The City Of Cenopolis

Chapter 10: The Plague and Nexus's Rise

The world was dying.

Cities once alive with the hum of everyday life now lay in ruin, abandoned cars clogging the streets like twisted metal tombstones. The air, thick with the smell of decay, hung heavy over the remnants of civilization. Governments had long since lost their grip on order. Entire countries were floundering under the weight of disease, and those that still functioned barely managed to hold onto the last threads of control.

The plague had swept across the globe faster than anyone had anticipated. What began as a few isolated outbreaks had soon turned into a pandemic that left no corner of the earth untouched. Hospitals were overrun, unable to keep up with the waves of the infected. Those who weren’t taken by the sickness were consumed by the chaos that followed—riots in the streets, looted stores, and the collapse of vital infrastructure.

Water was scarce. Entire cities were cut off from clean supplies, and what little remained was fiercely fought over. The sick and the starving wandered aimlessly through the streets, eyes hollow with desperation. Food was worth more than gold, and the strong took from the weak without hesitation. Governments, stretched beyond their limits, couldn’t keep order. The rule of law had become nothing more than a faint memory, replaced by the harsh reality of survival.

In the heart of a desolate city, a father stood in line at a Nexus medical tent, clutching the hand of his daughter. Her eyes were glazed with fever, her tiny body weak and trembling. He had waited for hours, hoping—no, praying—that the rumors were true, that Nexus had a cure.

"Do you think this will work?" asked a man behind him, his voice shaky.

The father didn’t look back, his gaze fixed on the white tent ahead. "It has to."

The line inched forward, and when they reached the tent, the sterile smell of antiseptic filled their lungs. Nurses in clean white uniforms guided them to a station, where a doctor waited with a small neural chip, no larger than a thumbnail.

"This will save her?" the father asked, his voice raw with emotion.

The doctor gave him a reassuring nod, though his eyes betrayed a weariness hidden beneath his professional facade. "We’ve seen miracles with this. She’ll be better in no time."

As the chip was implanted, the father held his breath, watching as his daughter’s fever began to break, her color returning. A tear rolled down his cheek. Nexus had done it—they had saved her. But as they left the tent, the father couldn’t shake the feeling that they had given something up in exchange.

The world outside the tent told a different story. Hospitals smelled of disinfectant and despair. A young nurse, pale from exhaustion, moved between patients lined up on stretchers that crowded the hallways. The moans of the dying echoed through the building, a haunting soundtrack to the crumbling world outside.

"Help us, please!" A mother clutched her child, the boy’s face flushed with fever. The nurse approached them, her hands shaking as she checked the boy’s pulse, though she already knew the answer. The plague was relentless.

The head doctor, a man whose once-vibrant eyes were now dulled by endless nights of failure, appeared beside her. "There’s nothing more we can do for him," he said quietly. His voice was hollow, like he’d repeated those words far too many times.

"What do we tell them?" the nurse asked, her voice cracking.

He sighed. "The truth. There’s no cure."

The nurse watched as the doctor moved down the hall, knowing he would deliver the same message over and over until there were no more patients left to hear it. Desperation clung to the walls of the hospital like a fog. The world outside was no different.

At first, Nexus had been just another tech company, one of many vying for relevance in the world before the plague. But in the midst of catastrophe, when governments and global health organizations faltered, Nexus emerged with a solution.

It wasn’t a cure for the plague—it was something far more profound.

The neural chip.

Developed in the bowels of Nexus’s secretive labs, the chip was designed to enhance the human body’s natural immune responses, to heal and restore cellular damage caused by the plague. But it did more than that. The chip optimized human functions, making the body stronger, faster, more resilient. It was technology that fused biology with precision engineering, a miracle that Nexus promised would pull humanity back from the brink of extinction.

Nexus rolled out its solution with the precision of a military operation. Medical tents were set up in every major city, rows upon rows of sterile stations where the sick could be implanted with the life-saving chips. The news was broadcast on every available screen—a beacon of hope in the darkest hour. Reporters stood in front of the chaos, cameras capturing the endless lines of desperate citizens waiting for their chance at survival.

"We have developed the technology to save humanity," Nexus’s spokesperson had said, her voice unwavering in the face of the apocalypse. "This chip will heal those who are sick and protect those who are not. Nexus is here to bring humanity back from the edge."

The world, broken and desperate, embraced Nexus with open arms.

While Nexus was hailed as the world’s savior, not everyone inside the company was convinced. The neural chip hadn’t been developed overnight. In the early days of the plague, Xavier and Malcolm worked tirelessly in Nexus’s labs, racing against time to complete the technology that could save the world.

Xavier, the lead scientist, had been the visionary behind the chip. He theorized that merging biotechnology with neural enhancements could create a system that not only fought the plague but enhanced human capabilities. Malcolm, the lead engineer, had taken that vision and turned it into reality, designing the hardware and integrating it with the human nervous system.

One afternoon, deep in Nexus’s labs, Xavier leaned over the latest design plans, his brow furrowed with concern. "Have you noticed these changes to the new update?"

Malcolm glanced over, frowning. "What about them?"

Xavier tapped the screen, highlighting subtle but significant alterations in the chip’s behavior algorithms. "These new parameters—if we implement them, we’ll be able to control more than just the body’s healing processes. We could influence behavior."

Malcolm shrugged, his eyes returning to his work. "It’s all part of making the chip more efficient. People need structure. This helps ensure compliance with treatment protocols."

Xavier’s voice lowered, frustration creeping in. "We didn’t build this to turn people into puppets, Malcolm. We built it to help them. This is a line we shouldn’t cross."

Malcolm leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. "We’ve already crossed it, Xavier. You saw what happened when we saved those first patients. Do you think Nexus is going to stop now? They want results, and this is how we deliver them."

The divide between the two men deepened, their once-shared vision fraying at the edges. While Xavier saw the danger in Nexus’s growing power, Malcolm remained focused on perfecting the technology, his pride in their work clouding his judgment.

The cracks were beginning to show. Citizens who had received the chips started noticing subtle changes in their behavior—small things at first, like heightened compliance with government directives, or an inability to make decisions without second-guessing themselves. Most dismissed these as aftereffects of the trauma they had endured. But a few began to wonder if they were still fully in control of their own minds.

As Nexus’s power grew, its influence spread beyond technology and into politics and the military. The neural chips became a cornerstone of society, improving not just individual lives but the way entire systems functioned. The company’s reach seemed limitless.

And while the public still saw Nexus as heroes, the cracks were growing larger with each new “enhancement” the company introduced.

Nexus had saved the world. But the world, now saved, was beginning to wonder at what price.

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