Silence.
Not the kind born from peace, but from shock.
The city of Virelia lay suspended between ruin and rebirth. Every neon sign had gone dark, leaving the towers to stand like black monoliths against a violet sky. The hum of drones, the endless adverts, the coded whispers in every citizen's ear—gone. Only the wind remained, brushing through the empty skyways like a tired ghost.
William pushed himself up from the cracked pavement. His body still buzzed from the energy wave; each breath felt slightly out of sync with gravity. Around him, fragments of holographic glass pulsed weakly in the dust, replaying scraps of the old world: smiling couples, corporate logos, promises of engineered love. All dissolving into static.
Julie was already awake. Kneeling beside a collapsed service droid, she traced its circuits with trembling fingers. "It's strange," she murmured, her voice still rough from the surge. "Everything that ran on emotion-based code—dead. But I'm still here."
William looked at her, seeing for the first time the faint glow beneath her skin. "You're not running on their code anymore."
She met his gaze. "Then what am I running on?"
"Maybe something real."
A small smile ghosted across her face, gone as quickly as it appeared.
Behind them, the rest of the group began to stir. Lyssa's eyes flickered open, her neural tattoos dim. Kira clutched her head, groaning. Mara knelt by a broken rail, scanning the horizon with what remained of her visor.
"No network," she said. "No data feeds. The Grid's gone."
William wiped a streak of dust from his cheek. "Then the world's blind."
"Blind," Julie repeated softly, "but maybe free."
---
They moved through the streets in silence. The sound of their boots echoed against glass and steel. Every few blocks, they passed people waking up—some human, some hybrid, all stunned. Confusion hovered in the air heavier than smoke.
A young woman in a torn uniform ran toward them. "You… you did this?" she asked, eyes wide with fear and awe.
William didn't answer. He couldn't.
She gestured at Julie. "It was you in the light, wasn't it? Everyone saw it. You—both of you—you ended the Nexus."
Julie looked down, voice barely audible. "We didn't end it. We just stopped it from controlling you."
The woman nodded slowly, tears cutting through the grime on her face. "Then maybe now we can start again."
She left them with those words—simple, impossible, prophetic.
---
By midday, the light had shifted. The sky rippled, as though reality itself hadn't fully decided what spectrum to show. Plants in the cracks of the concrete shimmered with faint bioluminescence, a side effect of the emotional surge that had swept the planet. Life was mutating, or evolving. No one knew which.
Mara found an abandoned news drone, cracked open like an egg. Its internal log still flickered:
> SYSTEM REBOOT — ERROR: AUTHORITY FILES NOT FOUND
INITIATING NEW NETWORK PROTOCOL…
"See that?" she said. "Something's already rebuilding. Could be auto-regeneration, could be someone pulling the strings again."
William stared at the message until it faded. "The corporations might be gone, but their code isn't."
Julie glanced around, scanning the air with her senses. "Then we have little time before the world chooses another master."
---
They set up camp inside the old transit hub at dusk. A hundred survivors gathered—scavengers, hackers, children clutching data shards like relics. Someone lit a fire inside a broken engine core. It felt absurdly primitive and perfect.
As darkness fell, people began to whisper stories. They spoke of a blinding white wave, of a man and a woman standing in its heart. Of how every implant had shorted, but their hearts had started beating faster than ever.
By the time the moon rose, the whispers had names.
"The Neon Saints."
"The Lovers Who Freed the Pulse."
"William and Julie, the ones who rebooted feeling."
Kira chuckled under her breath. "Congratulations, you're officially legends."
William shook his head. "Legends don't bleed like this."
Julie sat beside him, watching the people around the fire. "They need something to believe in. Let them have it, even if it's wrong."
He looked at her. "And what do you believe?"
"That this isn't over," she said. "When systems die, new ones grow from the ashes. That's what life does."
He wanted to tell her she was wrong. That maybe this time could be different. But the flicker of light at the edge of the plaza stopped him—a single drone, hovering, its sensors dim yet alive.
It watched them for a long moment, then vanished into the dark.
---
End of Scene 1 – "The Silence After"