Chapter 1: The Precision of a Fall
The sky over New Seattle was a bruised purple, choked by the neon glare of the Upper Sector and the perpetual smog of the Lower. In the year 2042, silence was the most expensive commodity in the world. But inside the McCain household, tucked away in a quiet suburb preserved by ancient atmospheric scrubbers, there was a stillness that felt like prayer.
Six-year-old Carson McCain sat on a stool that was too tall for him, his legs dangling. His eyes were wide, fixed on his father's hands. Arthur McCain was a man of few words, but his fingers spoke a language of absolute certainty. He was currently calibrating a Tier-1 Aether-Tech sensor—a tiny, crystalline component that looked like a shard of frozen light.
"Look closely, Carson," Arthur whispered. The smell of cedarwood from his workbench mixed with the sharp, metallic tang of ozone. "The world thinks a machine is just metal and code. They think power is just a bigger battery. They're wrong."
Arthur picked up a pair of tweezers made of non-conductive ceramic. "Everything has a heart. This sensor, the tree in the garden, even the wind hitting the window. If you find the heart, you find the flow. And if you find the flow, you find the power. Never fight the universe, son. Just find the path it's already taking."
Carson didn't fully understand. To him, the "flow" was just a pretty word. But he watched as his father placed the crystal into the sensor housing. It didn't click; it seemed to melt into place. The machine hummed—a low, melodic vibration that made the hair on Carson's arms stand up.
"Precision is the only truth in a chaotic world," Arthur added, ruffling Carson's hair.
That was the last lesson Carson would ever receive from his father.
Three hours later, the world shattered. It was Carson's seventh birthday. A wrapped box sat on his lap—a gift he would never open. The rain was a torrential downpour, turning the I-5 Skyway into a river of black glass. Arthur was driving, his face calm, while Elena, Carson's mother, sang a soft melody to keep the boy calm.
Then, the "messenger" arrived. A rogue automated freighter, its sensors blinded by a high-frequency solar flare, veered across the median.
There was no time to scream. Carson felt the sensation of weightlessness—a terrifying, stomach-dropping lurch as the car broke through the guardrail. In that eternal second of falling, he saw his father lunge across the seat, wrapping his massive frame around Elena to shield her. He saw his mother reach her hand back toward him, her fingertips inches from his own.
CRUNCH.
The impact was a symphony of tearing metal and breaking glass. The car didn't fly; it fell into the dark abyss of the Lower Sector.
When the emergency droids finally cut through the wreckage, they found a miracle: a seven-year-old boy, miraculously shielded by the reinforced carbon-fiber seat, clutching a blood-stained botany journal.
But the miracle ended at the hospital. Carson's relatives, Uncle Silas and Aunt Martha, didn't arrive with flowers. They arrived with lawyers. Silas, a man with a face like a crumpled paper bag and eyes full of hidden ledgers, spent three days liquidating every asset Arthur McCain had ever owned. He sold the house, the patents, and the life insurance policies to the Solaris Hegemony for a fraction of their worth.
On the fourth day, Silas drove Carson to the central transit hub. The rain was still falling, colder now.
"Listen, kid," Silas said, not even looking at the boy. He tossed a tattered backpack onto the wet pavement. "The world is a hard place. It doesn't owe you a seat at the table just because your parents were smart. You're a debt I can't afford to pay. Consider this your first lesson in reality."
Silas drove away, his luxury sedan splashing muddy water onto Carson's only pair of shoes. Inside the bag were the only things the lawyers couldn't sell: his mother's handwritten journals on ancient alchemical plants and his father's rusted, Tier-1 multi-tool.
Carson stood alone amidst the sea of commuters, a seven-year-old orphan in a city that didn't care if he lived or died. He looked at the multi-tool in his hand, feeling its "heart." It was cold. It was broken.
Just like him.