YEAR: 2027
Jayson Bernal Vargas was three years old when the capture drones first descended upon Manila.
First came the wall of sound—a humming vortex like a million locusts. Seven Airbus A600M Atlas turboprop transport planes buzzed low over Metro Manila, flying close enough to clip the skyscrapers' antennae.
Their cargo holds yawned open, spilling black shapes like torrents of oil over the city. As they fell, the shapes fragmented into thousands of drones—some as small as basketballs, others large enough to crush eighteen-wheelers. Humanoid, dog-like, or entirely alien, each drone trained its digital eyes and ears on Manila.
Kenneth Vargas felt his son’s small fingers tighten around his wrist, warm and trembling. “To think," he murmured, "we ran out of ideas. No—the West ran out. No! The whole world ran out, except for us.” He hoisted Jayson higher like he was Jesus Christ or Simba, as if his son could tell the difference between the falling shapes. “And they are so confident they will find inspiration here?”
Jayson Bernal Vargas heard none of his father’s words, nor the hum of engines, the honking car horns across the Pasig River, or the excited chatter around them. Jayson Bernal Vargas, perhaps weighed down by the obligations he would one day carry, turned down to the river itself.
Kenneth felt the child’s heart beating. “Look, anak,” Kenneth said, using the Tagalog word for child. He pointed. “Suno in the Pasig. You had to go to Palawan for those.”
The suno, a red leopard coral grouper—though no native Filipino ever called it that—poked its head above the waters, shaded by mangroves whose roots twisted like ancient fingers reclaiming the land. Children in flip-flops with fishing rods on their backs stepped into the waters, splashed it on their faces, and drank. For once, they could.
Crowds swarmed the walls of Fort Santiago in Intramuros, the ancient stone and brickwork bathed in the glow of pink and purple neon from the skyscrapers across the Pasig. Gleaming forty-floor hotels and casinos mirrored back, alongside the imposing headquarters of HSBC, Google, Tesla, and Amazon. It was all a reminder of the Philippines resurging as the Pearl of the Orient, a catchphrase Southeast Asian influencers and Pinoy news outlets reclaimed.
All of this would have been impossible without one thing: The Inspiration Convergence.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
The streaming giants had grown from their modest Netflix and Amazon Prime roots to achieving market caps in the trillions, exceeding even the decades-old tech giants. Metamatics, Delta Reel, Sugoi Soiree, Intervid, Distro Premiere, Seoul Crystal Studios, and hundreds more became household names. Their R&D spending grew, quickly outpacing biotech, agriculture, and pharmaceuticals.
But the Giants soon became their own obstacle.
Despite AI actors, virtual set designs, and endless content engines, originality became the bottleneck. The Giants scoured bookshelves, libraries, and websites like Wattpad and Royal Road for new tales, but the flow of fresh ideas slowed to a trickle.
So, the Giants opened a bidding war to one lucky city. The prize? The Giants would invest in your infrastructure, building schools, hospitals, roads, and public transit routes. They would seed cultural and technological innovation, too. The cost? Allowing your citizens to be observed by thousands of capture drones, whose daily lives would be analyzed and extrapolated to inspire new television series. Their conversations, interactions, and ways of life would be surveilled. In other words, fictional guinea pigs.
But Jayson’s was a boy staring at the fishes in the Pasig. None of this was even a footnote in his mind.
Kenneth pulled his son closer, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Your mother would have made us watch from home,” he said softly. “‘Let them come to us,’ she’d say, ‘for we have many stories to tell.’” He gently poked Jayson’s nose, a faint smile playing on his lips. “But we would’ve come here anyway, wouldn’t we?”
The Grab and Angkas rideshare cars on the other side of the Pasig had long since disengaged their fleet modes, allowing their passengers five minutes to step outside and witness the historic event. Every phone in the city seemed dormant in pockets, every engine slumbering.
“Your fellow Filipinos hold their breaths,” uttered Kenneth to his son.
Applause erupted from every soul in the city. Jayson raised his hands, too, swept up by the sight and sound of his countrymen. Kenneth watched him, a pang of unease settling in his chest. Had his son been older, Kenneth hoped he would have thought twice about cheering.
The drones ignited their propellers and thruster engines and zoomed throughout the city, squadrons and swarms flying low and whooshing over the crowd gathering on the walls of Intramuros. The onlookers snapped pictures, recorded Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts, and posed for their selfie drones.
Kenneth could have joined the social media celebrations, but he didn’t. His mind churned elsewhere, laying the groundwork for what was to come.
Kenneth cradled his son’s head and whispered, “They won’t find inspiration here, anak. They won’t find anything.” He poked Jayson’s cheek, making the boy squirm. “But you, my son—you’ll find everything.”