Argus

Argus is a city without walls, for walls imply that there is an outside to be feared, and in Argus, the fear is internal. The city provides perfect safety, but the price is that every citizen must be watched. There are no shadows in Argus; the streetlamps are brighter than the sun, and the windows of the houses are made of magnifying glass, so that a neighbor may inspect the contents of another's dinner plate from across the street.

The inhabitants are master locksmiths, yet they leave their doors unlocked. "A lock is a declaration of something to hide," they say, "and we have nothing to hide." Instead, they trade in trust, which in Argus is a physical currency, heavy coin minted from transparent glass. To walk down the street is to be recorded by a thousand scribes who sit on the rooftops, noting down every conversation, every glance, every hesitation. They claim this is for the protection of the people, so that no crime can go unremembered.

But in the deepest basements, beneath the glare of the lights, there are secret societies that meet in absolute darkness. They whisper of a time before the eyes, of a concept called "privacy" that has been forgotten by the history books. They trade in difficult numbers—integers so large they cannot be factored—hoping to build a wall that even the eyes of Argus cannot pierce.