Chapter 1 · 8 P.M.
At eight o'clock every evening, the whole city of Meridian looked down at once.
It happened in kitchens and on buses, in hospital break rooms and at crowded bar counters. Phones buzzed in a single wave that rolled from one end of the city to the other, and two million screens lit up with the same soft chime and the same white words:
TONIGHT'S VOTE IS OPEN.
The message came from Voice, the city's voting app, which every citizen aged eighteen or older carried in their pocket. Just below the voting button sat Pulse, an endless feed of news, photos, videos, and opinions. Hardly anyone read a newspaper anymore. What people knew about their city, they learned from Pulse, scrolling with one thumb in the few minutes before they voted. At midnight the vote closed, and whatever won became law at once.
Iris Vale was twenty-four, and she had grown up with that chime. It was the sound of dinner being interrupted, of arguments starting at family tables, of her father muttering at the news as if the news could hear him. It was the city's one shared ritual — every citizen, one voice, every day, as the first line of the city's Charter said — and until two years ago, she had never thought much about it.
…… 在 App 裡繼續讀完第一章，長按任何單字都能看到解釋
