The sky hadn't been blue in years.
It instead flickered with static gray, bruised violet, and giant corporate neon lights bleeding through the clouds from poorly constructed office buildings like an oil spill. Above it all, far past the smog and the orbital elevators, the Sakura 011 District hovered over North America in the heavens known as space: colossal rings of chrome and glass where the ultra-wealthy lived, persecuted, and laughed, untouched by gravity or consequence.
But down in Neo-New York, gravity hurt.
The slums sprawled across what used to be Brooklyn, Queens, and what remained of Manhattan, stitched together by sky-rails, unfinished construction projects, and holographic billboards flickering in bold pink Japanese text, overlaid with cheap auto-subtitles that lagged and glitched:
進歩は避けられません
[PROGRESS: UNAVOIDABLE]
変化は必要です
[CHANGE: REQUIRED]
Kyte Rivera, a small twelve-year-old, kicked a loose can across the cracked pavement and watched it spark when it struck a live wire.
"Still alive," he muttered.
He slung his electrical guitar higher on his back and kept moving.
The guitar was an antique from the early 2000s. Scratched light blue plastic, and chipped stickers from J-rock bands that hadn't existed since before Kyte was born. It was very valuable to him but at the same time not valuable at all.
Kyte slipped through an alley flooded with magenta light from a broken holo-sign. Somewhere above, an official police Neo-New York surveillance drone hummed, its lens sweeping the street in lazy arcs.
Kyte pulled the hood on his puffer that was two sizes too big over his head and slowed his breathing.
He knew if it scanned him he would be in big trouble.
Those drones could sense manifest in anything.
Manifest an ancient, illegal, and half-forgotten technique was the power to turn any mundane object into a weapon surging with energy. To take an object and force the universe to admit it could be more. A broomstick could do more damage than a gun. A lighter could replace a flamethrower. A guitar into—
Kyte stopped.
The air wringed.
Not sound. Pressure.
He felt it all over his body; it was like a strong presence watching over him—unlike the presence of the police drone.
From the street ahead came shouting, boots pounding concrete, and the unmistakable whine of a squad of enforcement exoskeletons powering up. Corporate Security. Neo Orbital Authority. The bourgeoisie's private army of soulless enforcers.
Kyte instinctively ducked behind a stack of collapsed scaffolding just as the squad burst into view.
They moved swiftly, every move precisely calculated. Six of them to be exact, each with matte-black armor with a red trim, helmets smooth and faceless except for glowing white visors to resemble eye holes, their swords rattling with electrical energy, and Neo-Orbital markings consisting of three stripes and an eagle, plastered on their giant red capes.
Between them knelt a man in rags, trembling with fear. He was old and thin. He had reminded Kyte of his own grandfather before he got killed by the very same corporate security that roamed the streets, leaving him to fend for himself in the city.
A woman lay sprawled nearby, her lifeless body covered in her own blood.
"Citizen," one of the enforcers intoned, voice filtered and devoid of life. "You are charged with four counts of treason against the Orbital. Do you deny these charges?"
The old man looked up, eyes filled with a mix of hatred and fear.
"Tell your gods in the sky that they can choke on their own immortality."
Kyte's chest tightened.
Immortality.
The rumor.
Everyone in the world had heard it by now—the Engine, the secret weapon the one percent were building from space. A machine that would eradicate Earth of all lifeforms, harvest its remaining energy, and ascend the oligarchy of tech trillionaires into God-like figures who could control the entire universe.
Most people dismissed it as rebel propaganda to make them go against the state. But Kyte didn't, he knew firsthand what was possible with the powers that laid to rest. And his former rebel grandfather had taught him better than to trust the state.
The enforcer carefully raised its sword.
Reay to strike at the old man.
Kyte gripped his fist he felt the determination flowing all throughout his body. Lunging at the enforcers he ripped the guitar from its straps mid-stride and felt the Manifest strike all throughout his tiny body. The strings screamed without being touched, electricity crawling along the frets as the instrument twisted. His soul turning what was an old unassuming guitar into a weapon of vigor.
A sword of steel and sound.
Kyte slammed the instrument-sword into the ground, releasing a shockwave that shattered windows and knocked two enforcers flat. The alley exploded into motion of shouts, alarms, and giant steel blades hurling toward him.
"Manifest user!" one of them barked.
Too late.
Kyte leapt, swung, and the guitar sang. Electricity arced, slicing through the tungsten steel armor like paper. One soldier went down hard, visor cracking, and white light snuffling out. The old man soon squirmed off.
Kyte landed badly, skidding across the pavement as his guitar soon followed.
His heart hammered.
Don't lose it.
Manifest weapons weren't tools.
They were extensions of the soul.
If his blade was lost so would his—
A bolt of electricity scorched past his head, snapping him back into focus. He rolled, came up swinging again, the guitar-sword roaring as he parried. Sparks rained like fireworks—one unfortunately scratching his face.
Then the air split.
A familiar presence slammed into the alley, heavy and undeniable.
The remaining soldiers froze.
Kyte felt it immediately—the weight of another Manifest user—the same weight he had felt earlier watching over him.
A girl dropped from the fire escape above, landing between Kyte and the squad. She had long bright blue bangs which contrasted her unnaturally pale skin and covered half her face, she also wore a vintage M65 field jacket with multiple loud rebel patches and a cheap skirt you can find in the back of a dumpster, she had weathered down combat boots laced with purple, and a grin sharp enough to cut glass.
She had unassuming motorcycle gloves that were pulsating with manifest energy only sensible to Kyte.
"Man," she said, "you enforcers really nee better training."
She lunged at the robots, hurling balls of blue fire at them, quickly ending the altercation.
When it was over, the alley smoked, the soldiers lay silent, and emergency sirens wailed somewhere far away.
The girl sat down as if she was a child yet she looked about nineteen.
She looked Kyte up and down.
"Nice guitar," she said. "You play?"
Kyte blushed hard—this was the first time an attractive girl ever talked to him one on one.
"…Sometimes."
She laughed.
"You can call me Sora," she said. "You just got recruited."
Kyte tried to glance over at the old man who had already scrambled away.
"Recruited for what?"
Sora's freakish grin enlargened.
"For the future," she said. "One the fascist dick heads don't get to erase."
Above them, the Sakura 011 District gleamed its shiny steel rings on them.
And somewhere in the static-choked sky, something enormous was powering on.
Kyte tightened his grip on the guitar-sword.
The feedback getting louder for what was to come.