# Read the first page of Nature Against by Delenda Carthago Read the opening of Nature Against by Delenda Carthago free, no signup. An outcast from a perfectly regulated dome crosses a wilderness full of societies certain they have solved humanity. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/nature-against-delenda-carthago - Genre: Science fiction - Year: 2026 - ISBN: 9788397577329 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9990000000143&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9788397577329 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9788397577329 ## The opening Who Said Only Birds Can Fly? Capital 4 was a jewel of civilization, culture, and beauty, and no one could claim otherwise. Sure, it was no more civilized than Capital 2, or more enchanting than Capital 7, not even more learned than Capital 8, but it certainly was not any less. This was considered Naturally Correct. * * * Ziyue folded herself nearly double to slip through the bathroom window. She climbed the rainwater pipe, reached the roof of the Harmonization Center, and balanced on the concrete ledge, breathing deeply. The breeze ruffled black strands against her blue skin. A fingertip found the music earcuff clipped to her cartilage. One tap, and a contraband playlist opened. High-bitrate electropunk hit her eardrums: music from a wild age. In the savage land, where the silence cracks In the savage land, shadows spy your tracks In the savage land, dangers are so real Dangers are so real, in the savage land The blue woman let her gaze drift over the city where she had been born and never left. Buildings alternated in equidistant concentric rings. Lines of entities proceeded in order: people, animals, plants, and machines, all equally disciplined from a distance. In the glow of motivational signs, everything seemed to be in its place. Every dwelling obeyed Decision 7423: “Choose your favorite color so it is pleasing even to your Co-Resident.” The chromatic scale ranged from Cosmic Latte to Ecru. Each new building was allowed to deviate by only one shade, to avoid disturbances to collective harmony. Above that orderly world, a glass dome sealed the Capital from the hazards of Savage Nature, as the outer world had been designated for generations. [UPDATE 4753.1 INSTALLED] whispered a voice in her ear. * * * “Entity Ziyue, re-enter the facility immediately. Dr. Sikorsky is waiting for you.” A hummingbird wearing the badge of the Department of Adherence hovered in front of her face, its emotional-collar speaker crisp and clear. The roof seemed to tilt. Blue fingers locked on an outcropping, and balance returned. Her collar shifted to periwinkle. With a tense flick, she shooed the bird away and moved off. On the pipe she had just climbed, a gibbon in uniform was scrambling up, also sporting a glittering badge. She spun, landed on the adjoining terrace, and found her path blocked by a mechanical spider the size of a Doberman: eight polished legs, every movement accompanied by metallic squeaks and an electric hiss. “Entity Ziyue, return immediately.” The blue woman curled the tips of her thin raven-black whiskers upward. “I have no intention of going back in,” she said, steady and firm. One foot tested the surface. Almond eyes narrowed to two scratches across a fine-boned face. The bird traced circles in the air. The spider shifted its weight. The primate arrived with a graceful landing a little beyond them. Nothing in their manner suggested hostility. They conferred in low voices. “She is not cooperating.” “We cannot use violence.” “‘Extraordinary Interventions’ voice, Non-Compliant Entities?” “It is a contingency covered by the manual.” “Can we ask her one more time, politely?” The three agents turned. The fugitive was gone. * * * Back at the rooftop edge, Ziyue scanned the streets below for a free corner. The city’s swarming filled every empty space. Roadways had been reduced to a single lane. Sidewalks had expanded into a labyrinth of pedestrian routes: for running, grazing, conversing, or praying. All of it regulated by signs and pictograms that turned a harmless walk into a monumental undertaking. At one intersection, a cluster of entities stood motionless: a sturdy cow in a long tie, a green-skinned man ringed with small circular mirrors, a wheeled robot with three long arms. None knew who had priority. They might remain there for hours. A typical case described in the Theoretical and Practical Manual for Walking Authorization. This too was considered Naturally Correct. A rustle behind her. She crouched between two air-conditioning units. The gibbon leaned over the roof edge, probing the space around. Soon they would take an initiative. A solution had to exist. From above, the inner courtyard looked quiet. An equine Co-Resident swept with a broom tied to its tail. Two humanoids faced each other, perfectly still. They probably did not know what to say, afraid of triggering a negative reaction in the other. No one wanted surprises. Everyone followed the rules down to the last detail. The blue woman spotted a small security camera aimed in her direction. She raised the three central fingers of each hand toward the electronic eye, openly defiant. Then she leaned into the void, stepped forward, and let the courtyard swallow her. “Finally,” she whispered, satisfied. A cable cinched Ziyue’s ankle, whipping her into a brutal spin straight into the wall. “That hurts!” Suspended in midair, stretched taut, laundry on a line, she kicked uselessly. The gibbon appeared at the edge, while the hummingbird stopped in front of her eyes. “Voluntary termination of a cycle is not permitted. Please wait for harmonic reintegration.” “Do me a favor, you flying microbe!” Voluntary termination was allowed only on paper: no favors owed, no other entities involved, and against every prediction of the Algorithm. In practice, impossible. Ziyue had tried before and been hauled up from a bottom of a lake because she had missed the weekly bathroom-cleaning shift. Non-compliant terminations meant immediate reactivation, forced reeducation, and community service. Medicine had come a long way. The spider carefully reeled in the cable until it hauled the woman back onto the roof. A humanoid agent with purple skin stood waiting, shiny cuffs in hand. Her collar shifted to green. “Without consent you can’t cuff me, big guy. That would be against nature,” she said, staring him down. Hesitation flickered in his eyes, offering an opening. The athletic woman snapped forward, flipped the cuffs onto his wrists with a bit of sleight of hand, drove her shoulder into him, and jumped away. Ziyue had no clear idea what to do or where to go. In that moment, all she wanted was to get as far away as possible. The cable ripped her feet off the ground again. She dropped, twisting sideways just in time to avoid the primate’s fist smashing into the spot her head had occupied a second earlier. “Are you out of your mind? You could have cracked my skull!” Embarrassed, the monkey tried to apologize. “Do not consider this an assault,” the animal squawked. “Harmonization intervention. I do not want to hurt you too much. File the complaint form, if needed.” Ziyue had never heard of violent agents. The cable jerked her again, shrinking the distance to the mechanical spider. Above, the hummingbird trilled, “We are using the minimum impact required by protocol!” Freed from the cuffs, the violet agent was closing in. “Bad monkey,” she protested, and backhanded it across the face. Something clicked in the agents’ collars. For the first time, she saw emotional collars turn a permanent black, and the agents’ eyeballs with them. Expressionless faces, wax masks. Her head spun as a spreading tremor took over her body. Sounds dulled. Time stretched. Heart hammering, she understood that this new thing had a name: fear. What if there was something worse than termination? Endless cycles of reeducation? Dusty offices, stamps, chamber music on loop? Disgust shoved strength back into her limbs. A palm knocked the bird away. A second slap landed on the gibbon. Then she lunged for the spider, wrapped the cable around its body twice, and hauled. The agent let her go rather than risk trapping itself. She slipped past the humanoid in one quick move, and an escape route opened ahead. * * * The rooftop door was locked. Neighboring buildings were too low, and administrative towers too far away to jump. That left only the gutter and the bathroom window she had climbed out of. “Entity Ziyue, stop!” the purple man shouted, chasing her. She rolled across the terrace into a forest of metal antennas. Behind her, the gibbon vaulted from rod to rod, using the metal stalks as vines. Quick hands seized her hair in rapid strikes, trying to halt the fugitive. Ziyue bent a thin antenna by force. Fingers tightened, held for a beat, then released. The primate was already airborne when the improvised lash caught it full on. A sharp screech followed, then a metallic crash. A flock of pigeons burst up from nearby rooftops. One last jump and she was on the pipe. The humanoid agent came after her, fast. A dry crack split the air. Both froze. “Don’t move,” Ziyue said. “I must notify you of a non-compliance,” he replied. “Arrest me later. Where do you think I’ll run in a city with no way out?” Another crack. “Do you have supporting evidence?” the agent asked. “The dome. The damn airtight dome,” she snapped. “That seems reasonable,” the man concluded, trying to climb back onto the roof. “I said don’t…” A third crack, then a snap. The pipe gave way. The agent clung by sheer luck to a bundle of camera cables and watched her drop. Ziyue’s collar was pure white. She had already tried to terminate her cycle and did not fear the outcome. If a stretch of empty sidewalk appeared, without involving other entities in the event, maybe, with a bit of luck, the Algorithm would let her go once and for all. No one had gotten hurt. Not yet. “Don’t stand in my trajectory, please!” she shouted, waving both arms to catch the attention of passersby. The ideal world they had promised rose up in her mind: no hunger, no disease, no war. Even coffee makers had rights. And yet, to touch a hand, a tactile‑consent form was required. The freedom to make mistakes was worth more than anything. Ziyue was ready to pay the price. An instant before impact, out of the corner of her eye, the blue-skinned woman saw one of the motivational signs hanging between the towers of the city where she had been born and never left. [OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS, THIS IS THE BEST. REJOICE.] * * * Capital 4 was a jewel of civilization, culture, and beauty, just like every other Capital on Planeta, and no one could claim otherwise. This was considered Naturally Correct. ## Books with a similar feel - [The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-ghost-brigades-john-scalzi.md) - [How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu](https://uncovered.ink/read/how-high-we-go-in-the-dark-sequoia-nagamatsu.md) - [To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers](https://uncovered.ink/read/to-be-taught-if-fortunate-becky-chambers.md) - [Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky](https://uncovered.ink/read/children-of-time-adrian-tchaikovsky.md) - [Seveneves by Neal Stephenson](https://uncovered.ink/read/seveneves-neal-stephenson.md) - [The Universe Without Noise by R A Hewitt](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-universe-without-noise-r-a-hewitt.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.