The banners came first.
Bright, cheerful things — draped across mountain roads and woven into city checkpoint gates. A new color scheme: yellow, teal, soft lavender. Friendly slogans followed.
"Your Smile is the Nation's Strength."
"Happiness is Unity."
"Joy is Now Mandatory (in a good way!)."
Then the vans arrived.
White, polished, buzzing softly. Their logos: a perfect, gentle grin encircled by data lines — the mark of the Ministry of Emotional Wellness.
But behind the van's tinted glass, masked eyes watched. And those who stepped out wore clean uniforms stitched not with rank — but with a single word:
FACILITATOR
In Adrian's village, the sky turned sterile.
One van parked at the entrance.
The same people who once fled at the sound of drones now hesitated — confused by the lack of force, by the language of kindness.
"Hello!" chirped a man in crisp beige. "We're here for a Happiness Audit. No need to worry!"
He smiled. Too perfectly.
Adrian and Rhea watched from the hilltop.
"That's not joy," Rhea muttered. "That's calibration."
Adrian's GNH System flickered.
[Alert: Synthetic Emotion Interface Detected]
New Threat Level: Psychological Coercion
System Advice: Engage subtly. Disarm false narratives. Do not resist directly.
New Subsystem Online: Deconstruction Mode (Beta)
You may now analyze and challenge weaponized emotions in real time.
The audit began with questions:
"How happy are you, on a scale of 1 to 9?"
"When was your last communal laugh?"
"Do you experience unauthorized nostalgia?"
"Any dreams you'd describe as emotionally deviant?"
The villagers answered with caution.
The facilitators nodded.
Always smiling. Always recording.
That night, Adrian held a hidden circle in the greenhouse.
Twelve people. No lights. Just the faint glow of heat-lamps and fear.
"They're not here to learn," Adrian whispered. "They're here to overwrite."
"The banners say joy is unity," someone said.
"That's not unity," said the baker. "That's uniformity."
Adrian touched the edge of a fern leaf. It curled gently.
"They've turned emotion into a loyalty test," he said. "We don't resist with guns. We resist with authenticity."
[System Directive: Initiate Emotional Divergence Protocol]
Create contrasting rituals that reveal authentic emotional variance.
Goal: Disrupt coherence of false happiness index.
New Feature: Smiling Mirror
Can detect real vs artificial joy in dialogue.
Prototype Activation Available.
The next morning, Adrian offered to help the audit.
"I used to work in compliance," he lied, calmly. "I understand metrics."
Facilitator Elan smiled wider. "We'd love that! Alignment is everything."
As they "inspected" the village's wellness records, Adrian slipped questions into the flow.
"What do you feel when you wake up?"
"Do your smiles ever ache?"
"Do you dream in grayscale or color?"
Elan's hand twitched. Just once.
Then Adrian activated the Smiling Mirror interface.
[Scan Complete – Subject: Elan]
Synthetic Joy Level: 81%
Repression Index: 62%
Anomalous Emotion Detected: Grief (Suppressed, Origin Unknown)
Emotion Leak Risk: Moderate
Beneath the plastic smile, something screamed.
That night, Adrian found Elan alone behind the van.
Smoking.
Watching the stars like they might remember his name.
"You weren't always a Facilitator," Adrian said quietly.
Elan didn't turn around.
"No one starts there," he said. "You end up here. When nothing else works."
Silence.
Then Adrian said: "I can help you remember."
Elan laughed — but it cracked halfway.
"You're dangerous," he said. "Because you make people feel on purpose."
"I only open doors," Adrian replied. "You choose if you walk through."
[Emotional Link Established: Elan]
Potential Conversion: 37%
Side Quest Unlocked: "The Broken Facilitator" – Help Elan recover his authentic emotional core.
Reward: Access to Ministry Emotional Architecture Blueprints
Back in the village, more "wellness vans" were arriving.
The program was expanding.
The Ministry wasn't stomping out happiness anymore.
They were selling it back, sterilized and taxed.
And everywhere, children watched — learning the shape of the state's smile.
Adrian met with Rhea that evening.
"They're going to build a permanent 'Harmony Station' near the central square," she said. "Workshops. Monitored hugs. Regulated poetry."
"They're making joy a policy," Adrian said bitterly.
"No," Rhea replied. "They're making it a prison."
He nodded.
"Then it's time we show them what freedom feels like."
[System Update: Phase Shift – Passive Resistance to Symbolic Resistance]
You may now craft cultural countersigns: stories, music, laughter triggers that bypass audit logic.
New Item Blueprint: "Rogue Lullaby"
A song that bypasses repression fields and activates dormant empathy nodes.
Warning: Use sparingly — high trace risk.
In the dead of night, across five villages, something happened.
Children began humming the same song — no one knew where they'd heard it.
Mothers wept and didn't know why.
Fathers dreamed of dancing.
And in the Ministry's central server farm, an algorithm flagged the anomaly:
Tag: Emotional Interference Pattern #019 – Code: Unlicensed Joy
Origin: Unknown. Spread: Viral. Threat Level: Escalating.
They called it an attack.
Adrian called it music.
End of Chapter 10