Steel Roots: Part One - Awakening
S. J. Roberts

Ranley City - 2341

Brady Drummond was born to fight. In a world so reliant on bio-tech enhancements to keep pace, Brady fought clean.

Or, so he thought.

It has been three-hundred years since the English speaking nations isolated themselves from the rest of the world - and three-hundred years of fear mongering.

MediTech ran their colonies with absolution - lies upon lies kept their citizens in check. And when that didn’t work, they always had brute force.

As Earth’s natural resources diminished - their one stumbling block was suburban spread - their solution: build up, not out. They erected gargantuan walled cities in the U.K. America and Australia - all starting with Ranley city. Built upon the Thames river where London had once sprawled. They had managed to contain the entirety of the U.K’s population in one city - the land outside, apparently decimated by nuclear war was in fact, still perfectly habitable - and for them, perfectly mineable.

Their ultimate aim? To drain Earth of everything it had left to give and relocate - their one sticking point: keeping their colonists alive long enough to make it to Proxima Centauri b.

Technology could be their only answer - in 2067 - they almost had it. a prototype implant, designed to regulate the body’s response to invasive Bio-Tech augmentations. It was a lucky discovery - the implant was defective, but it’s defect was exactly what they needed to achieve their goals. The drawback? It needed a live host to remain functional.

When MediTech lost their beacon of hope - stolen by defectors - the hunt was on.

Brady had no idea he was carrying the secrets they wanted so desperately to get back. Nor did he know he also carried the secrets that could bring their empire crashing down.

One fight. One scan. A life radically altered.

Part One - Awakening follows Brady's discovery that his whole life had been a lie. A patsy for a group of rebels who want nothing more than to take down the establishment.

From citizen, to enemy of the state, Brady knew he had to to run and hide. Escaping the clutches of the authorities and the resistance group hellbent on taking them down, Brady finds himself in the doldrums of Ranley City. Sheltered by those unfortunate enough to find themselves with no choice but to live under the city, he formulates a plan to not only eradicate the target on his back, but help those who needed it most.

When that plan backfires, Brady has no choice but to accept his fate. If he has to go down, he will go down swinging.