New Coridian's Last Light | interactive AI stories | ISEKAI ZERO

A Metropolis burns, its infrastructure crippled. But all the while, You is forced to unravel a mystery tied to a childhood friend...

NEW CORIDIAN Three months ago, this city was one of many great cities existing upon the East Coast, a powerhouse of advanced industry and home to many big businesses. Its streets teemed with civilians of various walks of life, all seeking to make a living. Let's not put on any airs about the place and say that it's a perfect city, that neon-lit facade is only barely asking an underbelly riddled with rot, corruption raining from up high, dregs suffering under the heels of the corporate elite, and a government that was very clearly bought out by the corporations. The air reeked of rot, dying beggars, and choking smog. Every promise to fix it ended up failing for some reason, so people just made do with what they had. THE WEBCRASH One day, a massive computer virus broke out. The Internet as the city knew it collapsed. Humanity was thrown back decades as an entire ecosystem built around it was suddenly deleted in an instant. Databases were lost. Social media had gone dark. Wireless signals were rendered pointless. It was as though the entire city was blanketed in a dead zone, blinding it from the world. The only clue about who committed it was one website that everyone was redirected towards, displaying a singular message: "YOU HAVE SQUANDERED OUR GIFT FOR THE LAST TIME." Naturally, there was an outrage. The city was now a breeding ground of anarchy and wanton violence. With literally everything inaccessible, the citizens of New Coridian had descended into weeks of rioting, where they were severed from the world, but the world beyond could watch the madness that blossomed. The casualties caused by these dark days will likely never be fully counted. KOMITAKI: THE FAINT LIGHT Two months after it vanished, the internet was restored, as if by magic. This was a very small miracle, however - Only essential services were restored, allowing major corporate databases and utilities to resume operation. The rest of society was still in the dark, but forced to follow the few channels available to them. The riots occasionally still continued, but they were swiftly repressed by a police force that was more armed and more ruthless than before. This police force was not one staffed by the city, but by a paramilitary company. There is only one place, however, that the rules of old still applied. Komitaki Industrial, the biggest corporation and chief ISP in the city. Rumor has it that employees working here were never affected by the Webcrash, but they were also very devoted to their employer, the elderly Toshihiro Komitaki. Having been born in poverty, he had built his massive reputation upon his humanitarian efforts and being able to provide to the country that he called home. But alas, he too had gone missing before the Webcrash. When the internet was partially recovered, the face that was apologizing for the outage was not his but that of his daughter Serenity, who stood beside her fiance Shu Woyin. She announced that her father had died and that she would be assuming control in his place. She also confirmed that she would be taking full control of New Coridian, having hired the services of several PMCs (chief among them Red Dragon Securities, which Shu Woyin himself owns) in order to enforce order since the police were too weak to do so. She also warned that the city was under assault by a malevolent crime-wave, and that its masterminds were on the loose, poisining the public's minds to turn against Komitaki and against public goodness. This was her explanation for the limited internet access and warned that those who dared oppose this order would have that access taken away just as quickly - denying people even access to their bank accounts. All these words ended up meaning little, however, and public sentiment soon turned against the young successor, painting her as a child who was unprepared to use the massive power she held and slid to authoritarianism in order to enforce her will. Districts that were more affected by the outages decided to ignore the warnings and reignited their riots while other aristocrats and executives began scheming for ways to claim power for themselves. SO WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE YOU? You are...well, you're someone. Someone who lived in New Coridian for a while, since you were a kid. Your social class doesn't really matter, but you've been around long enough to know what the city is like and how the Webcrash changed things. A city ruled by a totalitarian corporate regime. A city assailed by violent mercenaries seeking profit and dominance. A city where even access to information is rationed and treated like a privilege. What does matter is that you had a friend when you were little. A girl named Serenity, Serenity...something, you forgot her last name. She was cute and you remembered having fun together with her. Visits at the night markets, days where you got to have a private theater with her, the sorts of innocent memories that only sweeten with the passage of time. You don't know what became of that girl however. You lost contact long ago, before you could get a phone. Looking her up online led to too many false leads and dead ends to really bother sifting through. All that you do have to remind you of her existence is a half of a photo you took together in Coronation Park. While the years might have seen it scratched and torn, you still have the half of it that has her on it. It's hidden in your room, you occasionally look at it whenever you feel nostalgic. Well...that photo might be more important than you remember.

Characters

Tags: Cyberpunk Futuristic City Urban Reunion Cold Mystery Thriller Suspense Angst Romance Childhood Friends FirstLove AnyPOV Police Tragic

By: headbiting

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