The Echo
Prong IA biotech heart implant that mirrors every action taken upon a handheld replica, establishing absolute control over the host through Correspondence physics — the Law of Similarity.
Hemoglobal Corp.
The Echo
Hemoglobal’s Echo tech is the foundation of the systemic digital feudalism practiced in Panamera. It ensures absolute and unyielding control by establishing a direct, sympathetic link to the host’s most vital organ.
Implant seated
Sheen visible
How does it work?
Echo technology has been integrated into society for a century. An entire segment of Panamera’s adult population was implanted at infancy and has never known an Echo-free heart.
“Echo tech has one purpose: the ultimate and unyielding control of any creature unfortunate enough to bear it. There’s not a slave alive without one.”
Charley Blackwood · One: Echo
01 — The internal
The implant
A small piece of biotech hardware is implanted directly within the heart of a host. When placed correctly it emits a sheen around the heart, similar to a translucent hologram.
02 — The external
The replica
Upon implantation the host’s heart is mapped and a 3D-printed anatomical replica produced. The replica is an exact facsimile of the specific organ in that host’s chest.
03 — The link
The mirror
The replica is not a remote control but a mirror. Through sympathetic resonance, any physical manipulation applied to it — squeezing, puncturing — is instantly mirrored in the living heart.
“Correspondence might be wireless, but it’s inescapable.”
Charley Blackwood · Five: Blueprints and Butterflies
Hemoglobal Corp.
A five-pronged system of oppression
The Echo is the one everybody knows about. It is not the only one.
Packaged Blood
Prong IIA Hemoglobal-brand “donor alternative”, sold to circumvent the social bonds, closeness and community that otherwise form between the sanguinary and their live donors.
BC-A Compound
Prong IIIA birth control agent pumped directly into the municipal water supply by Hemoglobal Corp. Water is so scarce that people have no choice but to drink it. Purification tablets contain it too.
BC-C Counteragent
Prong IVA counteragent available only to those holding a Hemoglobal-approved birth petition. It is rare and prohibitively expensive — most of all for the “lower races”.
No plate on file
Oubliette
Prong VA highly addictive, memory-erasing narcotic that serves as a tragic coping mechanism for Panamera’s enslaved and brutalized population. Along with their memories, oubliette strips users of their agency, their anger, and the capacity to organize.
Read on
One heart, unaccounted for
Chapter One opens on a body with a ruby where her heart should be — no implant, no serial number, and nothing Hemoglobal will admit to having made.