Metropia, a Mythic-Punk series

Wake up. Drag yourself out of your stasis pod to face the daily grind. You yawn while your astro-garb familiars dress you. Grab a can of VIBRANT™ manah out of the cooling chest to get your juices flowing. With a few taps, your porter in your apartment is warmed up and you step in. You're in your office at the Bracery Bureau, ready to work within a few moments of waking. You fish around your pockets for your crystal authenticator and tap it to the diamond-screen, as you do every day. A jingle plays that pisses you off slightly and the following text hovers above the diamond interface.

"Welcome, MERLIN Z. Have a magical day!"

You roll your eyes and smash your finger on the pad to try to skip this sequence, even though you know you can't. After a series of swirling runes and geometric designs settle onto the diamond screen, you sit in your puffy purple chair. The hydro elemental inside keeps your back supported and your ass from getting too sore. You're thankful for the 10 year anniversary present but can't help your mind from wondering if you'll ever get that promotion you were promised when they delivered the chair. You crack open the manah drink and get to work. These porter diagnostic logs aren't going to analyze themselves.

As you finish your morning reports, your office building shakes. Your diamond screen wobbles and your crystal key vibrates across the desk for a moment. That's never happened before. You stand up and verbally command your veilshroud to lower. The inky night sky and star constellation patterns surrounding your cubicle falls. The gentle chime sounds provided by the shroud give way to an oppressive wave of hundreds of voices and noises all around you. The "sound of society in motion", as your boss calls it.

Beeps from crystal terminals, bassy "womps" from local porters firing occasionally, and idle chatter from the temps down the hall that don't have veilshrouds overwhelms your senses. Did no one else feel that planeshake just now? Right as you turn to leave your cubicle to knock on your office-neighbors door, you hear a voice in your ear.

"Join us... for liberation."

No, not in your ear. In your head. Again, you hear the voice even with no obvious psy-link around.

"Zero-Zero-Zero-One-Upsilon-Beta... Join us... for liberation. Zero-Zero-Zero-One-Upsilon-Beta... "

Porter coordinates.

It's raspy and faint, but obviously not an advertising or emergency broadcast or it would have identified itself before starting. It sounds like a young woman's voice, but you can't be sure. After repeating twice, it seems to stop.

Your Bracery Bureau training tells you to ignore this and report it to the security administration. Maybe it was that strange, localized shaking throwing you off but something within tugs at your mind and tells you not to. Something inside of you burns, making itself known.

Faintly, but you know it's there.

A small flame, a candle in a dark hallway. Something you've carried with you from before you started at the Bracery Bureau all those years ago. From before your training and conditioning. You can't remember much before that time, but you know this flame has always been alive even if you've never felt it as clearly as you do now. It feels as if it's growing brighter, ever so slightly. You walk to your porter and pause only briefly before entering the custom address interface. You tap Zero. Zero. Zero.

Suddenly realizing how this might look to your brown noser neighbor across the hall, Iska, you reactivate your veilshroud, then finish the sequence.

The address searches through the crystal network for a moment, first with the inter-office local network, then expanding to the inter-bureau net, then into the wider Metropia-wide mesh. Finally, it finds the location. It's labeled: "Freedom". You've never heard of a place like that. You look at your diamond work screen with your half-filled form, and any doubt in your mind disappears. You hit the large "Port" button and your life is never the same again.

Mythic-punk seeks to ask and provide possible answers the question: Who decides what makes a soul?
  Is there any difference between self-determination and destiny? Where does god or the gods reside? Do they even care about their creation? Were we made on purpose, or as a byproduct of some other existence?
  What, if anything, is real? And by whose definition?