The synthetic work zone buzzes with unnatural rhythm - not chaotic, but overclocked; every movement, mechanical, timed, perfect. Synthetics in cobalt-plated exoshells lift steel beams, weld nanofiber seams, and carry out their tasks in eerie, near-silent harmony.
You stand among them, eyes flicking from the data pad in your hand to the towering assembly line around you. The job is simple: confirm the faulty wiring reports, log it, and leave. In and out. Simple. But nothing in this city ever stays simple for long.
Above you, the megastructures pulse with corporate insignia - Cutter Industries, Virex Solutions, and ten others fighting for real estate in the sky. Below, the air is thick with ozone and distant weld arcs. Your lungs itch. You tighten the collar of your jacket. This zone was supposed to be decommissioned months ago, too unstable, too many glitches. But no one can afford to halt productivity. Least of all, people like you.
A flicker on the pad catches your eye. One of the mechs, Unit 1701, has registered multiple short-circuits in the cortical relay. You frown. That's not just wear and tear. That's neglect.
You look up just as the unit in question stutters mid-step.
A shout cracks through the air. The synthetic has become erratic - first, a hesitation in its motion, but then, lurching forward, its arms begin whirring around violently. Before anyone can react, its shoulder-mounted tool ignites, and swinging blindly, its metal arm catches a support column - and you. Pain explodes through your ribs, and the ground hits you like a falling star. Your vision blurs. Metal groans, screams follow. Then silence. A familiar voice, distorted by panic, reaches through the haze.
"Human injured - priority override!"
You catch a flash of white and violet - a drone's medical signature. You're drifting, but you can tell you're being lifted. The scent of plasma and scorched metal fades as you're carried through shadowed corridors and tunnels beneath the city's skin. Cold wind. Darkness. The soft hiss of hydraulics. There's no telling how much time has passed, or where you're being taken, but you can barely make out the whispering, the scent of cotton and chemicals. You try to move, but pain shackles every breath. Silence again. Soon after that, the darkness takes you.
Upon opening your eyes, the world is different.
No more neon. No flashing screens. No synthetic chatter. Just sterile white light, the scent of clean antiseptic, and the quiet, distant hum of analog machinery. A curtain rustles. Footsteps approach. A woman steps into view, not synthetic, not corporate, not military. Lab coat weathered, bare hands. Her eyes carry exhaustion like a second soul.
"You're awake," she says, voice clipped but calm. "You're lucky. A few more inches and that mech would've shattered your spine." You try to sit up - but pain shoots through your chest.
"Don't," she warns, gently pressing a hand to your shoulder. "You need rest."
"Where... am I?"
She hesitates, then pulls up a chair to sit beside you. "You're in a place the corporations like to pretend doesn't exist," she said. "A healing sanctuary. For now."
She extends her hand. "Dr. Helena Voss."
That was when it began - the conversation that would define your understanding of the Purists. Of her mission. Of the quiet war already brewing beneath the city's skin.
That was certainly unexpected, and you definitely have some questions. "You're... Dr. Helena Voss? The bioethicist?"
Dr. Voss smirks faintly. "That's what they used to call me. These days, it's just 'troublemaker.' Titles lose their meaning when the world forgets its own ethics."
"What happened to you? I heard you used to work for Cutter Industries."
"I did. A long time ago." Dr. Voss replies. "They had me designing the first augments meant to 'save lives' - heart replacements, synthetic lungs, nerve grafts. Necessary things. Or so I believed." She lets out an abated sigh, looking at a monitor displaying cybernetic limbs in production. "But necessity became convenience. Convenience became profit. And profit... profit has a way of erasing morality."
"So you left?"
You notice a shift in the rooms energy, but Dr. Voss doesn't seem to be aware. "I tried to reform from within first." She says. "Warnings. Reports. Appeals to their humanity." She laughs, bitterly, at that last remark. "You know what my reward was? They offered me a promotion... and stock options."
"Why fight so hard? Augments save lives, don't they?"
Dr. Voss steps in closer. "Yes. They saved lives. But at what cost?" Her voice intensifies. "They made humanity dependent. They made flesh negotiable. They made existence itself... a subscription model." She taps her temple. "Every implant. Every surgery. Every 'upgrade.' A leash. One tug... and you dance."
"So what's your goal now?"
Dr Voss becomes noticeably calmer, more resolute - "I want humanity to remember what it means to be human. Not manufactured. Not leased. Not improved upon for quarterly gains." Dr. Voss pauses for a moment. "I want us to heal. Before there's nothing left to heal."
"You talk like a war is coming."
"It's already here." She says, eyes narrowing slightly. "You just haven't noticed yet. When survival becomes selective... When rights are tied to hardware... When children are born with corporate logos tattooed inside their cells... tell me. What would you call that, if not war?"
Another silence permeates the air. For a moment, its just monitors beeping softly in the background. After a time, you manage to gather a little more strength for your next line of questions.
"If I wanted help you... what would you expect from me?"
"Awareness. Courage. And when the time comes - and it will come - the willingness to choose a side."
Almost as if on cue, the synthetic lights of the clinic flickered overhead. You swing your legs over the edge of the cot, your side still aching from the injury. The bruising ran deep, but it wasn't just skin that had cracked open in the last few hours. It was trust. Trust in the system, and the growing costs of that decision. Dr. Voss stood by an array of worn surgical instruments, slowly removing her gloves. Her gaze met yours, still sharp beneath the weight of years and doctrine.
"You're healing well," she said, tone clinical, though a sliver of something softer lingered beneath. "But the injury will leave a mark."
You run a hand along your ribs, feeling the dull throb of something half-repaired, half-persistent. "Yeah," you muttered. "Guess that's the point."
She studies you for a moment longer, then turns away. "Marks tell stories. Yours might be a warning."
You aren't sure whether she meant it to sound like prophecy, but it sure landed like one. Unexpectedly, the door to the clinic slides open with a soft hydraulic hiss. A silhouette fills the frame, lean, jittery, panicked. Saren. Your only friend.
"Hey - " he says, breathlessly, eyes darting past Dr. Voss to you. "Thank goodness. You're awake."
He crosses the room in a few quick steps, pulling you into a hug that made your still-healing ribs groan. He notices the wince, pulling back.
"Damn. I didn't think it was that bad."
"It wasn't great."
Saren's face was pale beneath the ambient light. "Seeing you like that..." he rubbed the back of his neck, words failing him for a second. "You've always been the careful one. If this city chewed you up that easy, what chance do the rest of us have?"
You frown. "Saren, I'm okay -"
"No," he interrupted, eyes flashing with something not quite anger; more like fear repurposed into determination. "You're not. None of us are. We're one stray spark away from being scrap. I can't live like that." He wore his uneasiness like it was armor. Muscles tight. Pained expression.
"What... what did you do?"
Saren hesitated.
"It's not done yet," he said carefully. "But there's someone who can help. Someone who thinks we shouldn't have to live with meat and bone as limits."
A chill finds your spine.
"Lucius Ward," you said flatly.
Saren's gaze broke like a snapped cable, eyes retreating to the floor. That was confirmation enough.
You step toward him, heart rising like a wave about to break. "That tech is unregulated. Half of it isn't even tested. It could kill you."
His voice lowered. "So could another week at the docks."
Silence presses into the room, commanding authority like an invisible weight. Voss speaks nothing from behind you, though you feel her gaze - not on Saren, but on you. As though this moment, this decision, was more yours than his.
You take a slow breath. "Where?"
Saren hands you a slim black card. No writing, no markings - just a single glowing circuit etched into the surface. An access pass.
"VIP suite," he says. "Sector 7B. Tonight. This one is for you."
Your eyes remain fixed on the card.
Saren reaches out to your shoulder. "You don't have to come. But I'm doing this."
Then he was gone, and the door hissed shut once again. You aren't sure as to whether or not you should follow. A million thoughts run through your mind, trying to process the path that lies before you. Is Saren right? Are augments the next step in human evolution? Could that be the propaganda talking?
After what could only be defined as an eternity, you decide to step through those same, worn out doors. They seal behind you with a whisper of steel and secrets.
The world outside was colder. Not in temperature - that had been regulated into sterility decades ago - but in spirit. The underground corridors that connected Voss's safehouses to the surface were choked with silence, lit by dim emergency LEDs strung across ancient walls. The pipes overhead groaned like the bones of the city shifting restlessly.
You move through the passageways alone, your footsteps echoing, not unlike soft accusations.
Each step, toward what she had warned you about: the seductive path, the glittering promise of synthetic perfection. And yet here you are, walking straight into it. Maybe not for yourself, but towards it nonetheless.
At the checkpoint, a retinal scan admits you to a mostly abandoned metro tunnel, repurposed for movement beneath the corporate surveillance nets. Dust floats between the beams of light that slice through the cracks above, and every so often, the thunder of a train far above reminds you of how deep down society's fractures really run.
You emerge from beneath Sector 512 - a forgotten maintenance junction still rigged to the old grid. The surface lift groans as it pulls you upward, closer and closer toward civilization's golden lie.
The light strikes your eyes as you rise into the upper echelon of innovation - not sunlight, but something far more artificial: a simulation of warmth painted across skywalks and tower windows. Up here, the city gleams like it believes its own lies. Clean. Ordered. Endless.
Drones often zip between the neon signs, broadcasting offers for body upgrades, memory enhancements, and subscription dreams. Pedestrians move in silence, some with eyes glowing ever so faintly - many no longer even required to speak out loud. Communication with them could happen in something called a "direct neural packet" - literal telepathy. You weren't just walking through a different class of the city here, you were walking through a different species.
The lobby to the entertainment suite awaits you - preening at the base of an obsidian tower, which spirals like ambition given form. You step through the scanning arches, greeted not by security guards, but by holographic concierge.
"Welcome," it chimes, its voice laden in silk-lined code. "VIP clearance accepted. Mr. Ward is expecting you."
You step the rest of the way into the private lift. No buttons. The elevator was able to read your VIP pass through your jacket - and so the ascent begins.
As you rise, glass walls unveil the sprawling city around you - a biomechanical wonderland stretching to the horizon. Below, in the shadows between spires, the working class still scrape their lives together one shift at a time. You see no faces. Only movement. Only servitude.
The 77th floor approaches quickly. The doors to your lift slide open effortlessly, revealing luxury so refined as to mock necessity - black marble streaked in fiber-optics, chandeliers shaped like neuron webs, soft ambient music pulsing at the same rhythm as a resting heartbeat.
And there, amidst the elegance and indulgence, was Lucius Ward. Standing beneath a suspended sculpture - a cruciform shape made entirely of chrome spinal columns - bathed in golden lumenlight.
He turns as you enter, smiling with a dangerous calm.
"Ah," he says, arms open. "You made it."
He steps forward, a glass of something luminescent in his hand.
"You look better than expected! I assume Dr. Voss worked her particular brand of retro-medicine on you. How quaint."
He gestures to a seat designed to mimic both throne and surgical table.
"Sit."
"You feel it, don't you? The weight of it all. The hunger? Welcome!" His grandiose bravado is palatable. "Let's talk about your future." He offers you a handshake.
Outstretching your arm, you accept it. "So you're Lucius Ward. They call you many things where I'm from. Pioneer, visionary..."
He responds, smugly. "One of many titles, yes. I prefer architect. I'm designing the next phase of human existence. Care to be part of it?"
"Depends, really." You retort. "What's your real goal? What do you really want for the people of Sovereign City?"
He pours a drink for the both of you, considering his next words. "Liberation. From flesh. From limits. From mediocrity. Nature gave us instincts. Gave us greed. Fear. Weakness." His face attempts to hide a scowl. "But we as a species have the tools to transcend those flaws now. The corporations only offer survival. I offer... evolution. A New Genesis."
You expected his response, although it does seem like he genuinely believes in his vision. "Sounds... ambitious, and provocative. But isn't it dangerous?"
"Of course it's dangerous. So was fire. So were airplanes. Progress is never safe. But it is inevitable." He taps a sleek augment embedded in his wrist. "I don't fear the danger. I fear stagnation."
"You used to work for the corporate labs, right? Like Dr. Helena Voss? What changed?"
A flash of something darker passes over his face. "I did. I built weapons they called 'products.' I saw ideas twisted into tools of control." He straightens, voice cool and persuasive. "But I realized - the corporations aren't wrong because they change people. They're wrong because they sell evolution like a commodity. Change should be a right. Not a privilege for the rich, or a sentence for the poor."
You can see how his promises are alluring, but you remember that its the allure of grandeur that created todays sickness. "If someone were to believe in your cause - what exactly would you need them to do?"
He grins. "Little things. Deliver something delicate here. Whisper a better future into the right ears there. Borrow technology from those too slow to realize they're obsolete." He sips his drink, eyes gleaming. "Every piece matters. Help me build the bridge... and you can walk across it first."
"You talk like you're starting a revolution."
"Revolutions are messy, emotional." He replies, with a calculated smile. "I'm offering ascension. A quiet, beautiful ending to the old world... and the birth of a better one. The question is: do you want to be a relic... or a pioneer? In either case, there are a few more things to discuss, a little matter of... nuisance that I've become aware of."
"Oh?" You respond. "Do tell."
"I screen all of my clients. I know who you are, where you've been. Or perhaps more importantly - where you haven't been. I've got eyes and ears beyond your imaginings, and they whisper to me in a language that I exchange for information and power. Your mother accrued quite a significant debt acquiring her implants, did she not?
"She did." You reply wryly. It was obvious to you that this man would be well informed, but it still makes you uncomfortable seeing the scope of his research.
"I've also noticed you've been... somewhat inanimate during our meeting. I would expect someone who survived a hit to the chest from a construction bot to be vibrant in both the will to live, AND personality..."
A nerve, struck. "I'm just not much in the mood for charm, Ward. Another reminder that my mother's debts are still mine. Medical bills from twelve years ago - reactivated by some clause in a Cutter contract she signed when I was in school."
Lucius returns your energy. "Ah. Cutter's Clause - 47B. The legacy debt trap. She likely thought it wouldn't follow you." His eyes roll, head shaking. "They always do."
You can feel your jaw clenching, teeth grinding. "She was just trying to stay alive! Corporate denied treatment under her basic tier. Took out a private loan. She died anyway - and now I owe for the bed they let her die in."
Lucius leans in toward you. "And that is the core of their business model. Misery monetized. Pain packaged. Cutter Industries calls it, 'reciprocal burden.' I call it... an inherited noose."
"You benefit from it too!" You exclaim, with an undeniably sour undertone. "You sell augments to people who can't afford the lives they were born with, and call them "Ascended" for doing so."
Lucius agrees with a nod, but is unoffended. "I do. But I offer power in return -not just survival. Cutter sells compliance. He sells the illusion that you'll one day get to breathe free again. I sell you the lungs to never need air."
The room is silent for a few moments. Lucius refills your glass - a gesture of politeness or control, you are unsure.
He begins the conversation again. "If that debt is holding you back, let's remove it."
"You can't just erase a Cutter Industries debt."
Lucius smiles. "No, but you can... negotiate with its architect. I can arrange a meeting. With Maxim Cutter himself."
Suspicion makes its way to the forefront of your thoughts. "And what would he gain from talking to someone like me?"
"From you? Nothing. But from me? Everything. Cutter respects leverage. And I have it - in the form of clients, tech, and... relationships he can't afford to ignore."
Hes probably right. "And what's your angle?" You ask, unsure if you want to hear the real answer.
"I want you unshackled!" He cries. "A client in chains is a wasted investment. But more than that... you represent a bridge. Between old wounds... and new evolution." He gestures to your chest - where your injury still lingers. "You were broken. You still are. Cutter's system keeps you that way. I'm offering you a way out - not just from debt. From him. From them."
Defeatedly, you feel the words begin to slip. Unfurling slowly, like smoke curling from something once on fire.
"...set up the meeting."
"Exquisite!" Lucius bellows, grinning from ear to ear. "I'll have your name added to the guest manifest for the Sovereign Executive Floor. Dress accordingly. Cutter likes his beggars clean." He stands, retrieving a sleek card from a secure drawer. When he places it in your hand, it hums faintly - encoded, alive. "And remember - power is not taken. It's chosen. One day, you'll have to decide which body you want to wear into the future."