It was 3:39 a.m. in Los Angeles when the largest meteor shower recorded in modern history graced the sky and entered Earth's atmosphere.
The first meteor was so bright that for the briefest of moments you could mistake your surroundings for day. But this meteor shower wasn't normal. A blue-colored blaze emitted from the rock as it barreled through the sky, and hundreds more meteor fragments effortlessly followed. The ground trembled as if an earthquake took hold.
Then, just as quickly as it began, the night fell back to silence, and the sky fell dark again. In the years to come, the unchipped who still kept history books would call this night "The Event". The day that changed everything…
Port of Los Angeles. Los Angeles Impact Zone.
By sunrise, the cratered outskirts of the port were swarming with F8 agents. They moved with an eerie, mechanical calm, scanning the fragments of meteor debris with sleek, glass-plated handheld scanner devices that beeped and whined like radios stuck between frequencies.
F8 (pronounced "Fate"), was originally founded in the mid-2000s, starting as a social media company, and through the relentless power and conquest of its machine learning and groundbreaking AI advancements, it eventually became Earth's sole governing body. From agriculture to finance, from education to space exploration, there was nothing untouched by F8's reach. Their ultimate weapon? The F8 Clarity—a nanobot-infused ai brain implant chip that turned humans into hyper-efficient, hyper-loyal nodes in their corporate hive mind.
Sixty percent of the world had adopted it willingly thanks to it's incredible promises— many of which were initially true. After the initial cohort had been activated, F8 pushed an update that revealed it's true ulterior motives. From there, another twenty-five perfect had it forced upon them. The global movement to integrate all humans into the Clarity system came to be known as "The Chipping"—a sweeping, multi-year initiative enforced through coercion, manipulation, and military action that resulted in the third world war. The remaining holdouts—the "Unchipped"—managed to remain hidden by secretly living in repurposed shipping containers, tucked into the blind spots of the world's busiest ports. These mostly forgotten commerce zones were often overlooked by the sprawling net of corporate surveillance, and thus became makeshift sanctuaries. But even there, the unchipped remained continuously hunted by F8.
F8 had rebranded planet Earth. It was now known as "One-World", named as if it was doing us a favor.
Inside Container 1328, Port of Los Angeles:
Goldstar woke abruptly to the sound of the agents' scanners sprawling and investigating the port.
"Ugh, what is that noise..." She said sleepily.
She was used to waking up during random hours of the night. That was a common occurrence when you're living inside a shipping container at one of the world's busiest ports. Sometimes it was the container cranes themselves loading outbound boats and Quant Trucks, other times it was illegal parties thrown by other unchipped residents. But this sound was different. She sat up, dazed, only to realize her hands were covered in a gelatinous, gel-like goo that shimmered faintly in the dim light. It rippled down her arms and soaked into her clothes like it had a mind of its own.
She screamed, slapped at it, wiped it from her shirt, sheets, and walls. It wouldn't come off. Across the room, the goo was already crawling up the container merging into the metal like a paper towel soaking up spilled milk.
"What in the actual fuck is happening?!"
She leapt to her feet, one hand already reaching for the control panel near her desk. With a flick, her wall-mounted monitor lit up.
"Roger! Pull up my security cams. Give me trending news. F8 feeds first, citizens socials second."
"Roger that." Her AI assistant Roger responded, glitchy as ever. "Pulling top headlines and... oh, would you look at that. The world is losing its mind over pretty lights in the sky."
Roger's voice crackled out from a cobbled-together device that looked like an old Sony Walkman had mated with a decommissioned Amazon Alexa. It sat perched on her desk, blinking with mismatched LEDs and a rats nest of trailing wires.
"Meteor showers? That's the best they've got?"
"Brightest in recorded history. Trending hashtag: #SkyDiamond." Reported Roger.
Goldstar sneered. She wasn't buying it. She never did.
F8 controlled all official narratives, but she had her own source.
She opened a hidden terminal on her ancient laptop and typed in a string of code. A black screen blinked to life: THE BBS. A secure underground network for the unchipped. Only those in deepest opposition to F8, along with a handful of rogue hackers still used it. The system was fully decentralized, fueled by its users' devices and wrapped in layers of heavy encryption.
Three new messages flashed:
Pacific Northwest: F8 drones spotted near impact zones. They're scanning for something."
Confirmed. Midwest too. Unpatched Soldiers, heavy presence.
F8のエージェントがスキャナーを展開している.謎の青いジェルの噂が急速に広がっている.(Click [Translate] to Translate).
She turned back toward the center of the room. A slow drip landed just in front of her—thick and blue, glowing faintly. Another one. Then another. The goo was now everywhere.
"Roger, lights on. All of them."
With a loud click, the room lit up with harsh neon fluorescence from her overhead lights. The glow vanished. Everything looked... normal.
"Lights off."
Blue glow yet again.
"Lights on."
Gone.
She squinted at the wall. It pulsed. Not just light. Something else. A heartbeat?
"Roger," she said, her voice laced with confusion and just a trace of concern. "Is this stuff... alive?"
Roger didn't respond.