I wake up shivering to the cold, constant static buzz drilling in my ears.[Out of service. Please recharge for further operation… Out of service. Please recharge for further operation.....,] a mechanical voice repeats.
"Piece of shit," I curse at the heat box, swinging my arm to shut it off with a heavy thud. "At last… some peace," I mutter, my voice thick with sleep. I stretch my hand across the mattress until I find Han and Jinny beside me. Their small bodies are curled together like frightened animals beneath the old, filthy patchwork blanket the three of us share. Sometime during the night, they must have tugged it away from me, chasing what little warmth it holds. I cannot blame them.
I force myself up, pushing sleep away from my eyes; the rusted bedframe groans under my weight, it sounds louder in the dead quiet of the room. It's Morning already — or whatever passes for morning down here. A weak artificial sunrise leaks through the cheap panel glass, spreading a sick, pale glow across the apartment. It brings no warmth, only the illusion of another day, full of struggle.
Our apartment is small and cramped — just one room boxed together from cheap synthetic stone, recycled steel, and plastic. Old appliances line the walls, most of them barely working. There is almost no furniture, just this rusted bed and two plastic chairs around a table that serves as both our dining space and living room, depending on the day. It costs me ten Neon a month to live in this shitty place.
I make my way to the washroom tucked into the corner beside the bed. Real genius architecture — whoever the fuck designed this place. I ease the rusty door open as slowly as I can. It groans louder than it should. I freeze for a second, wondering if I have woken Han or Jinny. Luckily, they are too deep in their dreams to stir. I do not want to wake them on their only day off from the learning block. I let them sleep a little longer.
Upon entering the washroom, I study my reflection in the cracked mirror. My face looks rough, older than it should. My skin is pale, my black hair tangled and uneven, and a thin beard is already creeping across my jaw. Hardly the face of a sixteen-year-old. Maybe Uncle Rock was right: "responsibility turns a boy into a man".
After relieving myself, I wash my hands and splash cold water over my face and underarms. I would give anything for a proper shower, but water is too precious to waste on comfort or appearances. We only get a few liters a day. Still, I make sure I do not smell.
After cleaning myself, I move toward the fridge, remembering the bread I bought yesterday with half of my daily wage. More than half the loaf should still be there, enough for me and my siblings to eat for a few days. I grip its handle and pull, but the seal does not open.
"What the fuck?" I frown. A red holographic alert begins to float around it with an annoying buzz — the kind of warning I have learned to hate — flashing words I never wish to see. [Out of service. Please recharge for further operation… Out of service. Please recharge for further operation,] a mechanical voice repeats
"Fuck, fuck, fuck… this shit," I curse repeatedly, keeping my voice low enough not to wake my siblings. It must be the end of the month. "Damn it, damn it… give me my bread back," I mutter, almost kicking the useless machine before stopping myself. Damaging Zenotect property could trigger an alarm, and that would bring the Citywatch stomping at my door. Dealing with those corrupt bastards would cost far more than simply recharging the damn thing. "Please recharge for further operation…" the voice drones again. I sigh. "I have no choice but to recharge it — if only I could afford even one."
I open my HUD and log in to the Zenotech website. [Welcome back to Zenotech, Mr. Eddy Murphy. Age: 16. ID: Green Tag, labour class citizen] the AI says. [Would you like to purchase the latest Zenotech innovation — a smart, self-cleaning AI vacuum…]
"No," I mutter, swiping the ad away and tapping on the recharge section. [It features smart self-decision capabilities…] another advertisement pops up. I try to skip it, but it has to run for at least a full two minutes before the option unlocks. I stare at the countdown while the cheerful voice keeps blabbing. [It can operate independently for as little as ninety nine neon and it is also available for rent…]
The moment the two minutes are over, I hit skip and move to the appliance selection. [Try our latest skin enhancement…] Another fucking ad blooms across my vision. I have to sit through yet another damn two minutes. Recharging is always a pain for Green Tags like me. A couple of years ago, I learned that the company offers a subscription for people who don't want to see ads. Dumbasses — do they really think anyone would spend even a single neon on shit like that? I know I won't.
The fridge seal pops open the moment I recharge the damn thing. While I am at it, I make sure to recharge the heater as well. It truly pains me to watch my hard-earned neon drain from my account, but the nights get brutally cold. I can endure the chill myself, but I cannot stand seeing Han and Jinny shiver in front of me.
I pull the bread out and eat a piece quietly. It is hard and chewy, not pleasant to taste, but enough to give me energy — enough to sustain me through the hard day ahead. I leave the remaining bread on the table for Han and Jinny to eat when they wake, along with a note telling them I have gone to work.
After getting ready, I walk out the door and find our useless father slumped just outside, drunk, a bottle of cheap alcohol lying beside him. I wonder where he has been all night. Looks like I have my answer. For a moment, I almost feel relieved, thinking he might disappear for good.
As I closed the door, he lifted his head and squinted at me. "Ed… you're up early. Where to?"
"To work, of course. Unlike some people, I still have responsibilities toward my family," I reply sharply, hoping he snaps back at me, but instead, he says nothing.
His head drops again, his eyes fixed on the ground. He cannot even bear to meet mine. "Coward," I mutter, turning to walk away. As I move off, his voice reaches me from behind.
"It was your mother, Ed… your mother who destroyed us," he says. I turn around.
"No. It's both of you — both of you," I say before walking away.
---
Vector Prime is a planet-wide city, home to trillions of inhabitants. It is a vast and complicated jungle of interlocking urban development that spreads across the entire planet, its districts stacked one upon another in thousands of layered levels. From the highest towers that brush the thin upper atmosphere to the buried foundations lost in perpetual darkness, the city never truly ends. Steel, glass, and synthetic stone stretch to every horizon, stitched together by endless rails, skyways, and power veins that pulse like a living organism. Entire generations are born, live, and die without ever seeing the planet's original surface, knowing only artificial skies filled with flickering stars — which, on closer inspection, are nothing more than the distant lights of the levels overhead.
My apartment is located in Sector 114 of District 43 on the 4173rd Level, somewhere deep within Vector Prime — at least, I think so. Truthfully, it is impossible to know how many floors there really are. With numbers this high, I assume we are closer to the lower levels of the city. Long ago, maybe a hundred years back, the floors were counted in ascending order. Then the White Tags on the uppermost levels decide the system should begin from the top instead, and now everything is hopelessly confusing.
On top of that, telling the difference between day and night is even more confusing, since it is always dark on the green's level. The streets are crowded with people heading to work, believing it is morning, and others returning after long shifts, convinced it is night. In truth, it does not really matter. We simply follow what the clock tells us. None of us truly knows what daylight looks like, nor do we ever experience real sunlight — only its artificial imitations. Such privilege only belongs to the White Tags on the uppermost level.
Sector 114, where I live, is home to the less privileged residents, even among the already less privileged District 43 on the less privileged lower level 4173rd. The Green Tags, as they called us.
It is not the worst place on the 4173rd Level, but it is far from decent. Most buildings are assembled from cheap synthetic stone, recycled steel, and plastic frames, still holding together beneath layers of grime and flickering neon. Their walls are coated in looping AI graffiti and restless digital ads that never quite fade. The streets remain alive at all hours. SIM addicts drift beneath glowing signboards, their eyes lost in private worlds, while street vendors push stim-drinks and cheap synthetic highs to anyone carrying a few spare neon. Rust-lined scaffolds cling to older structures, threaded with humming power cables that pulse like artificial veins. Ad-skins crawl endlessly across the surfaces, their colors painfully bright, their smiling faces glitching just enough to feel more unsettling than inviting.
I move past Lane's sex shop carefully, hoping to slip by unnoticed. The skimmer station lies on the east block of the sector, and the quickest route takes me straight in front of his place. I do not hate the guy, but he is… trouble. The kind that drags you into things you never planned for.
I keep my steps quiet, head lowered, slipping along the cracked pavement. Through the smeared glass of his door, I catch a glimpse of him slumped in that massage chair he loves so much, eyes flickering with soft neon reflections — probably watching porn feed.
"Yeah… yeah… don't stop… you feel that…?" A SIM junkie sprawled across the street mutters hoarsely, suddenly jerks upright with a broken laugh. reaching into empty air. "Yeah… baby, baby… yeah…" The bastard was loud enough to drag Lane's attention straight toward me.
Lane's eyes catch mine. "Yo, yo, Eddy… my dude," he slurs, sliding off his massage chair. He is tall and broad-shouldered, his dark skin washed in the restless glow of neon. A heavy silver chain hangs around his neck, and thick rings crowd every finger, each one engraved with letters that spell KING LANE.
"Yo, Eddy… where you headed this late night? Don't tell me you scored yourself a hot date," lane says.
As if. Some of us actually have work, you know. And according to my clock, it's morning," I reply.
Lane lets out a rough laugh, "Ain't no morning in this city, yo — only night. And night's for livin', if you catch my drift. Speakin' of livin'… I just got my hands on the newest auto-pleasure unit. Top shelf tech, my dude. Smoother than the real thing, swear on it. You wanna give it a spin, Eddy? No charge for you, my nigga."
I let out an awkward laugh, unsure of what to say. Lane and I go way back, long before he opened this shop. Despite how he looks, he is only four years older than me. He was there to support me when my mother left. He is one of the few people I ever called a friend when I was a kid — a couple of years back, he disappeared and later returned rich, setting up this place. I know he means no real harm, which makes it harder to turn him down. "Uh… yeah, so—" The words barely leave my mouth before the low, humming buzz of Citywatch drones echoes through the street.
"Motherfucker, it's a fucking Watch!" he says, jolting back inside the shop and scrambling to pull down the shutter. Obviously, no one earns silver rings like his just by selling sex toys. The shop is only a front. The real business happens in the back — Neural drugs, illegal SIM porn, unlicensed body mods, stolen skins… whatever people are desperate enough to buy.
"Yo, Eddy," he calls, the shutter already halfway down. "Come see me tonight, yo. Got somethin' big for you." Then the metal slams shut.
I stand there, confused, wondering what he means by that. This is why I try to avoid Lane. He is tangled up in some illegal shit, always trying to pull me into it as well. Maybe there is money in it, but I do not want that kind of life. I cannot risk getting involved in anything that might hurt Jinny or Han. I am all they have. If something happens to me, who will take care of them?
The drone's low buzz thickens the air as it lingers overhead. I tilt my head up. Drone lights shimmer in the night sky, one of them hovering low over the shop, scanning the street in slow, mechanical sweeps. I look away and keep walking, pretending to be just another bystander passing through.
Lane never says it outright, but I am sure he has some kind of arrangement with the City watch. There is no way they do not know about his operation. Those bastards are always looking to earn a little extra neon on the side. As long as it is nothing big enough to catch the attention of the upper levels, they are more than willing to look the other way.
I step onto the escalator and let it carry me toward the skimmer station. The narrow walls are tagged with flickering ink — decay-code from long-dead gang scripts and looping AI graffiti that never quite render right. A collapsed junkie lies sprawled near the railing, his body twitching as thin curls of smoke leak from the corners of his eyes. His HUD implant must be overheating from a neural-drug overdose. A few meters away, two Citywatchers stand completely unbothered by the man dying right in front of them. They never really care about people like us. To them, he is just another addict bleeding out into the street — probably works out better for them.
I do not look at him for long. I keep moving, which makes me no different from them… or anyone else. That is how this city works. Nobody cares about you. No one helps you. You survive on your own. Everything comes with a price. If you choose the high, you also choose the danger that follows it.
Beyond the overpass, a silver pulse shivers through the smog, the mag-rail skimmer track humming like a distant nerve beneath the sector's skin. A skimmer hisses into view, its undercarriage rippling with blue magnetic plasma. Its hull is scarred with old graffiti and dotted with shallow bullet dents — signs of a hard-used city life rather than danger.
As I step inside, the cabin glass flickers and takes my retinal scan in an instant. [IDENTIFIED: EDDY MURPHY. ID: GREEN TAG CIVILIAN. SCAN CLEAR.]
My HUD blinks with a notification as one neon is deducted from my account. I move down the aisle and take a standing spot near the rear hatch, staring out through the glass at the shimmering lights of my sector as the skimmer tears past them at insane speed.
A newsfeed streams silently across the interior cabin display, discussing matters far beyond my understanding — something about orbital systems circling Vector Prime. All of a sudden, the feed glitches and shifts to another channel. A smooth synthetic voice replaces the muted chatter.
[This is a Level-One Emergency Broadcast.]
[It is confirmed that Dr. Ellion Meris has been assassinated.]
Dr. Ellion… who is he? I have never heard of him, I think.
The AI voice continues.
[Dr. Ellion Meris was a distinguished member of the Federation of M.E.N. and a prominent figure in both the scientific world and the wider Vector Prime community. He was one of the last known survivors of Old Earth and among the forty-one scientists who successfully unlocked the cellular lock on human aging, ushering in the era of caste-bound immortality. At the time of his death, he was just six hundred and forty-five years old.]
The words hit harder than I expected. Someone actually killed a White Tag.
In Vector Prime, every individual is assigned a Color-Tag that serves as both identity and destiny. It is mostly decided by the level we are born into. White Tags stand at the top — the ruling elite of the city. They live on the highest levels, where real sunlight, clean air, genetically engineered bodies, and near-endless longevity are simply part of everyday life. Beneath them come the Golds, the Violets, and the Blues, each tier holding its own measure of privilege and control. At the bottom of the recognized order are the Green Tags — the labor class. That is where I belong.
There are other tags as well. Reds are branded criminals, while Blacks are exiled from the system entirely — categories most citizens pretend do not exist.
The broadcast continues, cold and steady.
[Citywatch officials discovered his body in his penthouse residence late last night at approximately 03:00. The exact circumstances of his death remain undisclosed. However, early rumors suggest the assassination may be linked to the notorious extremist group known as the Sons of Liberty.]
The Sons of Liberty. I have heard of them. They are supposed to be a loose band of hot-blooded youngsters who claim to oppose the government and the White Tags authority. Usually, their actions amount to little more than scattered skirmishes with Citywatch patrols in the lower and Mid levels. There are many such extremist groups drifting through the city's shadows, loud in their anger but small in their reach. I never imagined any of them would make it all the way to the upper tiers — let alone carry out the assassination of a renowned White Tag.
[In response to this tragic event, High Chancellor Victor Armand Blackgate has issued an official statement.]
A wave of murmurs runs through the skimmer. Everyone in Vector Prime knows who Victor Armand Blackgate is. His name and face are everywhere — flashing across newsfeeds, carved into statues in city centers, printed on posters in stations and public squares. He is the High Chancellor of Vector Prime, a White Tag who has ruled this vast, suffocating city for centuries. But he rarely speaks in public. If he is appearing now, then this is far bigger than I first think.
I open the newsfeed on my HUD for a clearer view. A tall, strikingly handsome man who looks no older than his twenties steps forward. His eyes are a pale, unsettling grey, and his hair is impossibly white. He wears a flowing cloak of unfamiliar fabric, luminous and pristine. His skin is smooth and alabaster, almost glowing beneath the real sunlight of the First Level as he moves onto the platform. The moment I see him, I recognize exactly who he is.
[My dear citizens of Vector Prime,] he says.
[I am your High Chancellor, Victor Armand Blackgate. Today marks one of the saddest days in the history of our great city. As you are aware, our beloved Dr. Ellion Meris has been assassinated by a terrorist faction known as the Sons of Liberty.]
He pauses, his expression tightening with controlled grief.
[Dr. Ellion Meris was not only a pillar of our scientific community — he was also a dear friend. I have known him for a very long time. Together, we helped lay the foundations of the civilization you see around you today.] His voice softens, and for a moment, his eyes glisten under the bright light. [He worked tirelessly to improve our society, to raise the standard of living for citizens across every level of Vector Prime. Because of his relentless dedication and cooperation, this city has become a beacon of human endurance and progress.]
He straightens, his tone hardening.
[His loss is not only a loss to Vector Prime — it is a loss to the future of human civilization itself. I, Victor Armand Blackgate, swear before every citizen that this act will not go unanswered. Let it be known to those who hide behind terror and chaos: such violence will never weaken my resolve to secure a better future for our people. Those responsible for this cowardly assassination will be found, and they will be brought to absolute justice.]
He lifts his gaze, as if looking beyond the camera.
[The safety and stability of my citizens — across every level of this great city — will always remain my highest priority. I will not rest until every individual who threatens that peace is found and brought to justice.]