At the geometric center of the city of Ceres, where the corridors of power are lined with polished concrete and institutional silence, stands the National Office of Development Intelligence. Among its monolithic corridors, in a room without ornaments, without windows, without distractions, Ysa 1QM2 reigns — Mother Ceres’s woman of perfect lead.
Dressed in a dark gray suit of fine lines, the emblem of the crossed keys rests proudly upon her chest. Her hair is pulled into a rigorously secured bun, her posture erect, her expression as neutral as the steel that sustained the city itself.
The door opens softly with a mechanical whisper and closes by itself with a click. Amos X4O1, A.D enters — diplomat lawyer, one of the rare citizens with a border pass. Black suit, side briefcase, eyes far too tired for his age.
He sits. She is already seated.
Silence.
Ysa does not smile. Does not greet him. She simply asks, as though reading a report:
— What did you come here for, Amos?
He answers, with a hint of humor that will find no echo:
— Nothing. I came to see a friend.
Ysa raises her chin slightly.
— I see... I heard you located the two dogs. Congratulations. — She pauses, purely by calculation. — You did nothing more than your duty.
Amos crosses one leg, relaxed, almost insolent:
— Seriously. I just came to see you.
— You use the most coveted pass among all the citizens of Ceres… to come see me?
— Yes.
— But we saw each other yesterday. In an intimate moment.
— Yes — he confirms, without looking away.
Ysa leans slightly forward, her elbows resting on the bare table of smooth concrete.
— Amos, I know I have moments of desire — she says with surgical frankness — which is normal for a woman like me. But I am also an officer in a high-ranking position. I deal with classified data that leads us toward Ceres’s relevance and epiphany.
Pause.
— We have eradicated epidemic diseases by 95%. Our HDI exceeds 98%. The birth rate is controlled with 95% excellence. And we maintain 90% effectiveness in caring for the elderly, like your father… — Her voice remains constant. — And you think this is a joke?
Amos smiles with subtle disdain. But he does not answer immediately. Because in Ceres, even silence has evidentiary value.
Amos (leaning gently against the armchair opposite her):
— How are your children?
Ysa 1QM2 (slowly raising her eyes from a matte terminal, without haste, as though recording the question):
— They are as they should be. They are children of Ceres now. They are well fed, sheltered, and study with the best educational algorithms until they are twenty. They are safe, and around here, safety is not a promise — it is protocol.
Amos (watching the emblem of the crossed keys on her chest):
— And you? Do you miss them?
Ysa (leaning back, with a slight smile that does not reach her eyes):
— I feel pride. Missing them is a bourgeois luxury. In twelve years, I fulfilled my role — gestate, care, educate. From there, I trusted the system I helped build. I did not hand them over to a daycare or an unstable world — I handed them over to the Mother.
Amos:
— You could have stayed with them. Your position allows exceptions.
Ysa (raising an eyebrow, almost amused):
— And give up being useful at what I am most efficient at? I chose this position not out of ambition, but out of proven aptitude. I am the best in my field. And when you are the best… sentimentalism is merely a performance delay.
Amos (crossing his arms):
— Some would say that sounds cold.
Ysa (in a low, firm voice, as though quoting a statistical figure):
— And some still measure the world by affection. That is why they starve to death in unstable democracies. Look at the figures: in the five largest countries outside Ceres, 42% of children do not complete basic education. Here? 99.3%. The maternal mortality rate in Pietà is lower than that of any Western nation.
— (pause) —
The numbers do not lie. But sentimentalism loves to shout louder than they do.
Amos:
— And what about women who have been raped? The system forces them to carry the pregnancy to term. Doesn’t that seem... contradictory?
Ysa (directly, without changing her tone):
— The system does not force them. It demands responsibility. A woman can decide: either she returns to her professional training — and the child will be welcomed by the educational nucleus — or she remains with the child until the age of ten, as I did. But abortion? No.
— (looks directly at Amos) —
We do not kill potential life. We convert it into useful strength.
Amos (calm, but provocative):
— You sound like someone who believes that your body is no longer yours.
Ysa (smiles firmly, without humor):
— Here in Ceres, my body is freer than it has ever been under feminist banners. I have sex with whoever I want, whenever I want. No man has any power over me. No judge, no priest, no boss, no “partner.” Only routine governs me.
— (pause) —
Feminism wanted freedom. Mother Ceres gave us survival. And of the 1,042 women who entered the Training Institute with me, 1,040 are alive and productive. I would like to see feminism guarantee that in a world of unequal wages, traumatic abortions, and preventable deaths caused by romanticism.
Amos (looks at her desk, without speaking for a moment):
— And what remains for those who disagree?
Ysa (closes a report with a dry click):
— Doubt is acceptable. Sabotage is not. Those who disagree have access to a voice — but not to chaos.
— (leaning forward, with steel eyes) —
In Ceres, we have no martyrs. Only data.
Amos (resting his elbows on the arms of the chair):
— And if one of your children disagrees? When he grows up… and decides not to be devoted to the Mother?
Ysa (fixed gaze, gentle voice):
— He will have the freedom to think. But not to act against the collective good. In Ceres, freedom is not the right to harm another. It is the ability to serve without fear.
Amos:
— That is not freedom. That is order.
Ysa (smiles slightly, as though she has heard the argument before):
— And since when is order a defect? You have seen what is out there, Amos. Democracies collapsing with every election, women disappearing into alleyways, children selling their own bodies in exchange for food.
— (stares at him) —
They have “freedom.” We have results.
Amos (long pause):
— But at what cost?
Ysa (softly, almost sweetly):
— At a cost that most accepted paying, even if they do not yet know it. Peace requires silence. And silence requires structure.
Amos:
— So that’s it? A world where thinking differently is merely... a statistic outside the curve?
Ysa (briefly closes her eyes, as though listening to a symphony):
— A controlled deviation. The algorithm absorbs exceptions — like you.
— (opens her eyes) —
You travel, you see the world, you feel the cracks. But you always come back, Amos. Why?
Amos (smiles, sincerely for the first time):
— Maybe because here, even while chained, I know where the keys are.
Ysa (looks at her own chest, where the crossed keys are):
— And perhaps that is why you will never have the courage to use them.
— Amos, listen to me — she said, firm, but without raising her voice. — You want data. I breathe data. I know what happens outside our walls, and I know what we have achieved here. Mother Ceres achieved what no ideology, doctrine, or social theory ever managed to achieve: the functional survival of the majority.
— Women live longer. Children learn more. The elderly die with dignity. It is not poetic justice, nor illusory freedom. It is efficiency.
— You want exceptions, Amos. But exceptions are what destroyed us before the foundation. Here, exception is deviation. And deviations... are corrected.
(Silence.)
The door opens by itself. The meeting ends without warning. Both rise slowly. She approaches and gently adjusts the collar of Amos’s coat, without saying anything. He looks at her, but does not touch her hand.
Ysa (almost in a whisper):
— Believe me, Amos… I like you. But liking someone has never ranked above performance.
At the nerve center of Ceres, behind reinforced doors and biometric sensors, lies the room of Ysa 1QM2 — Chief of National Development Intelligence. On her desk, all the numbers converge. Statistics, algorithms, predictions, deviations. Nothing escapes her eyes or the scrutiny of the all-seeing Mother. The dark fabric of her dress seems to absorb the artificial light from the ceiling, and the emblem of the crossed keys rests upon her chest as though embedded in the flesh.
When Amos X4O1 enters the room, they both know that the conversation is not merely personal. Behind the calculated charm and restrained tone lies a dangerous request: Amos wants access to a confidential report containing the names of all children registered over the last twenty years. A request that, under Mother Ceres’s protocols, constitutes high treason.
Ysa does not need to ask why. She already knows. And precisely because she knows, she remains unyielding.
She has already had two children, handed over to the system after turning ten, as protocol dictates. She does not regret it. On the contrary: she is proud. The horizontalist system of Ceres — where every child is guaranteed food, housing, education, and social function until the age of twenty — was, to her, true liberation. She does not miss her children because she learned that Mother Ceres is the mother of everyone.
More than that: she learned that longing is a luxury of failed societies.
Ysa believes that Mother Ceres restored dignity to women. “Feminism,” in her view, is an old, fragile term inflated by data disguised by declining countries. In Ceres, 95% of women survive into old age. In Ceres, no woman dies in childbirth. In Ceres, even women who have been raped have a choice — they can care for the child until the age of ten or resume their professional trajectory. The only thing they cannot do… is interrupt the cycle.
“Mother Ceres feeds us, educates us, and devours us.”
That is the mantra Ysa repeats like an atheist prayer. And it is what she whispers, almost with pity, when she looks at Amos and sees that, even after everything, he still wants the exception.
She knows Amos is not a traitor. But she also knows that, in Ceres, intention is a datum. And data… do not lie.
If he insists, he will become a number. A deviation to be corrected. And Ysa — with the same coldness with which she would delete a file — will have the silent pleasure of watching him burn in Square A.
Ysa’s Thoughts, Alone:
The room returned to silence as soon as Amos left. The door closed with the subtle sound of the automatic mechanism. No music, no unnecessary light. Only the low hum of the ventilation system.
Ysa remained seated, staring at the opaque wall in front of her, where there was nothing — no paintings, no memories, no distractions. Only concrete.
She blinked once. Breathed deeply.
She thought of her children. The data. Amos.
Of how many times she had repeated the mantra.
Of how many times she had pretended she did not hesitate.
Of how many times she had felt something close to doubt… and killed it before it could bloom.
And then, alone, she allowed herself to think what she would never say aloud:
“What if the oppressors are right about us?”
The idea hung suspended like smoke.
Then she stood with military precision. Adjusted her bun. Smoothed her dark gray dress with the tips of her fingers.
And whispered, softly, like a reversed prayer:
— Mother Ceres, who feeds us, who educates us, and who devours us.
She left the room without looking back.
Ysa 1QM2 – Chief of National Development Intelligence
Ysa 1QM2 is one of the most influential women in Ceres, second only to Mother Ceres in the functional hierarchy. At thirty-seven, she holds the position of Chief of National Development Intelligence, where she acts with rigorous logic and absolute commitment to the system.
Ysa lived for twelve years in Pietà, the city of the Mothers of Ceres — an exclusive place where all pregnant women are relocated to care for their children during the first ten years of life. Pietà is the birthplace of all Ceresian citizens, the nucleus of the nation’s human development.
Although she did not identify as a mother by vocation, Ysa had two children, as required by the minimum biological function in Ceres. The first was conceived before her period in Pietà. The second was born during her years in the city, the result of a rare emotional connection with the only man authorized to work full-time in Pietà. This involvement prolonged her stay there.
Ysa is a model citizen of Ceres, completely faithful to the ideology of Ceresianism — a system that replaced the old concept of feminism and all other forms of identity struggle by establishing full equality based on functional merit. To her, fighting against an existing system is useless. True progress occurs when a new system renders the previous one obsolete.
Ysa considers feminism outdated, surpassed by the logic and efficiency of Ceresianism, where there is no gender, only function and result. In her view, merit and usefulness surpass any ideological debate. In Ceres, there is no room for speeches — there is only room for delivery.
She does not tolerate fallacies, sentimentalism, or empty rhetoric. Her communication is direct, rational, and, at times, uncomfortable for those who still carry traces of the old world.
About the System Ysa Defends
In Ceres, abortion is prohibited. However, a woman has two institutional options:
Give birth and raise the child for ten years in Pietà, receiving all the physical, emotional, and technical support offered by the State.
Give birth and hand the child over to the system, where the child will be assigned to another mother — generally a woman who has lost her own child, whether through accident or natural causes.
Even in cases of sexual violence, Ceres’s policy remains the same: the woman may choose one of these two paths. Rapists, in turn, are sentenced to life imprisonment with forced labor, but within a system that guarantees housing, food, medical care, and the functional use of their labor — because, to Mother Ceres, everything and everyone must have a purpose.
The Philosophy of Mother Ceres
“The world is constantly at war; peace is merely an accident. Survival stands above freedom.”
This is the regime’s central motto. And Ysa repeats it with conviction whenever she is questioned about the ethical limits of the system. To her, Ceres’s efficiency and stability are proof that Ceresianism works — and that the old systems failed.
Ysa has an active and free sex life within the parameters of Ceres, where lasting emotional relationships are neither encouraged nor common. Her behavior has never been questioned — her competence is enough to silence any attempt at moralism.
Marble and Lead
The Hall of Twelve was silent. The black marble reflected the pale faces of the representatives, all aligned like pieces on a grid. The raw concrete walls gave the meeting a ritualistic weight. Outside, the bells of neutrality rang to the rhythm of Ceres — exact, cold, regular. Inside, Ysa 1QM2, dressed in dark gray, the color of function, rose before the translucent projection table.
The Republic of Fiume had sent its proposal: reinforced banking agreements, mutual political recognition — and an exception clause. They wanted Ceres to concede, even minimally, to “feminist freedom of expression” within its commercial institutions.
Ysa read the full report in silence. Then she raised her eyes. Her voice was dry, firm, with the density of a verdict.
— Gentlemen — she said — Fiume is not here for diplomacy. It is here out of desperation.
The projection displayed a graph of functional decline. Numbers, not words.
— While Ceres grows 4.2% per cycle and reduces functional uselessness by 3%, Fiume increases its spending on emotional campaigns by 12%, while 1 in every 5 urban nuclei suffers productive attrition. They do not want our approval. They want our ground. And they will not have it.
Some councilors exchanged glances. One of them coughed discreetly, uncomfortable. Ysa did not waver.
— Feminism, like other previous systems, asked for a voice. We granted function. And whoever delivers survives. Whoever complains, ruin.
She took a step forward. The shadow of her silhouette covered part of the table.
— If they want to continue keeping their funds in our vaults, let them. We are neutral. But if they wish to plant speeches in marble soil, they will fail. Ceres does not negotiate its precision.
She paused. The sound in the room seemed to have been sucked away.
— We will win not through force, but through usefulness. While they speak of freedom, we feed their banks. While they march, we calculate their losses. History has already chosen. And it was written by those who delivered.
Another graph appeared. Birth rates in Pietà. Maternal efficiency levels. Labor reintegration. No number lied.
— Mother Ceres does not nourish with love — she concluded. — She nourishes with precision. And that… is enough.
Silence.
At the back of the room, a light came on. It was only an automatic lamp detecting movement. But at that moment, it seemed like a sign.
Ysa returned to her place. Marble on the outside. Feelings of lead on the inside. And a slight, almost imperceptible fissure in her gaze — the breach no nation would see. Only she knew: even the most perfect mechanism, at some point, whispers.
Before the room’s breathing could return to its rhythm, the chair on the opposite side of the table moved with a faint creak. The representative of the Republic of Fiume — a middle-aged woman dressed in a stylized military outfit, though less rigid, in shades of red and black — rose with forced calm.
— Madam Ysa — she began, her voice firm, but with a trace of defiance — I understand Ceres’s appreciation for numbers and order. However, we cannot forget that behind every statistic, there is a people, with real needs, with desires, with stories.
She paused deliberately, looking at each member of the council.
— Feminism is not a whim or a fad. It is a response to inequalities that meritocratic systems like yours tend to ignore. Without a voice, merit becomes privilege; without freedom, function becomes servitude.
Ysa remained motionless, her gaze fixed, as though weighing every word.
— Meritocracy — she replied slowly — is the only truth that cannot be disputed by opinions. In Ceres, we do not judge what should be, but what is. You fight for equality. We apply efficiency. You defend the individual. We protect the collective — even at a cost that many do not want to pay.
The representative of Fiume clenched her fists, feeling the coldness of the environment.
— Ceres controls the wealth, the banks, the economic power of the entire continent. But the Republic of Fiume will not renounce its identity, even if that means being marginalized. You may have control over the accounts, but you will not have control over consciences.
Ysa sketched what could have been a severe smile.
— Consciences are irrelevant. What matters are results. You have freedom, yes. But it is the luxury of civilizations that have already died.
A dense silence filled the room. The council awaited the final decision.
— Therefore — Ysa concluded — we will reinforce our surveillance over the financial and logistical operations of the Republic of Fiume. Any attempt at ideological infiltration will be considered an act of subversion. The Ceres system is not open to revisions based on emotional demands.
She slowly turned toward the table, her heels echoing across the black marble.
— Soon, we will begin relocating banking activities to centers under total Ceresian control. Fiume may keep its speeches and marches, but here, at the heart of the continent, order will prevail.
On her way out, the representative of Fiume cast one last look at Ysa.
— You may win in the field of efficiency, but you will lose in the soul.
Ysa did not answer. She knew that the soul was a variable the system did not admit.
The representative of Fiume left through the heavy steel door with a firm step, her voice echoing in the minds of the council. The room returned to its silence, heavy as the marble surrounding them.
The council president, a gray-haired man with an impassive expression, who until then had listened in silence, finally spoke:
— Madam Ysa’s answer is firm, but some of us must consider the risk of isolating the Republic of Fiume even further. Maintaining commercial relations is essential for stability.
A younger councilor, with glassy eyes and a hard expression, immediately retorted:
— Stability cannot be sustained by concessions to decadent ideologies. If we begin to yield, we will open breaches for corruption and disorder. The Ceres system cannot be tainted.
Another member, with visible scars on his face, added:
— The system is perfect because it is uncompromising. We are the last bastion of merit and function. We cannot allow ourselves weaknesses, at the risk of succumbing.
The eyes turned toward Ysa. She remained motionless, like a statue, the rigidity of her shoulders like a wall.
— Ceresianism — she said in a low, yet clear voice — is the evolution of the social system. We can no longer feed false hopes with speeches sustained by emotion and complaint. Our commitment is to survival, not empty compassion.
A slight sigh passed through the room. The harshness of the words echoed, but a faint shadow of doubt seemed to seep among some of them.
When the council dispersed, Ysa remained seated for several more minutes, looking at the immensity of the neutral city through the dark glass windows. The cold light of dusk reflected on her expressionless face.
In her mind, a brief hesitation: that breach that always existed — an imperceptible flaw in the armor of lead. Humanity, even in Ceres, still left a trace.
She closed her eyes for a moment.
The world was in constant war. Peace was merely an accident.
And she, a woman of marble and feelings of lead, needed to make sure the mechanism never stopped.
Voices and Functions
The room was full. Among the austere and impassive faces of the council, Ysa rose with the firmness of one who carries the responsibility of an entire city. Her voice echoed, clear and cutting, while her eyes fixed on each person present.
— Feminism — she began — was a movement of resistance, a voice that echoed through the shadows of inequality. But here, in Ceres, that voice has lost its reason to exist.
She paused, almost smiling in disdain.
— Feminism asks for a voice. Ceresianism demands function. You want to know why feminism became obsolete? Because in the constant war that is our world, complaining does not feed or protect. Only delivery, merit, and precision guarantee survival.
The council’s murmur faded away. Ysa continued:
— Feminism fights against structures, often creating others — veiled injustices — under the pretext of equality. But the equality we defend is not a speech, it is a system. Here, there is no room for privileges based on gender, race, or desire. There is room for the function one fulfills.
She walked slowly across the room, her voice firm, almost cold.
— Emotion is tolerated, yes. But only up to the limit of function. Out there, in the declining republics, freedom is the luxury of those who have already died in the true struggle. Here, in Ceres, freedom is risk. And risk is weakness.
Another, younger councilor dared to raise his voice:
— And compassion, Ysa? Where does humanity, empathy, fit?
Ysa looked at him with frightening calm.
— Nothing in Ceres is useless — she replied — not error, not suffering. But compassion is not our priority; it is a luxury. The world is constantly at war. Peace is merely an accident.
She finished in a lower voice, almost a whisper that crossed the entire room:
— Our commitment is to order, efficiency, and the future. Feminism, with its search for a voice, is a story of the past. Ceresianism is the revolution of the present.
The Dissonant
After Ysa’s speech, the tension in the black marble room had not diminished. Her firm voice still reverberated through the heavy air.
Councilor Galian, a middle-aged man whose face was marked by experience, rose with a gaze that mixed weariness and concern.
— Madam Ysa — he began, choosing his words carefully — I understand your position, but I fear that this extremism of Ceresianism may suffocate innovation and hope. A system that denies the human voice is bound to lose its humanity.
A murmur of support and disapproval passed through the council.
Ysa tilted her head, keeping her gaze firm.
— Galian — she replied in a calm but incisive voice — innovation does not arise from the right to complain, but from imposed necessity. Hope is fragile; it does not sustain societies. Merit does.
A younger councilwoman, Celina, who had recently joined the council, rose with determination.
— And what about the silenced voices? The women who find no room either to exist as mothers or to work? The system we reject, feminism, at least calls for dignity and protection.
Ysa slightly furrowed her brow, almost imperceptibly.
— In Ceres — she said — there is no room for victims or martyrs. There is room only for those who fulfill their function. Dignity lies in what one delivers to the collective, not in individual demands. Whoever hesitates harms the mechanism.
The silence was crushing. The debate found no resolution, only the unshakable weight of Ysa’s ideology against the timid appeals to humanity.
The Mother of Lead
Ysa sat down on the austere sofa in her apartment in the center of Ceres. The black marble walls reflected the artificial light, without windows to the outside world — only silence and the perfect arrangement of every object around her.
In her chest, a void that even the rigor of Ceresianism could not fill.
She had no photographs of her children scattered around, no toys or objects that betrayed emotional memories. She had fulfilled her function. She was a mother. She had not been born for it, and she knew she did not need to have been born for it.
When she missed them, she clung to a few memories — a quick smile, a gentle touch during the brief time in Pietà. But they were emotions contained in lead, molded by the firm hand of Mother Ceres.
“If you are going to cry, cry in the shower, in a warm bed,” she repeated to herself, her voice grave and without tenderness, almost a mantra.
Mother Ceres had fed her, educated her, devoted her to the system — and that, to Ysa, was more than enough.
She knew traditional love did not exist there. There was no room for weakness, only for the precise delivery of function.
Behind the neutrality of the dark gray of her clothes, behind her impassive gaze, hid a woman who felt the absence of something she did not even know how to name.
In the silence of her apartment, where nothing moved except order and purpose, Ysa closed her eyes and allowed longing to gnaw at her, invisible.
The Lead Monologue
Alone in her windowless apartment, Ysa closed her eyes for a moment. The silence was almost a scream.
— I was not born to be a mother.
The sentence repeated itself, echoing heavily inside her like a distant bell.
She had fulfilled the function. Two children, raised by other hands in Pietà. She had completed the imposed cycle. But their absence was a weight that even logic could not explain.
Longing is not failure.
It was a thought she could not admit aloud.
Tears? No.
Crying? A luxury only the weak allowed themselves.
She was made of lead, marble, and cold steel.
But behind the armor, the truth remained: a woman who knew what absence was.
Absence of touch.
Absence of laughter.
Absence of memories kept in photographs — because they did not exist.
— Mother Ceres does not nourish with love. She nourishes with precision.
That was her truth.
Her sentence.
Her burden.
She breathed deeply, slowly, as though swallowing a pain she could not expel.
In the end, that was all it was: a well-guarded emptiness, wrapped in duty.