17-AUG-2034 | 20:03

  United West African Republic | Port City (District 1A)

  Torrential rain hammered the asphalt-saturated earth. This was Port City—the neon-drenched evolution of what was once Lagos. Above the flood, holographic billboards flickered with the promise of the "West African Dream," advertising the latest in AI companions and synthetic fashions. To the media, it was a utopia of 98% urban density. To those on the pavement, it was a labyrinth of steel, noise, and relentless industry.

  The dream ended at the yellow glow of the police tape.

  Automated response bots had already cordoned off the sector. Fejiro, Head Paramedic of Response Bus 2321, stepped through the perimeter. The scene was atypically clean. Forensic drones hovered in the downpour, their blue scanners cutting through the dark to map the body.

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  "Single entry wound," a technician noted, the report syncing to Fejiro’s handheld. "Clean puncture. No signs of a struggle."

  Fejiro knelt closer. The victim hadn't been a casualty of the city’s usual chaotic violence. There was one precise, calculated opening in the chest, but the surrounding tissue was carbonized—classic signs of high-voltage internal trauma. It was as if the heart had been short-circuited at the moment of impact.

  There were no witnesses. In a city of millions, the street had been a vacuum.

  Fejiro felt his pulse thrumming in his ears. The ambient noise of the city—the bass from distant clubs, the hum of the drones—began to fade into a hollow roar. As the technicians engaged the seal on the body bag, a jagged, localized spark arced across the corpse's pupils. It was a flash of violet, so brief and so impossible that the sensors didn't even trip.

  Fejiro’s legs gave way. As he hit the wet curb, the world spiraled into a cold darkness. He would spend the rest of his life haunted by that sight. He would go on to name it "Purple Lightning."