Prologue: 2047
“The Ultimate Dive”
Twenty point three billion heartbeats. Twenty point three billion mouths breathing recycled air. Twenty point three billion souls crammed into cities that ceased to be habitable a decade ago. To most, these numbers had lost all meaning. How can you grasp a figure so vast when you're focused on counting the water droplets in your family's weekly ration? When each precious drop means the difference between life and death?
In New York's Tower District, people were stacked in fifty-story housing blocks, resembling piles of forgotten cargo. The fortunate ones secured six-by-three sleep cubicles near air-cycling vents. The less fortunate suffocated slowly in central units, where the air moved thick as soup and tasted of copper. At night, the sound of twenty million people inhaling within their boxes rose up the towers, echoing the rasping wheeze of a dying giant. Each breath a reminder of survival, each exhale a countdown to morning.
Alex had always thought of himself as a survivor. He remembered days when he could look out from his apartment and see a skyline, not just crumbling concrete and desperation. But now, as he stood in line for rationed water, he felt hopelessness pressing down on him with the weight of a leaden blanket. His younger sister, Lily, lay in their shared cubicle, her small body frail and weak, battling a sickness that no amount of rationed medicine could cure. The thought of her suffering gnawed at him, and he'd already gone three days without a sip of water, sacrificing his share so she could have a little more. Each passing hour carved deeper lines of thirst across his consciousness.
He'd heard whispers of the Deep Levels in Mumbai, where a hundred and fifty million bodies were pressed together in underground warrens that stretched thirty stories down. Rumor had it that entire levels fell silent, leaving behind empty boxes filled with desiccated remains. No one asked what happened; everyone already knew. The silence spoke volumes enough.
Rationing began with water. Simple enough: this many people, this many liters. Basic mathematics of survival. But numbers provide little solace when your sister's cries echo in your mind, and you know you're powerless to change fate. Ask Dr. Sarah Martinez at Detroit Metropolitan Hospital—she hit her water limit at 10 AM last Tuesday. She performed three more surgeries anyway, her throat so dry she could hear it click with each swallow. When asked how she managed, she just laughed, the sound harsh and grating like broken glass.
Today, they rationed everything: food, medicine, living space, even air in the deepest levels of the megalopolises. Each person received their allocation, measured down to the milliliter, the calorie, the cubic meter. It was all very scientific. Very precise. Very lethal. Every breath counted, every morsel weighed, every drop measured against survival.
The Global Resource Council's announcement surprised no one with its content, only its timing: total systemic collapse within five years. Even with maximum rationing, humanity had less than a decade before the planet's support systems failed completely. The population grew by nearly a billion each year while resources dwindled like water circling a drain. Simple math, they said: fourteen billion must die for the remaining six billion to have any chance. The numbers hung in the air like a death sentence.
Then came NeuroTech Solutions with their proposal: a reverse lottery, they called it.
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As Alex stood in the ration line, an old, flickering screen embedded in the wall crackled to life. The colors were too bright, the music too cheerful—both felt obscene against the decay around him. WELCOME TO THE ULTIMATE DIVE: HUMANITY’S NEXT EVOLUTION. The ad played a montage of rolling green landscapes, crystal-clear rivers, and endless blue skies. A city of golden towers stretched across the horizon, filled with laughing people—healthy, whole, untouched by hunger. Warriors clashed in dazzling combat, mages wove light into impossible shapes, explorers stood atop snow-capped peaks, gazing over new digital frontiers. The Ultimate Escape. The Ultimate Adventure. The Ultimate Second Chance.
The line stiffened, tension crackling through the bodies like static. Someone ahead of Alex barked out a sharp, lifeless laugh. “My cousin signed up last month,” the man muttered. “Said it was paradise.”
Alex didn’t respond. He just watched. He felt the weight of his own breath in his lungs, the dry burn of his throat. His stomach gnawed at itself, a hollow void clawing for sustenance. The spit dripped down the screen, warping the smiling warrior into something grotesque. It was a lie, of course. But a beautiful one. A game, of all things, using technology most had only heard whispered about in tech sectors. Virtual reality, they claimed, though the concept felt like science fiction to a population more concerned with finding their next meal than understanding digital realms.
Alex couldn't shake the feeling that this was a cruel game of chance. He knew the odds; the math was clear. Less than one percent could possibly survive, even if every player worked together. And humans being human, cooperation was as likely as rain in the Deep Levels. Yet here he was, contemplating the unthinkable: entering the game, playing a role in this digital spectacle of despair and false hope. Each moment of indecision weighed heavier than the last.
The premise was simple: volunteer to play, and you might win anything you desire. But the truth lurked beneath the promise like a shark beneath still water—this was population control dressed in neon and digital dreams. They were calling them "pods"—the coffin-sized units where players would lie while their minds navigated digital worlds and their bodies slowly shut down. Millions were being installed in repurposed warehouses and abandoned industrial complexes. Yesterday, a mother in Singapore stood motionless in line, clutching her child’s skeletal wrist as they awaited processing. When asked why, she only smiled, her lips cracked and dry. "Better to die dreaming of victory than watching my children starve."
Alex thought of Lily, of the desperate hope that had driven people to such lengths. He felt the sharp edge of fear and sorrow cutting through his mind. Would this be his escape, or simply another layer of shackles? He pondered whether it was better to face death in the real world or to chase a fleeting illusion in a digital realm. Lily's labored breathing from their cubicle answered more clearly than words ever could.
Some would enter seeking glory. Others just desired a quicker end than what rationing offered. The wise ones knew it didn't matter—dead was dead, whether it came in a pod or a sleep cubicle. But hope is a funny thing; it can sprout in the cracks of even the most hopeless mathematics. Like weeds through concrete, it persisted.
In a month, the first wave would enter the game. Millions of souls trading one kind of box for another, chasing that fraction of a percent chance at salvation. In the Tower Districts and the Deep Levels, people gathered around allocation terminals to watch. They called it brave. They called it necessary. They called it a sacrifice for humanity's future. The words echoed hollow in crowded corridors.
Alex knew better. No one called it what it was: the largest mass suicide in human history, disguised in circuits and light. But it was the only chance they had. The only hope left in a world of measured breaths and counted droplets.
In Singapore's processing centers, hastily converted from luxury hotels, the once-opulent lobbies now held the same desperate masses as Mumbai's makeshift warehouses. New York's facilities, stripped of their former grandeur, processed former Wall Street executives alongside factory workers. The trappings of wealth had become meaningless trinkets in humanity's final hours. Each city's approach differed, but desperation spoke a universal language. The language of survival, of hope, of last chances taken in the dark.