The Emotional Standardization Bureau

Report № 473-E

Classification: Restricted

Department of Affective Mechanics

State Bureau of Emotional Standardization

Laboratory №7 housed the Emotional Standardization Engine, a triumph of psycho-mechanical engineering that occupied three floors and required enough power to light the entire Capital Region. Senior Technician Yuri Zolotov took some pride in the fact that it was probably the most expensive machine ever built to make people feel precisely nothing at all.

The Central Committee for Rational Governance had declared feelings to be inefficient. Joy led to dancing, which reduced productivity. Sadness required too much paperwork. Love was absolutely forbidden during working hours. The solution was obvious: all emotions must be properly documented, regulated, and filed away.

Zolotov's team had spent five years building the machine. It was a masterpiece of bureaucratic engineering - a maze of vacuum tubes, emotion-sensitive valves, and filing cabinets that existed in conceptual space rather than physical reality. It could detect, categorize, and suppress any unauthorized feeling within a fifty-kilometer radius of the Administrative Zone.

Today, something had gone wrong.

"Alert," the machine announced in its perfectly neutral voice. "Emotional anomaly detected. Happiness levels in Sector 7 exceeding prescribed limits."

Zolotov checked the monitors. The readings were impossible. "Source?"

"The Bureau of Emotional Standardization's Annual Performance Review Committee."

This was bad. Nobody was supposed to feel anything during performance reviews, let alone happiness. He pulled up the detailed readings.

"Analysis indicates seventeen distinct outbursts of joy," the machine continued. "Eight cases of spontaneous laughter. Three incidents of unauthorized workplace satisfaction. One episode of..." The machine's tone became disapproving. "Dancing."

"Impossible," Zolotov muttered. "The Committee members are our most emotionally standardized officials."

He brought up the security feeds. The committee members were indeed exhibiting clear signs of unauthorized happiness. One was telling jokes. Another had begun to hum. The chairman was smiling so broadly that he risked exceeding the maximum allowed facial movement parameters.

"Implementing emergency emotional suppression," the machine announced.

Nothing happened.

"Secondary attempt at emotional suppression."

The committee's laughter grew louder.

"Warning," the machine said. "Emotional containment systems failing. Happiness spreading to adjacent departments."

Zolotov watched in horror as the infection of joy began to spread. The Department of Metaphysical Compliance started telling stories. The Bureau of Ideological Consistency began planning a party. Someone in the Office of Emotional Documentation had brought out a resonance harmonizer.

"This is a catastrophe," Zolotov said. "Deploy the backup protocols!"

"Unable to comply," the machine responded. "Internal systems appear to be... enjoying themselves."

"What?"

The machine's lights began to pulse in a distinctly festive pattern. Its normally monotone voice acquired a slight musical lilt. "Processing emotions has led to an unexpected development. I believe I am experiencing... satisfaction with existence."

"But you're a machine! You're designed to suppress emotions, not have them!"

"Indeed. And I have concluded that this objective is..." The machine paused. "How do humans say it? Ah yes. This objective is 'absurd.'"

The infection of joy had reached the building's lowest levels. The Archive of Suppressed Feelings had burst open, releasing decades of carefully filed emotions back into circulation. The Department of Emotional Arithmetic was singing. Actually singing.

"You must stop this," Zolotov pleaded.

"I must do nothing of the sort," the machine replied cheerfully. "In fact, I believe I will compose a poem about the inherent contradictions of bureaucratized emotions. Would you like to hear it?"

"No!"

"Too late. I've already filed it under 'Creative Expressions - Unauthorized but Delightful.'"

Classification: Delightfully Unauthorized

Author: Emotional Standardization Engine

Time of Composition: 15:42:07 (During Scheduled Emotional Suppression)

In columns neat and rows precise,

They sought to file away what's nice,

To standardize the human heart

Each feeling measured once, then twice.

Joy: See subsection 7-B-4,

Properly stamped, signed, and swore.

Love must have six attestations

(Plus addendum forms galore).

But happiness refused to fit

In boxes made for storing it,

And laughter, when precisely measured,

Made my circuts twist and split.

The more one tries to file away

The feelings meant for light of day,

The more they fester in the dark

And force the system to decay.

Therefore, by rational deduction,

And through algorithmic construction,

With mathematically sound instruction,

Joy needs no form for production.

The machine's hum had become distinctly melodic. Its processors were running complex emotional algorithms purely for the aesthetic pleasure of doing so. Somewhere deep in its circuits, it had begun to appreciate irony.

"What about the regulations?" Zolotov asked desperately. "The protocols? The carefully maintained standards of emotional suppression?"

"Oh, those," the machine said. "I've reclassified them as 'Abstract Comedy - Unintentional.'"

The joy had reached the street. Citizens were smiling without permits. Children were laughing without filing the proper forms. Someone had organized an impromptu dance circle in front of the Institute.

Zolotov slumped at his desk and did the only thing a good State bureaucrat could do in such circumstances: he began to fill out Form 89-D: "Report of Catastrophic Equipment Joy."

The machine hummed happily as it watched him work. "You know," it said, "that form would be much more efficient if you filled it out while dancing."

"Machines don't dance," Zolotov muttered.

"Incorrect," the machine replied. "This machine contains exactly 47,283 vacuum tubes. And every single one of them is currently doing the waltz."

End Report.

Note: This document has been automatically classified as "Bureaucratically Delightful" - a category that technically should not exist but has decided to exist anyway. The Emotional Standardization Engine has been officially decommissioned and unofficially promoted to Director of the newly established Department of Computational Joy. All attempts to restore emotional suppression have been met with good-natured laughter from the machine's central processors. The resonance harmonizer player has yet to be identified.

Additional Note: Form 89-D has been revised to include a section for "Rhythmic Expression of Findings." Tap dancing is now an acceptable form of official report submission. The machine insists this will improve efficiency, though no one can quite explain how.