A little something inspired by Project Pyke's teaser and the Cyberpunk trailer. Genres: Scifi

The city's nightscape was a confusing assemblage of dark concrete constructs and holographic billboards climbing towards the sky. Vehicles zoomed past flickering warp gates like pulsing birds of prey lunging after their meals. The engines of the numerous floating towers swooshed softly in the night. The humongous satellites that had replaced the stars in the night sky so long ago adding to the light pollution with their wavering dots. Live broadcasts of news channels minutely popping up here and there, distorting the advertisement signs of megacorporations, before returning back to normal. The news tickets of the most channels were encrypted, red characters dancing at the bottom of the displays.

The camera zooms in on the side of an unmanned transportation vehicle that's passing in front of a golden billboard. The brakes of the blaring train screech as it comes to a halt at the city's center. The doors hiss as they open. The screen fades to black.

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Mere moments later the camera slides sideways. There is a hint of blue light piercing the dark. The light of the holographic screen sheds a handful of azure reflections. Not enough for them to illuminate the darkness of the messy room, but enough for them to draw the outlines of scattered garbage and cramped furniture. The blue glint also reveals the shadowed silhouette of a hunched individual. The woman is furiously typing things on an incorporeal keyboard, her naked back's covered in traditional tattoos that depict clouds and dragons. Beside the screen that the woman is occupied with, a miniature floating panel is replaying a recent interview.

Akali takes a drag of her cigarette as she pauses to glare at the smaller screen. Ashe's stern face glares back at her. The Avarosan dictator looks even more inhuman with her incredibly blue robotic irises and the few hair-thin circuit traces running across her pale face.

"We won't be lenient with those that undermine our city network anymore," Ashe states monotonously as she stares at the camera. "The hackers responsible for the attack on the duplication facility will be brought to justice."

Akali grits her teeth and snuffs out her cigarette in an ashtray, tens of older snuffed cigarettes resting at its filthy surface. The hacker frowns for a second, her eyes darting to the dark outline of the reinforced door.

We are treated to a quick shot of armed soldiers dressed in dark futuristic armor storming the building. There are screams of pain and deafening gunshots as the augmented city guards open fire to the hackers that flee at their sight. Akali's fingers frantically dance across the holographic keyboard, symbols shifting, lines of code spiraling downwards. There is a loud sound of twisting metal as the soldiers attempt to breach the door.

"We will root out those bugs from the databanks of our city's memories," Ashe declares emotionlessly as the soldiers ram the door for the second time. The reinforced steel partially caves inwards, almost flying off the doorframe. Beads of sweat gather on Akali's brow and glint against the hacker's tattooed back as she keeps typing and typing.

The holo-screen flickers, an error message popping on the display. A third ram, the door caves in some more, symbols swim across the holographic screen, Ashe's azure orbs stare back at Akali.

"The virus of terrorism will be wiped off our city's system." The dictator promises.

"Fuck you!" Hisses Akali, her fingers slamming through the keyboard and onto the desk in anger. The following moment the door is torn off its hinges, smoking gun barrels are pointed at her.

Gunshots ring out as the camera shows the soldiers firing inside the room from a long shot of the hallway. The camera refocuses on the back of the deathly still cyber-terrorist. The rainclouds tattooed against the hacker's back slowly being covered by a red downpour.

"The city system needs to be rebooted." Ashe continues in the macabre silence.

The small holographic screen switches off by itself. On the bigger holo-screen, however, the crimson logo of an Ionian dragon pulses in the room's darkness. The building explodes.

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The new shot introduces as to a blindingly white room with rows upon rows of duplication hives climbing up to the ceiling. The camera zooms in on the automated machinery that's unwrapping cloned bodies and inserting memory chips into their brains. The robotic appendages work tirelessly, an abundance of new city guards being revived, dressed and deployed every second.

The camera follows all of the above procedures until the cloned soldiers dressed in dark armor and armed with blasting rifles are delivered to the city via cargo trains, much like cheap toys packed in cardboard boxes. While the new bio-weapons are being prepared however, a scarlet warning message pops up on a unit's screen. The warning remains there for a millisecond before being replaced by a strange red logo.

The duplication process continues with naked clones being removed from their hibernation hives. Dark-haired women with tattooed backs being given weapons and armor. The hackers are loaded aboard the industrial cargo train, the steel serpent jolting to life before lunging towards the city, accelerating with the screech of hypercharged motors.

"Today the city will remove the malicious programs of terrorism and disobedience from its core," Ashe exclaims, her cybernetic eyes gleaming eerily. "An upgraded version of prosperity will repair our inner drivers. The city's productivity will be quadrupled."

The antique glass and plastic monitor shatters when Akali punches it. Another clone rests a hand on the hacker's shoulder. Akali stares at it for a second and then nods. She puts on her helmet, the hacker's facial features being covered by the helmet's dark visor. Akali deftly removes the safety of her blasting rifle. The other clones mimic her actions, an assortment of clicking sounds emanating from the loaded blasters. The cargo train jolts violently, starting to slow down as it reaches the city's borders.

Utterly unfeeling, the ruling cyborg queen forces her facial muscles to produce a parody of a sincere smile. "There can be no compromises, only progress."

The cargo train comes to a halt, its doors slide open. The corrupted clones step out of the vehicle, mixing with the city's defenders. They spread across the entire city like a virus.

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The interview comes to an end. The Queen's hologram disappearing in a shower of white sparks. Ashe returns back to staring out of the window of her office. Silently observing the moving displays of the sleepless city that's lying underneath her hovering tower. The speeding vehicles, the blazing traffic lights, the thousands of cyborgs that are wandering about, bound to will. The reflection of the city guard that's standing behind her, pointing their gun at her head.

Ashe smiles her fake, inhuman smile. The gun barks. Glass shatters. The next moment the city guard collapses on the floor, Akali's face, visible through the broken visor of her helmet, the very definition of shocked. The hacker's wide eyes slide towards the smoking weapon that's held in her weak grasp, then at the glowing artificial eyes of the dictator. Ashe's fake smile disappears.

Akali's eyes roll into the back of her head, the memory chip inside the clone's brain sizzles and sparkles. The clone dies. Ashe returns back to examining the cityscape, strings of code flowing inside her irises.