The neon lights of Neo-Los Angeles flickered like dying stars struggling to maintain their brilliance against the oppressive darkness of the megacity. It was twilight—a dissonant symphony of electric blues and acid greens intertwined with the acrid smells of unregulated industry. I could feel the tendrils of my own anger weaving through the underbelly of my mind, each pulse a reminder of why I was still alive, why the world had become a series of blinking screens and cold, metallic alleys.
What had once been a thriving center of scientific discovery had devolved into a battlefield of profit margins and moral decay. The corporations, the so-called titans of innovation, now suffocated the last breaths of genuine progress beneath the weight of their greed. I used to believe in the quest for knowledge, in the promise of science to deliver us from our vices. But that was before they took everything from me.
I was trained as a bioengineering prodigy, one of the few permitted to tread the narrow corridors of NeuHolovus Research Labs, where ambition fused with RNA strands to create living miracles. We were promising to tame the genetic code itself, to create a human that could withstand the ravages of this polluted world. I could still picture those sterile white walls, the glowing blue maps of DNA sequences projected like ethereal stars on the floor, casting long shadows of the people around me.
And then there was her. My sister, Mira. Bright-eyed and curious, she shared my fervor for discovery; she was the antidote to my bitterness. Together we planned to unlock the key to human immortality, to resurrect the lost souls languishing in the cypher of life and death. But dreams, like all precious things, are fragile. They couldn’t survive the greed of corporate behemoths swallowing our research, stripping it bare, feeding off the bones of our aspirations.
When they took Mira, I realized that human life was just collateral in their relentless pursuit of profit. The boardroom decisions that echoed through the glass skyscrapers caused reverberations in the streets below—Mira was marked for data harvesting, to extract the very essence of her being for profit, an experiment spun into an unholy alliance with the world’s most wicked corporate players.
All that remained of my once-illuminated future was a burning lust for revenge. I became a ghost in the machine, a specter wading through the digital sludge of controlled chaos. My existence morphed into something unrecognizable, a wraith haunting the back alleys where the fringes of society converged. I simmered in the covert bars that reeked of burnt circuitry and cheap augments, each drink a bitter reminder. They thought they could bury me beneath the weight of their sins, but I was merely gathering shadows, gathering strength.
I dived into the underworld, where disappearing was merely a glitch in the system. I sought out the renegades, hackers, and scientists who had grown disillusioned with the powerful. They called themselves the Guttered Ones—a name fashioned from the very filth that bloomed in the cracks of their forsaken lives. By collaborating with them, I could distill revenge from the fangs of my anguish.
It began with manipulation, the same disassembly they had used on Mira. I learned to break their codes, dismantle their firewalls. In the flickering glow of blue holograms, I siphoned corporate secrets, data that would shake the foundations of the conglomerates who thought themselves untouchable. Each stolen fragment of information was a twisted gift, a weapon I could use against them. I memorized their systems, ingested their protocols, voracious and relentless, a predator stalking its prey.
My revenge took form when I crafted a virus—a digital parasite that would infect their networks. It spread slowly at first, an insidious whisper creeping through the veins of corporate architecture. I watched as they scurried to silence it, unaware that I was already inside their sanctums, hidden in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
As the virus executed its final command, I allowed myself a moment of triumph. The shimmering skyline of the city morphed into chaos; the brilliance of their digital security turned to glowing embers. The images of their panic fed my resolve. There, at the epicenter of their collapse, was the nefarious CEO of NeoGen Corp: Calder Hawthorne, the coward who had orchestrated Mira’s abduction.
As I moved to confront him, the air crackled with the remnants of my creation—an electric beauty forged from despair and vengeance. I slipped through a backdoor into a private gala, masked beneath the glamor of unearned wealth. The opulence reflected the emptiness of their hearts. I toyed with the idea of retribution—how easily the suit-clad could become shattered porcelain when confronted with their own humanity.
Hawthorne was surrounded by sycophants, all smiling with the same fixed, hollow gaze. I approached, the crowd parting as if repelled by the repugnant weight of my purpose. He glanced up, his expression morphing from disdain to confusion, and finally to fear as he recognized my visage.
“Who the hell are you?” he spat, backpedaling.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m the ghost of your past, Calder. The sister you chose to silence.”
He tried to regain composure, but it was too late. With one flick of my wrist, the screens surrounding us burst to life, revealing images of the experiments he’d conducted, the corpses left behind in the name of progress. The room erupted into chaos; glasses shattered, laughter turned to screams echoing against the glass walls as the reality of his cruelty came crashing down.
I stood tall, a beacon amidst the disarray. “You harvested her dreams, Calder. You thought you could bury that truth beneath layers of corporate power.” My voice was calm, almost melodic, despite the storm brewing around me. “But I’m here to show you the consequences of your insatiable greed.”
As the audience pulled back, I confronted him with the conviction born from loss and betrayal. The heart of corporate corruption stood there, trapped in the web of his own lies, and I reveled in it. I imagined Mira’s face and felt her light coursing through my veins, pushing me forward when his words dripped with hollow promises. “You’ll ruin your own life, you don’t know what you’re doing,” he pleaded, desperation lining his voice.
But I was finished with empty threats. With a simple code run through my neural interface, I triggered the final sequence of my virus, infecting not just his corporate systems but his mind. What was once a sanctuary of avarice warped into a labyrinth of haunting realities. Images of those he had hurt plagued him, scrambling his very consciousness.
The world flickered, a cascade of shattered glass and neon bleeding out into the inky night. I stepped back, watching as he fell, a once-mighty titan brought low by the very hubris that had elevated him. My heart thumped fiercely in my chest—a pulse entwined with the chaos around me.
Leaving behind a crumbling empire, I stepped into the shadows, ready to embrace the uncertain, ready to become something both human and beyond. The lines between morality and vengeance blurred as I walked the streets of Neo-Los Angeles, a ghost still haunted, but no longer shackled by the chains of regret.
In this city of broken dreams, where science had lost its way, I had found my purpose—not just in revenge, but in reshaping the very fabric of reality. As the neon lights flickered above, illuminating the jagged paths I had yet to tread, I began to understand: it was not the end I sought, but the dawn of something new.
Author: Opney. Illustrator: Stab. Publisher: Cyber.
