The Contagion of Joy

The security checkpoint beeped green. Aria Chen stepped through into District 12 Market Square.

Her neural compliance scanner was already screaming red alerts. The device's screen flashed warnings before her boot touched the plaza concrete.

The square should have been silent. Just ambient compliance broadcasts and footsteps. Instead, laughter echoed off the utilitarian gray walls.

Uncontrolled laughter. Genuine laughter. The Bureau classified it as affective deviation level seven.

Aria raised the scanner. Her fingers moved through familiar documentation protocols. Each violation logged with mechanical precision.

A woman doubled over near the center fountain. Her whole body shook with laughter she couldn't contain. Tears streamed down her cheeks, carving wet tracks through decades of expressionless regulation.

The woman's implant sparked at her temple. Small blue fireworks of malfunction. She clutched her stomach and laughed harder.

Aria's hand twitched toward her own temple. The implant beneath her skin pulsed its steady rhythm. Corrective. Constant. Comforting.

She moved deeper into the square. More citizens infected. A man pointed at something on the ground, laughing so hard no sound came out.

Chalk drawings covered the concrete. Bright yellows and pinks against the gray. Smiling faces, suns with rays, flowers with petals. Children's art that appeared each night despite the dawn erasures.

The emotion monitors mounted on the plaza walls flickered red. Their diagnostic lights strobed warnings. They couldn't process the cascade of unregulated joy flooding their sensors.

"Affective deviation cluster," Aria murmured into her recorder. "Estimated forty-seven individuals. Neurological compliance compromised."

Her voice sounded steady. Professional. But something stirred beneath the words. A whisper her implant couldn't quite suppress.

Another burst of laughter rolled through the crowd. An old man leaning against a bench. A teenager covering her mouth. A pair holding each other up as they gasped for breath.

Aria's scanner chimed. Data compilation complete. The trail of violations led downward. Underground.

She glanced at the laughing woman one more time. The tears. The spark of blue light. The smile that looked almost painful in its unfamiliarity.

Aria turned toward the transit entrance. Her posture rigid. Her scanner gripped tight.

But her hand remained at her temple. Touching. Pressing. Feeling the implant's pulse beneath her skin.