13377x To Fixed Instant

In the year 2147, the only thing that mattered was your Efficiency Ratio. And no one had a ratio like 13377x.

Kaelen was a coder in the deep stacks of the Aethelburg Arcology, a vertical city where every human action was logged, scored, and optimized. His job: maintain the legacy code that ran the water recyclers. For ten years, his performance reviews read the same: “Satisfactory. Ratio: 1.0x.” 13377x to

Kaelen never claimed credit. His Ratio stayed 13377x, which meant nothing and everything. He spent his days in the recycler tunnels, not writing code, but listening to the hum of clean water and the distant sound of someone learning to play the violin. In the year 2147, the only thing that