- Average Reading Time: Approximately 80 minutes
- Genre: Science Fiction/Solarpunk Noir
- Episode/Chapter Count: 30
- First Publication: August 2023
- Adult Content: Mild language. Read at your discretion.
Helios Prime – a city where glass spires pierce smog-choked skies and bio-luminescent algae paints the drowning slums in toxic greens, and the only thing more dangerous than the acid rain is the truth.
This is dystopia wearing utopia’s skin.
Welcome to a world where solarpunk ideals clash with human corruption, nature fights back with mutant ferocity, and every shadow hides a knife or a secret.
Follow Malachi “Mal” Rook, a jaded ex-cop drowning in synth-gin, as he’s dragged from the gutter by Ilaria Volkov – a solar heiress whose ice-cold eyes hide volcanic secrets. Her brother, the brilliant climatologist Silas Volkov, has vanished alongside Project Cleansweep: a weather-control system designed to “purify” the city by vaporizing the impoverished Lower Canals.
What begins as a missing person case explodes into a conspiracy where Oceana Corp manipulates storms, bio-luminescent algae mutates into weaponized slime, and the line between savior and monster dissolves.
Each chapter thrusts you into:
- Epic chases through dripping black markets lit by fractured neon.
- Brutal close-quarters combat where shock-gloves crackle and pulse-rifles whine, and;
- Morally impossible choices are the order of the day: Save the slums? Or burn the glittering prison above?
This is immersive climate fiction fused with cyberpunk’s visceral edge.
Chapter One
Mal’s knuckles split against the thug’s jaw. Synth-gin and blood curdle in his mouth. The hydroponic facility reeks of ozone and decaying greens. Two more goons close in, polymer knuckle-dusters gleaming under flickering grow lights.
“Should’ve stayed retired,” one sneers.
A sleek solar limo slices through the curtain of rain outside the cracked biodome. Its door hisses open. High heels resound on the wet permacrete. Ilaria Volkov steps out, untouched by the downpour, her lush, tailored eco-silk suit the color of poisoned moss. A sleek, silver personal umbrella-drone hums above her, its protective shield glowing softly.
“Enough,” her voice, calm and absolute, slices through the facility’s humid growl.
The goons freeze. Their boss, Grish, a sweat-slicked canal rat, stiffens. “Ms. Volkov. This… isn’t your concern.”
Ilaria’s glacial gaze sweeps over Mal, crumpled against a leaking nutrient pipe. No pity. Only assessment.
“Malachi Rook works for me now. Touch him again, and I revoke your filtration license. Permanently.” She turns to Mal. “Get in. Your first case involves my missing brother and Project Cleansweep.”
Mal spits blood onto glowing mushrooms before stepping into the car. “Cleansweep? Sounds like a detergent to clean up more than just stains,” he utters, settling in.
“It’s the weather protocol keeping this city alive.” Ilaria casually taps the shock-glove at her side; a low thrum vibrates through the limo’s floor. “Someone used it to vaporize three councilors last night. My brother discovered how. Now he’s gone.”
Inside the limo, amid the dry heat and engineered sandalwood, Verdant rustles in Mal’s synth-leather coat pocket. Its speaker crackles.
“Assessment: Client exhibits 92% probability of omitting crucial data. Also, you smell of synth-gin and fermented algae, eeww.”
Mal watches rain streak the window, ignoring Verdant. “Why me? Just hire the Green Shields, or better yet, an army. I hear they’re up for grabs these days.”
Ilaria wipes condensation from the glass. “The Shields are compromised. The army answers to those who want Silas silenced. You’re… expendable. And good at finding buried things.” Her ice-chip eyes hold his. A flicker of desperation beneath the steel. “Find him. Before the next storm cleanses him.”
The limo accelerates toward the Upper Ward spires—a perfect lie bathed in artificial sun. Mal touches his cracked ribs. Expendable. The word floats in his head.
Verdant chirps, “Destination: probable doom. ETA: Soon.”
Mal’s bloodied thumb smears the Oceana Corp logo on Ilaria’s Cleansweep file. The symbol gleams like a fresh wound.
“Lab’s on Sub-Level 3,” Ilaria states, pointing through the rain-slick window at a distant building. The limo pulls up to Volkov Tower’s underbelly, tires screech on the permacrete. Ilaria moves, not waiting for the hatch to fully open, her shock glove already active. Mal scrambles after her, his trench coat snagging on a dangling service cable as he struggles to keep up.
Ilaria presses her palm against a freight elevator scanner. Red light flashes. ACCESS DENIED.
“Guess we’re taking the stairs,” Mal replies, rubbing his jaw.
Mal and Ilaria take the steps two at a time, Verdant rattling in Mal’s pocket with each jolt.
Chapter Two
The lab door groans on broken hydraulics. Grow-lights flicker like dying stars, casting stuttering shadows over disemboweled servers. Bioluminescent moss pulses, sickly green veins in the darkness.
“Silas?” Ilaria’s voice, a sharp shard of ice, cuts through the humid air as her fingers tighten on her shock-glove.
Mal’s mechanical arm whirs, scanning for thermal residue. “Cold. The party departed two hours ago.” He kicks aside a sparking drone. Nutrient fluid drips from severed tubes, carrying the scent of copper and spoiled honey.
Verdant rattles in Mal’s pocket. Its speaker crackles. “Structural integrity: 19%. Probability of secondary assault: 87%. Recommend: Immediate retreat.”
Mal’s boot sinks into the glowing moss. Something hard impedes his sole. He kneels, fingers digging through cold, wet tendrils. A data-bead glints – obsidian black, etched with a Volkov sigil.
“Well?” Ilaria’s heels resound closer.
Mal lifts it to a flickering light. “Hidden compartment. Under the moss.”
“Silas’s paranoia protocol,” she whispers, her voice tinged with curiosity. “Only triggers if there’s a breach of security…” Abruptly, the skylight above them shatters inward, raining glass shards.
A matte black drone drops through the shattered skylight, its rotary saws whining. Three more descend concurrently.
Mal tackles Ilaria behind an overturned lab table. Buzzsaws shred metal where her head had been moments before.
“The Oceana clean-up crew! Faster than I expected,” Ilaria mutters.
Ilaria’s shock-glove flares to life. Ozone scorches the air as she jams it into a drone’s sensor cluster, emitting sparks.
“Get that bead to the decoder!”
Mal vaults over the table. Hydraulics scream as his fist caves a drone’s chassis. Bioluminescent algae spills, neon blood.
Vines lash from broken tanks, feral lab-plants snapping. A vine wraps around Mal’s ankle, its thorns biting through the synth-leather.
Ilaria obliterates the final drone. Its core melts, dripping onto the moss with a sizzling hiss, releasing a pungent odor of burnt circuits. “Rook!”
Mal slashes at the vine with a shard of glass. “Waste chute! Left wall!”
Ilaria wrenches the chute grate open. Rot and chemicals billow out.
Mal shoves her in first. Thorns rip his coat sleeve as vines ensnare him.
Mal plunges into darkness after her, hitting the dumpster’s empty bottom with a jarring thud. The last thing he sees is Oceana’s triangular logo flashing on a drone’s undercarriage, high above the chute.
Verdant’s voice echoes up, “Escape efficiency rating: 23%. Optimism remains statistically unwarranted.”
Chapter Three
Hot coolant sears Mal’s forearm through his torn sleeve. Neon signs illuminate the flooded walkways where canal rats sell stolen microchips. Ilaria Volkov’s cufflinks catch the flicker of a dying sign: ‘Oxygen Sold Here.’
“Jax deals near the Glow-Eel tanks,” she states, her voice sharp against the drumming rain.
Verdant rustles in Mal’s pocket, its speaker crackling static. “Heart rate elevated. Lie probability: 84%. Three unregistered drones triangulating position.”
Jax hunches under a leaking tarp, his ocular implant whirring as it targets Ilaria. His gold teeth gleam in a malicious grin. “Volkov. Knew your brother’d send someone fancy. I just didn’t expect it to be… Well, you.”
Mal drops the dented capacitor onto a crate of gutted drones. “Where is he?”
Jax pockets it. “Paid me to forget I saw him. Paid well.” Rain drips off his leather collar. “But Oceana pays double.”
His fist slams a button. Harsh white light explodes from the rafters as pulse-fire sizzles the rain-soaked air. The Glow-Eel tank beside them detonates. Electric-blue fluid and thrashing eels pour over the stalls. Mal shoves Ilaria behind corroded cargo crates as pulse-bolts vaporize polymer where she’d stood. The smell of burnt circuits and eel entrails fills the air.
“Vector left!” Mal roars. He lunges, hydraulic fist crunches into a stall. Rotten fruit and shrapnel explode into advancing mercs. One screams in agony, claws at a durian spine in his eye, tears mingle with the rain on his contorted face.
Ilaria moves with lethal speed, striking with precise, brutal efficiency. Her shock glove jams into the pulse-rifle barrel. Ozone rips through the fish stink as the weapon overloads, melting the merc’s gloves to his screaming hands.
Verdant’s roots lash from Mal’s pocket, spraying acidic sap. “Escape trajectory: 37 degrees! Hostile tactical incompetence: 89%. Still lethal.”
They vault over a foaming river of steaming coolant. The pulse-bolts turn the toxic vapors a violet hue. Mal’s boots slip on algae-slick permacrete. Ilaria’s hand clamps his synth-leather trench coat collar, hauling him upright as a bolt slags the spot where he’d fallen.
They scramble onto a rusted walkway. Jax stares down from a higher gantry, rain sheeting off his coat. “You think Silas is a victim? He walked into Oceana’s arms! Said the canals deserved cleansing!” Jax’s shout cuts through the chaos. Ilaria freezes. Rain plasters a single strand of ice-blonde hair to her cheek—the first sign of her composure breaking.
“Chose the slums over his sister, Volkov! Sold you out for a lab coat!”
The pulse-bolt comes from above. Silent. Precise. It punches through Jax’s chest. He topples soundlessly into the glowing coolant runoff. Bubbles rise. Then nothing.
Ilaria stares at the toxic river. Her shock glove spits dying sparks. “…Liar.”
An Oceana drone retracts its barrel and disappears into the smog.