kamsin in her glass cube, sharpening her pencil.
Kamsin set down the blade. “Would you like to see how I work, Mr. Valdris? Truly see?”
She was called “Untouched” because no corporate protocol could reach her. Bribes were rejected with a raised eyebrow. Threats of termination were met with a shrug. “You’d lose 18% of your annual output,” she’d say, without checking a single database. She was always right.