The city is built from steel. Towers rise in perfect lines, their surfaces reflecting a cold, controlled light. Everything is precise, efficient, and maintained without fault. Nothing is left to chance, and nothing is allowed to decay.

Inside your home, the atmosphere is joyful today. There is movement, conversation, and laughter. Your family and friends have all gathered, and everyone’s attention is focused on you. Today is your birthday.

The table is set with care, but even here, function comes before comfort. The decorations are minimal, the arrangement precise. The warmth comes from intention rather than spontaneity.

Everywhere you look, everything is made of steel. Even the people.

Your father moves as he speaks, holding his glass with his mechanical arm. Your mother adjusts the interface at her neck, where metal meets skin in a seamless transition. Around you, modifications are openly displayed. A reinforced spine. Enhanced vision. An altered voice. Some are subtle, others impossible to ignore. Almost every guest has at least one part that is no longer organic.

You overhear your best friend, Kael, discussing his next upgrades with your cousin Lyra, whose parents promised him a full conversion for his eighteenth birthday. They compare advantages and long-term efficiency. The way they speak about it makes it sound less like a transformation and more like a milestone.

You sigh quietly. As if it were an achievement waiting to be unlocked.

You are one of the very few who have not yet been altered. It is not a source of pride. Being modified is in. Being fully organic is not. Wherever you go, you feel the silent judgment of others. Sometimes, they look at you with pity. More often, you hear the whispers. You are behind. You are incomplete. You do not fit.

Sometimes, you wish you were more like them, with their enhanced abilities and their certainty. But the question always remains the same: would you still be yourself? Your parents have never refused you a procedure. You simply never asked. And every time the subject came up, whether from them or from guests, your brother, Eon, made sure to shut it down. Loudly. Repeatedly. Until people stopped trying.

Today, no one interrupts.

Your father steps forward, your mother beside him. They exchange a brief look, one of those silent understandings you have seen your entire life, and then he places a small box in front of you.

“We all contributed.”

You carefully open the box. Inside, there is a voucher. The seal is unmistakable: the new surgical center, the one everyone has been talking about, the one that will soon be inaugurated by the Steel Emperor himself.

This is not just a gift.

It is your first enhancement.

For a moment, the room falls silent. Not out of hesitation, but expectation. Then the suggestions begin.

Your uncle Darius leans forward, already convinced.

“Vision first. It changes everything.”

Lyra shakes her head immediately.

“Strength. Always start with strength.”*

Kael joins in, comparing options and projected outcomes. Others follow. Internal regulation systems. Reaction time. Structural reinforcement. The discussion moves quickly, efficiently, as if this were not a personal decision, but an obvious next step.

No one asks what you want.

“You don’t have to accept it.”

The voice is calm, but it cuts through everything. Eon stands near the doorway, exactly where he was before. He hasn’t moved. Still entirely human. Still entirely against it.

“You know what it does.”

Your father exhales slowly, in obvious irritation.

“Not today.”

Uncle Darius clicks his tongue.

“Can you not, just once?”*

Eon ignores them.

“You’ve seen them.”

And you have. People who went too far. People who stopped reacting the same way. People who became efficient, optimized… distant. Better, according to most. Less, according to him.

The voucher rests in your hands.

For the first time, this is not just about improvement.

It is about what you are willing to give up.