Beneath New Century

The city of New Century never slept. It pulsed. Above, its towers shimmered in layered neon—pinks, greens, deep ultraviolet blues only visible to the enhanced. Highways floated through the air like snakes of glass. Drones zipped past synthetic billboards that whispered directly into your mind. And every man, woman, and child walked with power at their fingertips, humming quietly under their skin. That power came from a needle. One injection of Vita-Boost, and your DNA rewrote itself. One more, and you could fly. Another, and you could split a building in half with a scream. Each dose a new layer of godhood. Each vial more expensive than the last. But far beneath the radiance, where the light never reached, there was a place they called the Heap. The Heap was not just a slum—it was a graveyard of the old world. A sprawling landfill fused with the bones of forgotten neighborhoods. Towers of trash formed makeshift homes. Biohazard sludge steamed in alleyways. Rats the size of cats hunted in packs. No one injected Vita here. No one lived long enough to afford it. This was where Nolan Vale Covington was born. He was twenty-four now. Lean, sharp-eyed, wiry as copper wire, with calloused hands that smelled of solder and rust. He lived in a metal pod barely larger than a coffin, bolted between the remains of a collapsed satellite dish and a tangle of scaffolding. Above him, machines hummed with the waste of the rich. Below, the sick moaned. He didn’t have a power. Never did. And unlike most in the Heap, he’d stopped dreaming of one. That morning, Nolan crouched beside a boiling drum of acid, prying open a disassembled air filter with a bent screwdriver. His hands moved on instinct, stripping wires, sorting scrap. The only sound was the distant thump of a noble’s transport ship overhead and the occasional wet cough from inside the pod behind him. His mother was dying. Everyone was, but hers was worse—black veins crawling from beneath the skin, her breath sharp like metal. The doctors called it Synthetic Exposure Syndrome, whispered as “S.E.S.”—but it was really just what happened when too much of New Century’s trash leaked into your lungs. The Heap was poisoned, and the city didn't care. Nolan pulled a broken panel from the filter core and flinched. Inside was a slick film of something green and pulsing, almost alive. Toxigenic gel. Probably illegal. Definitely dumped from above. He wiped his hands on a rag, blinked, and stared up at the glowing sky dome that shielded the upper city. There was no sun in New Century. Light was artificial, controlled, purified for the rich. The Heap got the runoff—shadow, flicker, and the occasional false dawn. Footsteps crunched behind him. “You’re up early.” It was Rill, a boy of maybe fifteen, skin sallow, lips cracked. One arm was mechanical—probably stolen tech, rusted at the joints. “Mother’s fever rose last night,” Nolan said without looking back. “I need coolant credits. Maybe med-strips. Maybe…” “You won’t find a cure down here.” Rill’s voice was flat. “You know that.” Nolan didn’t answer. He tightened a bolt, tucked the stripped wires into his satchel, and stood. His eyes were tired, but they didn’t shake. The only place left with clean medicine was the upper sector—Sector Zero, home of the nobles. The ones who never aged. The ones who never got sick. The ones whose trash was killing his mother. That night, Nolan stood at the Heap’s perimeter—where the garbage sloped up like a man-made mountain. The top shimmered with electrical fencing and drone patrols. Beyond that, clean air. Clean water. And in one corner of the map he’d stolen from a passing courier drone: a biotech recycling plant. SYNA-FAC #6. Rumors said it repurposed discarded serums from noble houses. Rumors said guards barely watched the lower floors. Rumors said some of the medicine was still usable. It was suicide. It was theft. It was his only shot. Nolan slipped on his rebreather mask, pulled his hood low, and began to climb the mountain of trash—into the artificial stars above.