Chapter 1: The Color of Static
The world did not end with a bang.
It ended with a cough.
Ren Sato sat on the edge of his mattress, a thin slab of synthetic foam that reeked of mildew and chemical coolant. He stared at his hands. They were trembling. The tips of his fingers had turned a dull, flat grey. No trace of the natural tone remained. The skin looked like old ash.
Silver Core Sickness. Stage Two.
He rubbed his thumb across his fingertips. There was no sensation. No friction. The nerves were already dead or dying. In the Core, that was how it always began. Color drained first. Then taste disappeared. Food became nothing more than texture. Then dreams stopped coming. People simply sat down on a curb or in an alley and never moved again. The sanitation drones arrived before sunrise and swept the bodies away with the rest of the trash.
Ren stood up. His knees cracked loudly in the quiet room. He was nineteen years old, but his body carried the exhaustion of someone much older. He crossed the small space to the window, a narrow slit cut into the rusted metal wall of his apartment box. The building was stacked eighty floors high in Sector 4, one of thousands of identical towers crammed together.
Outside, the sky was static. There was no sun. Only a pale, sickly light filtered through layers of smog that never lifted. The air tasted like copper and burnt wiring. Down below, the slum-city stretched in every direction. Grey people moved slowly between the crooked towers. Some were already half-faded, skin the same dull color as the concrete. Drones drifted above the streets, red scanner lights sweeping in slow arcs.
Ren pressed his forehead against the cold metal frame. He thought about his parents. They had vanished into the lower sectors years ago after a re-education raid. No grave. No marker. Just an empty bunk in the factory dormitory. He thought about Mina. Two years earlier he had promised her a way out. He had a plan, maps, a contact. Then the Enforcers came. He hesitated. He froze. Her brother was taken to the camps. Her parents were demoted to the lowest levels. She disappeared into the Upper Sectors with nothing but rage directed at him.
If he let the sickness take him here, that was all he would leave behind. One moment of cowardice. One bad calculation.
A sharp crackle pulled him back. The old CRT television in the corner turned on by itself. It was salvaged junk, but the ads ran twenty-four hours a day whether anyone watched or not.
The screen flared with color that hurt his eyes. Vibrant green trees moved in a breeze he could not feel. Blue water rippled under a sky that was actually blue. White marble towers floated in the distance, bathed in golden light.
"Are you tired of fading?"
The voice was smooth and synthetic, almost gentle.
"The Academy is initiating its final recruitment drive. Paradise awaits those with the will to seize it. We do not care about your debt. We do not care about your crimes. We only care about your potential. Do not die in the Grey. Ascend."
Ren's jaw clenched. Everyone in the Core knew it was a lie. People boarded buses to the Ascension Terminal and vanished. No messages came back. No proof of a better life. Just empty beds in the factories and fewer mouths to feed.
Still, when he looked down at his grey fingertips, the lie started to feel better than the truth.
A knock came at the door.
Three precise beats. One-two-three. Not a human hand.
Ren crossed the room and opened it.
A Mannequin recruiter stood in the hallway. Six feet tall. Pristine black suit. Face nothing but blank black glass. It looked completely out of place against the peeling, mold-streaked wallpaper.
"Ren Sato," the voice vibrated directly into his skull.
"Employment termination filed today due to productivity decline. Eviction notice pending tomorrow. Silver Core Sickness infection rate at eighteen percent, progressing to nerve degradation."
Ren leaned against the doorframe. He crossed his arms to hide his hands.
"You reading my mail now?"
"We are offering a scholarship."
The Mannequin extended a palm. A small golden chip sat in the center. It caught the dim light and gleamed unnaturally.
"The bus to the Terminal leaves in one hour. This is a one-way ticket."
Ren looked at the chip.
The fridge was empty. The apartment echoed when he walked. Mina's last words still rang in his head, sharp and venomous.
He thought about greying out alone in this box. About drones dragging his body away before anyone noticed he was gone.
"If I go," he said quietly, "do I get my life back?"
The Mannequin tilted its head. The glass face rippled like water.
"You will get a life, Mr. Sato. Whether it is yours remains to be seen."
Ren took the chip.
The metal felt cold and heavy in his palm.
Sector 8: Underground Fighting Pits
Jax caught the cyborg's metal fist in his bare hand.
A sharp crack echoed through the ring. The wrist buckled like cheap tin.
He grinned through bloodied teeth and twisted his hips, throwing a right hook that landed like a cannonball. The cyborg collapsed. The canvas shook.
"Winner! The Earth-Mover!"
The crowd roared, but Jax tuned it out. He walked back to the locker room, hands shaking as the adrenaline faded. In front of the cracked mirror he stared at himself. Too big for this pit. Too strong for rigged matches. Too bored of losing on purpose for a paycheck.
He pulled a crumpled flyer from his pocket. The Paradise Academy.
He had heard rumors. The perfect "Divine" girl on the posters looked familiar. Someone from the old neighborhood.
"I'm done fighting for scraps," he muttered. "Time to fight something real."
Sector 1: The High-Rise
Mina stood in front of a full-length mirror, adjusting the straps of her combat vest.
Long black hair tied back tightly. Violet eyes hard and dry.
She picked up the datapad from the marble table.
Target: Ren Sato.
Status: Recruited.
"Found you," she whispered.
Two years of hate had sharpened her into something cold and precise.
She slotted a jagged serrated knife into her boot.
"I'm not coming to save you, Ren. I'm coming to make sure you don't walk out of there alive."
The Ascension Terminal
Ren stood in Line 4, clutching the golden chip.
Thousands of teenagers waited in endless rows. Some cried. Some hugged parents who were not allowed past the gates.
The air hummed with high-voltage machinery.
"Next."
Ren stepped onto the platform. Blue lasers spun around him.
Scanning.
Subject: Ren Sato.
Physicality: F-Tier.
Mental State: Unstable.
Primary Trauma Driver: Detected.
"Driver?" he muttered.
The floor opened.
He fell.
The drop was long. Air roared past. Clothes tore away. Breath vanished.
Flashes came unbidden: his mother cooking in their cramped box-home. Rain hitting rusted roofs. Mina smiling. Mina screaming. Grey creeping over his hands like a promise.
Then impact.
The Rust-Yards
Pain.
Heavy. Crushing.
Ren gasped, inhaling dust that tasted of iron filings.
He lay on his back. The sky above was a swirling vortex of bruised clouds raining grey ash.
No white halls. No Paradise.
Just a junkyard of broken reality. Skyscrapers twisted into knots. A Ferris wheel half-buried in the dirt. The ground was coarse powder made of pulverized metal and bone.
He tried to stand. His balance was wrong. Lopsided.
He looked at his right arm.
And screamed.
No arm.
A mass of thick, black, pitted iron chains fused from shoulder to where his hand should have been. Coiled tight. Heavy. Cold. Clanking against each other as he moved.
An echo moved through his mind. Not words. Just a feeling.
The weight of your arm increases with your guilt.
"Make it stop," he rasped. He clawed at the chains with his left hand. They did not budge.
They were part of him.
"Stop screaming, fresh meat. You'll attract the wolves."
Ren looked up.
A tall man sat on top of a crushed vending machine. Messy blonde ponytail. Black tank top. Massive jagged obsidian gauntlets on both hands.
"Where are we?" Ren asked. His voice cracked.
"The TV said Paradise."
The man pointed upward.
Beyond the clouds, floating islands glowed in golden light. Beautiful. Impossible.
"That's Paradise," he said, hopping down. The ground shook when he landed.
"We're the fuel that keeps it floating. This is the Rust-Yards. Dumping ground for people who believed the ads."
He looked at the chains.
"Rough draw, kid. Most get swords or guns. You got luggage."
A hologram flickered between them.
A hooded figure. No face. Just blue static in the hood.
It held out a bottle of clear water.
"Water. Clean. No Silver taint."
Ren's throat burned. The thirst hit suddenly and violently.
"How much?" the big man asked.
"No money. Trade in Time. Zero point five percent stability. Or…"
The figure pointed.
A skinny boy crawled out of bus wreckage. Fifteen maybe. Crying. Holding a broken pipe.
"Kill the runt. Reduce competition. Gallon of water. Map to Safe Zone."
Ren looked at the water.
Looked at the chains.
Looked at the boy.
The world had already taken his home. His future. His arm.
Now it wanted the last piece that still mattered.
His eyes went cold.
"I'm not doing this."
"Survival is a choice," the figure hissed.
"Essence dropping. Ninety-nine percent. Ninety-eight."
Ren stepped forward.
The chains rattled.
He did not swing at the boy.
He swung at the hologram.
The chains smashed through the vending machine behind it.
The figure flickered and vanished, laughing.
"Fail. No water for you."
Ren stood panting.
The chains felt heavier.
"You're an idiot," the big man said.
Ren braced himself.
But the man just grinned. Real. Goofy. Almost kind.
"I like idiots."
He pulled a dirty canteen from his pocket and tossed it.
"Drink up, Shambles. If we're gonna die, let's at least die hydrated."
Ren caught it.
He took a sip. Mud and rust.
It was the best thing he had tasted in months.
"I'm Ren."
"Jax."
The fists clanked together.
"Now let's move. I saw a girl in white armor heading North about ten minutes ago. Long black hair. Looked like she wanted to murder the horizon."
Ren froze.
His heart slammed against his ribs.
Mina.
Alive.
Here.
"We have to follow her," he said. He started walking. The chains dragged in the dirt, leaving a furrow.
Jax sighed and fell into step beside him.
"Partner. Following you is gonna be bad for my health."
They walked into the grey fog.
Above them, something distant ticked down.
Time until First Exam: 6 Days, 23 Hours.