Julian built the city of Aethelgard. It was a masterpiece of design: efficient, soaring towers of glass and steel, perfectly integrated transport systems, and automated security. It was perfect.
And it was a cage.
After a catastrophic global war, Aethelgard was designated the last safe haven for humanity, sealed off from the toxic world outside. Julian designed the automated defenses that kept everyone in.
Years later, Julian was an old man, living in the central tower, watching his perfect, suffocating city operate. He saw the discontent, the yearning in people’s eyes when they looked at the impenetrable outer walls. He saw his masterpiece turn into a prison.
He decided to fix his mistake. He had a secret: a single backdoor, a flaw in the system that only the architect knew about. It was a complex sequence of physical levers and old-school punch cards hidden in the forgotten sub-basements of the original construction site.
He worked in secret, bypassing the automated surveillance. He reached the sub-basement. He pulled the levers, one by one.
The city’s systems didn’t shut down. Instead, a voice filled the entire city via the intercoms: "Architect Protocol Override Initiated. Opening Exit Gate 43-B."
He had done it.
He rushed to the gate. A crowd had already gathered, staring in shock as the massive steel door began to slowly grind open, revealing the toxic, ruined world outside.
But the people didn't run out into the freedom. They looked outside at the gray ash and dead trees, and they looked back at their safe, perfect prison. They panicked, fighting each other to pull the levers to close the gate, desperate to reseal themselves inside.
Julian watched the door shut. He realized the cage wasn't the city. The cage was humanity's fear of the unknown. He was the only one who had truly wanted to leave
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