For three hours, nothing happened.
A teenager in Sector 7G posted a video of his cat knocking over a water glass, captioned: "The desalination plants rn."
A long pause. Then: "The Index disagrees. Predicted second-order effects: 0.4% decrease in public trust. Bury it."
Mira was a Content Curator, Level 4. Her job was to watch the endless river of user-generated media and decide if it was "Harmonious" or "Fissile." Fissile content was instantly memory-holed. Harmonious content was amplified to billions.