Zloaur
**Backstory: The Town of Popovetsk**
The state was called “Biriya.” Not the most original name, but one reflecting the main principle — stability through unity. And the heart of its defense shield was the SIC “Vega” — the State Integrated Concern, engaged in the development and production of electronic warfare systems, communications, and encryption means. “Vega” was not just a company. It was a state within a state, with its own rules, its own benefits, and its own iron logic.
And the town of Popovetsk, which had grown around the classified enterprise, was its flesh and blood. It was not a dreary monotown with broken roads. Quite the opposite. Clean streets, well-kept parks, modern clinics, and schools with advanced study of exact sciences. Housing — free, allocated based on seniority and rank. Stores — stocked with goods scarce in other regions of “Biriya.” Salaries were high, pensions — decent. The price for this paradise was its absolute seclusion. Entry into Popovetsk was a one-way ticket. Early departure — only for exceptional medical or family circumstances, under strict supervision. The residents were not so much prisoners as voluntary keepers of secrets, who had traded a part of their freedom for guaranteed comfort and a sense of belonging to something great.
But every system has a dark side. The mechanism for maintaining order in Popovetsk was ruthlessly simple. For serious offenses — theft, loss of secrecy, gross production errors causing damage to “Vega” — a person was not sent to an ordinary prison. That was inefficient. They were transferred to the status of a **”Regulator.”**
A Regulator was stripped of everything: their apartment, former position, most personal belongings. They were sent to live in special barracks-dormitories at the Concern’s infrastructure facilities and forced to work. To work constantly. The “24/7” regime was understood literally: 8 hours for sleep, 1 hour for meals, hygiene, and “personal time,” and 15 hours — for monotonous, exhausting, or mind-numbing physical labor. This was not hard labor in the classic sense, but a total personality reset through useful, yet utterly meaningless activity. Slavery for the purpose of correction, erasing the personality down to a basic, obedient level. The term — from three to fifteen years, depending on the severity of the offense. In Popovetsk, Regulators were spoken of in whispers, like ghosts. They were seen in the distance, washing streets in uniform without insignia, loading wagons in the backyards of the plant. People tried not to notice them.
One of those who knew about Regulators by hearsay, but never seriously thought about it, was Viktoriya Sorokina. A young woman of twenty-seven, her dark, almost black hair worn in a strict, yet elegant style down to her shoulders. Brown eyes, a straight nose, a determined chin — her Slavic beauty lacked softness; it hinted at a sharp mind and ambition. She worked in the financial department of the SIC “Vega,” in the inventory accounting division. The work was responsible, meticulous, but honorable. Vika was one of the best, valued for her accuracy and pedantry. She lived alone in a one-room but cozy apartment in a new district, received a good salary, could afford imported cosmetics and books. But she, like many in Popovetsk, always wanted more. More status, more opportunities, more savings for a “rainy day,” which, she hoped, would never come.
**Part 1: Temptation and Fall**
It all started with an epidemic. A seasonal but mutated virus swept through half of the financial department. People fell with fever, cough, one after another. The department, already working at maximum capacity due to the quarterly reporting period, was on the verge of collapse. It was at this moment that Viktoriya was summoned by the head of the department, a stern man named Groshev.
“Sorokina, the situation is critical,” he said, not offering her a seat. “The report on material write-offs for the ‘Antey’ project must be submitted to the central apparatus in nineteen days. No extensions. The entire department, except for you and me, is on sick leave. I am coordinating other directions.”
Vika nodded silently. The “Antey” project was one of the most costly and secretive. The accounting there was hellish.
“I can assign you as solely responsible for closing this report,” Groshev continued. “It will be a grueling task. Essentially, you will live here. But ‘Vega’ values such employees. In case of successful and timely submission — a one-time bonus equal to three annual salaries. And an out-of-turn promotion.”
Three annual salaries. An amount one could only dream of. Vika felt her heart pound faster.
“However,” Groshev’s voice turned icy, “you must be fully aware. Circumstances are no excuse. Any, even the slightest error in the report, especially given the secrecy of ‘Antey,’ will be considered negligence causing damage to state interests. The voluntary nature of your consent only underscores your responsibility. You have every right to refuse. I will find another way.”
It was a trap. And Vika knew it. To refuse meant to show herself as unreliable, not ready for a feat in the name of “Vega.” That could bury her career. But to agree… The risk was enormous, but the reward matched it. She lived alone, no one was waiting for her at home. Several weeks of crunch time for a dizzying leap upward.
“I agree,” Vika said firmly.
The next two and a half weeks were pure hell for her, interspersed with bursts of painful euphoria. She slept 4-5 hours a day on a cot in a storeroom, ate food delivered from the canteen, her world narrowed to piles of documents, spreadsheets on the screen, and the humming server processor. She checked hundreds of invoices, acts for writing off precious metals, specifications for microchips. Her eyes stuck together, numbers danced before her eyes, but she held on, fueled by the thought of the fantastic bonus.
The fatal error crept in three days before the deadline. Vika was processing an act for writing off a batch of highly purified germanium used in prototypes. In her exhausted mind, the numbers of two warehouses got mixed up — the active one (“S-12”) and the reserve one (“R-7”). She indicated the wrong one. According to the documents, it appeared that the valuable material, listed at the top-secret reserve warehouse, had been used up without a trace. The automatic control system, designed precisely to detect such discrepancies, instantly blocked the operation and raised an alarm to the very top.
People from the “Vega” security service burst into the office where Vika, in a semi-delirious state, was trying to understand what was happening. Impassive, like automatons. She was suspended from work, isolated. An investigation began.
The trial in Popovetsk was quick and opaque. Charge: “Gross negligence, resulting in the disclosure of the deployment scheme of strategic material reserves and causing significant material and reputational damage to the SIC ‘Vega’.” Viktoriya Sorokina could not prove that the error was caused solely by overwork. The system did not recognize mitigating circumstances for those who voluntarily took on the work. Her status as a “volunteer” only aggravated her guilt — she had consciously taken a risk and failed.
Verdict: transfer to the status of a Regulator for a term of five years. The judge, without looking at her, monotonously added: “In accordance with the re-education protocol for the ‘intellectual damage’ category, you are subject to containment in the basic configuration. All external attributes are to be alienated. Your body is a tool for labor. Present it as such. For the purposes of unification and hygiene, as well as for the final erasure of individualistic traits, all hair, not necessary for basic biological functions, is to be removed. The procedure will be carried out immediately after the verdict is affirmed.”
These words hung in the near-silence of the hall. Viktoriya mechanically ran her hand through her dark, well-groomed hair. Remove… everything? Even eyebrows? This was no longer just a verdict; it was an act of vandalism against her image, against the last thing she felt was her own.
**Part 2: The Basement**
Everything was taken away. Her apartment, belongings, beautiful clothes, cosmetics, books. In the cold room of the reception point, even her last clothes were removed from her. Nothing was issued. Absolutely nothing. Just a pair of rough, several sizes too large, lace-up boots that she had to pull onto her bare feet. “Clothing is a right,” someone from the overseers whispered soundlessly, “and you now have only duties. We are freeing you from the unnecessary. Get used to the default form.” She stood on the cold concrete, and her nakedness was so absolute that at first it was not felt as shame — only the shock of alienation from herself.
The procedure room, where she was sent after receiving the boots, resembled not a medical office, but a vehicle wash bay. Tiles, a drain in the floor, bright blinding light. Two overseers in uniform, a man and a woman, with impassive faces, awaited her. On a metal table lay a professional clipper, several safety razors, a can of thick shaving cream, and antiseptic.
“On your knees. Hands behind your head,” the woman commanded, her voice as even as that of a weather announcer.
Vika, still in a state of shock, knelt on the cold tiles. The male overseer turned on the clipper. Its buzzing in the sterile silence sounded deafening. He approached from behind, roughly took her by the chin, fixing her head. The blades touched the skin at the very base of her skull, and the first thick layer of her dark hair fell silently to the floor. He moved the clipper methodically, mercilessly, shearing everything on her head with a large attachment, leaving only short, prickly stubble. The sensation was not painful, but deeply humiliating. The air touched the exposed skin of her scalp, and she felt flayed.
Then it was the woman’s turn. She put on latex gloves with a sharp snap. “Close your eyes. Don’t move,” she said, and her fingers, cold in the gloves, roughly clamped Vika’s forehead. A sharp razor slid over the skin. A slight burning, and half of her left eyebrow was gone. Another movement — and the right one. Vika sat with closed eyes, hearing only the sound of shaving and her own ragged breathing. She felt the blade pass over her eyelids, shaving off her eyelashes — a ticklish, unnatural sensation.
“Stand up. Hands on the wall, legs wider,” came the next command.
Vika obeyed, pressing her forehead against the cold tiles. Now her naked back and buttocks were completely exposed. She heard the man whipping up the cream. The cold, thick mass was applied between her shoulder blades, and then lower. The procedure was quick, clinical, and absolutely devoid of any hint of intimacy, which made it only more erotically humiliating in its impassivity. Sharp blades passed over her back, underarms, shaving everything clean. Then she was made to turn around.
Standing before them, completely naked, with a half-shaven head and no eyebrows, she experienced the peak of shame. The female overseer, without changing her expression, applied cream to her pubic area and thighs. The man, squatting down, with the same mechanical precision with which one would peel potatoes, shaved off all the hair in her intimate area. The blade slid coldly over the sensitive skin, and Vika squeezed her eyes shut, trying to mentally escape from her own body. Her chest, stomach, legs — everything was treated to perfect, infant-like smoothness.
When it was over, they hosed her down with ice-cold water, washing away the remnants of cream and hair, and then threw that same towel at her feet — the only rag she was allowed to dry herself with. She stood, trembling, her skin ablaze from the cold, friction, and humiliation. Now she was not just naked. She was bald, completely smooth, deprived of even a hint of individuality. Her body had become a foreign, sterile object, ready for work.
“Regulator 734, configuration approved. Follow,” the man said, pointing to the door.
The place of her new “home” and work became the basements of the central food warehouse of “Vega.” A giant, semi-underground structure with endless racks, refrigerated chambers, and a hollow silence, broken only by the squeak of carts and the monotonous commands of the overseers — also “Vega” employees, but from the regime enforcement service.
The Regulators’ dormitory was a former bomb shelter: a long hall with bunk beds, a toilet, and a shower with water supply on schedule. The air smelled of dampness, metal, and disinfectant. Her skin, deprived not only of clothing but also of its natural protection of hair, acutely felt every draft, every dust particle in the air. She was not just a naked function. She was a plucked, stripped-to-the-core living tissue, reacting to the world without any filters.
Here, in this casemate, her nakedness was not a state, but a fact, as undeniable as the concrete walls. The cold, damp air of the basement was her only “covering.” Among other such naked, faceless bodies, she ceased to be a woman. She became a function: “Regulator 734.”
The schedule was ironclad:
**05:00** — Wake-up.
**05:00-05:30** — Toilet, bed making.
**05:30-06:30** — Breakfast in the Regulators’ canteen (simple, but calorie-dense food).
**06:30-21:30** — Work shift. With one 15-minute break.
**21:30-22:30** — Dinner and “personal time.”
**22:30-05:00** — Sleep.
The work varied. Sometimes it was heavy: unloading trucks with flour, sugar, canned goods. Forty-kilogram sacks, boxes that were barely liftable. Hands were rubbed raw, her back ached unbearably. Sometimes it was just exhaustingly monotonous: shifting packets of buckwheat from one shelf to another and back, washing endless warehouse floors, peeling tons of potatoes for the plant’s canteens.
But the pinnacle of absurdity and humiliation was the “banana duty.” Viktoriya sat on a small wooden stool. Her completely naked body did not fully fit on the stool, her bare feet in contact with the floor sticky from fruit slime. Next to her — a barrel full of bananas. Task: peel off the stickers. Her hands moved mechanically. Chest, stomach, thighs — everything was exposed, vulnerable, part of the work process. She was not a person at work, but a living, breathing machine, whose bare skin had become an element of the production environment, like a painted wall or a concrete floor.
And so Viktoriya, the former promising accountant, now Regulator No. 734, sat in the utility room. Next to her — a mountain of bananas. Task: carefully, without damaging the peel, peel off each sticker. Tool — her own hands. The work lasted for hours. Her hands became sticky from fruit juice, her eyes watered from the strain, the sweetish-bland smell of unripe bananas hung in the air.
At first, her thoughts were furious, full of hatred and self-condemnation, completely consuming her. She tried asking the overseers why it was even necessary to peel off these stickers. She was always given the same answer: “Because somewhere in the world there is a fool like you who sticks these labels on.”
But over time, these thoughts evaporated, giving way to complete, ringing emptiness. *Peel off a sticker. Put the banana in a clean crate. Take a new one. Peel off a sticker.* An endless, meaningless cycle. This was the full horror of the “Regulator” system: it did not just exploit; it methodically destroyed intellect, will, personality, turning a human into a bio-robot performing the most primitive function.
For the first months, Vika lived in a deaf, black rage. Then came a phase of despair and tears, which she hid, burying her face in a sack of potatoes during “rest.” Then — apathy. She became like all the other Regulators: slumped shoulders, empty gaze, mechanical movements.
But in the darkest moments, scraping a sticker off another banana, she caught herself on a strange thought. That sticker. It had a logo, the name of some southern company, a country of origin. The world beyond Popovetsk. A world she had never truly seen. And she, destroying this tiny sign of the outside world, was doing so on the orders of the system that had destroyed her. There was a perverse symbolism in this that prevented her from finally sinking into oblivion. An ember glowed within her. An ember of understanding and quiet, icy hatred.
**Part 3: A Glimmer and a Decision**
Once, towards the end of her second year, an incident occurred. During the unloading of a refrigerated truck with meat, one of the Regulators’ carts overturned, a heavy carcass pinning his leg. The overseers fussed, trying to free the man. In the chaos, one of the pallets with boxes, standing unevenly, began to fall directly onto a group of workers. Her naked body, devoid of any protection except reflexes, instinctively lunged forward to take the blow. She jerked forward and managed to put her shoulder in the way, taking part of the weight, giving others time to jump back.
She was not praised for this. She was not even noticed in the commotion. But later, when the incident was being reviewed, the data from the surveillance cameras was seen by the elderly shift supervisor of the warehouse, a former officer. He didn’t say anything aloud, but from then on, he began assigning Vika slightly less idiotic work. Sometimes — keeping a tally of received goods (a simple count of crates), sometimes — helping to fill out internal transfer invoices. It was the same grey, convict life, but tiny islands of activity appeared where she had to think.
It was then, filling out the columns of an invoice by hand, that Vika, for the first time since the verdict, allowed herself to recall not the pain and humiliation, but her former work. Numbers, columns, balance. And then it dawned on her. That very fatal act for writing off germanium. She mentally returned to it, not as a hunted victim, but as an analyst looking for the cause of the failure. Warehouse “R-7” was a reserve, top-secret one. Its inventory was conducted once a year. At the moment of her error, a planned, but unannounced, audit of the reserves at “R-7” was underway. The system, detecting an attempt to write off what physically should not have been expended, malfunctioned in its alert algorithm. The alarm went to the wrong place and was interpreted as an attempt to disclose the deployment scheme. Her error was a match that fell into a barrel of gunpowder prepared by other hands. This did not absolve her of guilt, but it gave the situation a different context. The “Vega” system was not just strict. It was paranoidally fragile in its internal processes.
This thought became for Vika that very glimmer in the pitch darkness. She understood that she had been broken not just for a mistake. She had been broken to demonstrate the inviolability of the system, to turn her into an example for others. And the system had almost succeeded. Almost.
The remaining three years, Vika served differently. Outwardly — the same obedient, faceless Regulator. Inside — a cold, calculating mind that began to gather information. Not with malicious intent, but as a way for the intellect to survive. She observed the warehouse logistics, the flow of products, the weak points in security and accounting. She noticed small but regular discrepancies in the deliveries of elite products (coffee, chocolate, cheeses), which went not to kindergartens, but somewhere “up top.” She memorized faces, the habits of the overseers, their relationships. She turned her convict labor into a field for silent study of the system that had broken her.
Five years were coming to an end. Viktoriya, now a woman with a lifeless gaze, rough skin on her hands, and a perpetual slight stoop, was summoned to the administrative department. She was read the order of reinstatement as a “Vega” employee with a clean slate before the Concern’s law. But her former life was gone. She was provided an apartment in the old, dilapidated housing stock, on the very outskirts of Popovetsk. Returning to finance was unthinkable — the stain of being a Regulator forever closed the doors to responsible departments. She was offered a position as a data entry operator in the same supply management department, but on the periphery. Miserable clerical work.
On her first free evening, Vika stood before a mirror. A simple cotton T-shirt and pants felt to her not like clothing, but like a foreign, heavy armor. The fabric chafed her skin, which over five years had grown unaccustomed to any touch except air and rough surfaces. She looked at her reflection. The hair on her head and body had grown back, but was dull, as if remembering the violence. Eyebrows — thin, uneven. She ran her hand over the skin of her scalp, and the memory of her body responded with a phantom burning from the razor. Putting on clothes did not mean hiding the past. It meant pulling a casing over a body that the system had once processed into a state of raw, hairless meat, and which had forever preserved that memory in its cells.
She walked to the single window overlooking the wall of the neighboring building. Over five years, she had understood the main thing: Popovetsk was a gilded cage. And the status of a Regulator was the mechanism that broke the key that could open this cage from the inside. She had become that broken key.
Now, having returned, she was no longer that naive, greedy girl. She was a shadow with a secret. She knew too much about the inner workings of the lower echelon of the giant “Vega” machine. And she knew that she would never again make a mistake due to inattention. If she were to do something, it would be a conscious, precise, and error-free step. The goal? For now — simply to survive. To preserve herself. And then… Who knows. In a town called Popovetsk, even a shadow that knows how the light falls has its own opportunities.
She turned off the light and lay down on the hard bed. Tomorrow her new, grey, hopeless life as a free employee would begin. But falling asleep, Viktoriya Sorokina, for the first time in five years, allowed herself not a smile, but a barely noticeable, cold spark deep in her extinguished eyes. The game was only beginning.
