Prologue

My father taught me everything I would need to know.

Truth was, I never knew what I was in for.

After years of training, I concluded the final combat assessment without so much as a sweat. My father was there to congratulate me. Despite how far technology had come and how much times had changed, he always measured my performance to where he was at my age. Although I had finally come to surpass his expectations, he was quick to remark how I still fell short of his own father, Grandfather.

Being the son of the City’s Founder, my father was more than proud to be appointed as head of its police force. Even as the City began to fall apart following the uprising of its incarcerates, he tended to the needs of its citizens. As the City's infrastructure was left neglected from their strikes, the population fought over basic necessities. To alleviate the need for water, my father and his force began excursions to the Outside. One day, ambushed and forced to watch their hard work dumped onto the pavement to run down the drain, my father urged Grandfather and his council to devise an evacuation plan in hopes to salvage what remained.

I was born in the first shelter erected Outside. Although Grandfather had been present then, he was absent forever after, as he soon left to retrieve something from the City but failed to return. Haunted, my father vowed he would train me to return to Grandfather's City to find him.