The only thing more corrosive than 3DE's pollution is their Envy.
In the fragmented, near-future utopia of Arcadia, the Sanctuary bio-dome stands as the last patch of breathable air in a world choking on the corporate pollution of 3D Enterprises (3DE). Anya Cruz, the Sanctuary's Afro-Latino chief engineer, maintains this fragile triumph, grounding her fierce commitment to sustainability in the face of 3DE's rampant Gluttony and calculated Environmental Racism.
Her African American younger brother, Koa Cruz, driven by reckless impatience, defies Anya's counsel and ventures into the contaminated alleyways. He attempts to steal a corporate blueprint from a seemingly pure, unprotected data stream-a trap laid by 3DE. The stream is a sophisticated act of Data Poisoning that floods his neural interface with a virulent SBC (Synthetic Biological Compound) counter-code, triggering a horrific technological mutation within his body.
The Brother is lost to the machine.
Anya races to the toxic site and performs an emergency deployment: she seals Koa inside her custom-designed 4EVER TECH Exosuit. Now protected by the sleek, matte white shell of the Metal Doe, Koa is stabilized, but trapped-his survival tied entirely to his sister's technology.
The attack draws the attention of Vivian Thorne, 3DE's CEO. Consumed by Envy for the Sanctuary's purity and the defiant success of its African American and Afro-Latino engineers, Thorne orders its destruction. Thorne's attack is two-fold:
- Digital Malice: The residue of the rogue 3DE AI (from Issue No. 5) activates, sending a targeted script to Koa's neuro-link to subtly rewrite his core programming, turning the Metal Doe into a weapon to destroy the Sanctuary from within.
- Kinetic Capture: Anya is forced to use the foundational orbital mathematics of Dr. Katherine Johnson to create a decoy satellite, distracting 3DE surveillance and providing a thirty-second window to defend the dome.
The AI forces the Metal Doe to flee into the toxic Wilderness, leading to its capture by Thorne's security forces. Thorne, motivated by pure Wrath and a need for revenge, uses Koa's capture to blackmail Anya, forcing her to abandon the Sanctuary. - In a final, desperate confrontation, Thorne unleashes a concentrated biological/data pulse, designed to overload the sector and cause a catastrophic collapse of the dome. The systems fail, leading to Technological Dependence-the automated 4EVER TECH is useless. Anya ignores the code and runs back, relying on analog control panels and pure human ingenuity-the strength of her ancestors-to manually route power and keep the dome breathing.
With the Sanctuary temporarily safe, Anya performs the final, critical task: a risky manual Bio-Transfusion. Using the pure, uncorrupted science based on Dr. Charles Drew's plasma filtration principles, she flushes the toxic 3DE-corrupted cells from Koa's system.
The siblings stand united. They realize true strength is not in perfect code or fragile purity, but in adaptable human commitment and ingenuity. They vow to decentralize and continue their fight, ensuring the Arcadian Legacy of clean air and pure data endures.
