In the year 2137, the outer sectors of City Nine were besieged by constant drone patrols. Escape was nearly impossible, and those who tried were met with sinister consequences—broadcasts of their public punishment looped on the communal screens for days.

Lena crouched behind a rusted air duct, clutching a tattered ration card. Her brother, Kye, lay unconscious beside her, weakened by malnutrition and a hacking cough that no longer startled anyone. Illness had come to afflict nearly every family in their quadrant, spreading like digital code through a corrupt system—inevitable and unseen.

Since the last solar shortage, food deliveries had stopped. Fuel reserves were drained. Medical kits had vanished. What remained was privation in its purest form—no light, no warmth, no relief. People traded batteries for bread, data for drugs. And those who protested were never seen again.

Whispers told of a resistance forming in the north zones—untouched by the radiation storms and shielded from surveillance. Lena didn’t know if it was real, but she had to try. She ripped down the government placard warning against curfew violations, hiding it under Kye’s blanket. If hope was forbidden, then rebellion was the only remedy.