Setting the Stage

The sky over the city was still pitch-black, even at five in the morning, with forty-five minutes to sunup and a clear sky. They made their way to a parking garage downtown, a few blocks from the scaffold-ridden visage of the Megaspire, with forged security passes and cheap drone-stunners, clambering over bulkheads and sneaking up stairs. The equipment, covered in a blue tarp, was waved through by a bribed security guard - the last visible relic of humanity on the complex. They unpacked the parts on the concrete, a floor below the roof, and gleefully hooked them onto the walls of the parking garage. They were ready.

They were criminals, all of them, and even the few who hadn’t broken any laws beforehand would do so that day. The greener members exited the scene the same way they came, leaving five motley veterans at the van.

The leader, an old man in a dark suit, retrieved a bottle of bourbon and five plastic cups from the van. The veterans poured their drinks, and the leader made a toast:

“To technology!”