by Faultblock
In a city that eats its own, survival is the only recipe worth following. New Jackson, Lomah, is a major city in the "Land of Milk and Honey," formerly the Gulf Coast states of the old United States. Like in nearly all major cities, it is a sprawl of corporate control, where the rich dine luxuriously, and the poor dine on scraps. Joao is a new face on the catering crew in a new city, picking up a shift at a high-end pavilion event. When alien plants crash the party, their minds wholly set on consuming everything organic, the city is sent into lockdown. In the chaos of the incursion's start, a choice to stand and fight in the hope of saving just one person leads Joao to be chosen by the Vanguard AI, Syon. Now, crossing the line between human and weapon is a matter of preference, and the distinction is starting to blend together. The saying "eat or be eaten" is becoming more and more true, and they'll have to be first or they'll be the last. With a system that demands sacrifice, a city built on consumption, and feelings that refuse to be processed, Joao must decide how much of themselves they are willing to feed to the machine to keep the rest of humanity alive.
