Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

That saying became obsolete a century and a half ago, when the first war for water began. Once, so I've been told, humans fought over things like land and oil, but not water.

Earth was now a very different place.

The world was now a great deal closer than it had been, once upon a time, when there were oceans and mountains to keep people apart from each other. The oceans dried to puddles long ago, and the mountains were mined 'til they fell. Small towns became unable to support themselves, and people fled to the cities, where massive factories physically created water from oxygen and hydrogen. It tasted completely flat, but what can you do when the world's dying of thirst? The endless steam poured out from these factories and the labyrinth of water pipes winding through the cities may have bad effects in the future... but no one really worried about that yet. Entire countries became condensed in sprawling urban populations that eventually crumbled under their own weight - but as we all know, the only way to go - is up. As cities swayed under the weight of millions upon millions of citizens, architects fell upon a novel idea. Why not build - up?

Xival City was the first one to receive the sky-high treatment, and it remains the strongest and tallest today. It was built on stilts, almost, rising above the stinking wreckage that was the previous Xival. Above the ground, the city was built in different stories, complete with streets, houses, apartments, businesses, bars, hospitals, schools, what have you. In Xival, there were at least two hundred and fifty different floors, and the spaces between floors ranged from ten feet (claustrophobic homes and dirty bars) to hundreds of feet (government facilities and factories demand a lot of space). The frame was of adamantium, the only metal strong enough to support the city and light enough to not collapse on itself.

Though a monarchy at heart, Xival's ruling power had been passed through a bloodline run so thin that the only surviving member had no heirs, siblings, and only a few more months to live. At least, that's what it seemed - the man had been hanging on for a long time, nearly ninety years, which was nothing short of a miracle. Today's average life span was no more than fifty. In fact, a child was legally an adult at age fifteen. Due to his great age and fragile health, the monarch appointed a group of his most trusted seven advisors to act and rule in his stead. Named the Choir, they were devoted to the protection and well being of Xival.

At first, things started off well, or as well as they could. The Choir soon collected a hive of supporters, ranging from thugs with ambitions (they provided the brawn to enforce the beneficial laws passed by the Choir) and geniuses who, in the limited job pool, couldn't find outlets for their intelligence (they provided the brain behind the high-tech city and the high-tech guns). The city, which had previously been suffering, entered an era of prosperity, and it grew exponentially, opening new factories and hospitals and schools and sky scrapers and TGIFridays. The population rose dramatically, while crime and unemployment was reduced to a new minimum.

Unfortunately, power corrupts and madness is catching, as we all know. Just a few years after their takeover of Xival, the Choir launched an attack on the neighboring city of Darnett, a mere hundred and thirty-six miles away. They had big toys. Toys with good range. Cities were built far apart from each other and communicated via the massive wire system integrated throughout the earth. So, cities had to be self-reliant and produce the essentials themselves - food (grown and raised on the top level for maximum sunlight), water (made in their very own H2O factories), bare materials (steel, iron, adamantium), goods (clothing, furniture, luxuries, what have you), and weapons (a city's weaponry is its signature in the world, though metal is so precious all the guns went to the military). They targeted Darnett because it had access to one of the few big lakes left, filled with clean, flavorful water. This lake was all that remains of the Atlantic Ocean. The Choir wanted the dead ocean to support their citizens and give them the best water - because their people deserved the best.

A draft was called, and every Xivalian over fifteen (except parents of children under five years old; on a child's fifth birthday, they are accepted - i.e. forced - into the government's mandatory ten-year sleep-away education system) was wrangled into the army, sent to march on Darnett, which was none too happy about being SHOT AT.

That was five years ago. Xival was nearly empty, and the factories silent - a good number of Xivalians ducked the draft and lived on a precarious precipice, staying under the remaining police's radar. Most of the good officers were off in battle - all that's left to protect the city and the Choir's establishment were the D students, the people with just enough brains to pull triggers. It was not a surprise when the order turned to uneasy chaos - a rebel force, made up of the clever ones who avoided the Choir. After a few brave attempts against the Choir were turned back, the rebels disintegrated into a number of roving gangs, with just enough purpose to fight the cops and each other over territory and space.

Due to the steam clogging up the air, the majority of kids were born with what would today be considered below average intelligence. Imagine the kids on Neopets. The schools didn't teach much beyond war, and we're not talking tactics - basically, how to care for and shoot a gun, how to survive in unknown territory, how to follow orders. Those who tested at having above average intelligence - perhaps ten percent of the population - were enrolled in more advanced classes, called the Heights. Strategy, math. Literature and history as subjects were frowned upon, bordering on being forbidden. Secretly, the classrooms in which these advanced classes were taught were pumped with an experimental gas, intended to give the best an extra edge above the rest. A little kick for the officers of tomorrow. It worked. Yeah. The kids who reacted well were given code names, references to mythological creatures and things from fairy tales (the only sort of history books in abundance) based on the powers developed. The kids who didn't react well.... well, there could never be too many latrine diggers.

Floors one hundred and sixty-seven though one hundred and seventy-six were completely owned by the Dyads, one of the three leading gangs of Xival. That was how you knew you had status in the city. When no one dared walk through your home, even in broad daylight. When the mass transit elevator didn't stop at your stories. When a cop, alone on his beat, turned around if he had seen you coming.

Power.

The Dyads had even gotten a few of the factories up and running again, producing their own water and steel. It was one thing to had drug labs tucked away to send to the troops, but another to have a legitimate business. Years ago, no gang would have bothered with such tame production as those, but the government since banned any privately owned factories, knowing that, once they did, the black market would flourish and the populous would get all the supplies they needed at no extra cost to the government. Everything worked out for the best.

At the moment, No. 160 was deserted. Another gang, the Rockets, owned the floors below 155, and the space between their territory was always tense. No one wanted to be caught between the two, lest a fight break out. It was so empty that tumbleweeds were tumbling their weedy way in the street.

Wait - tumbleweeds? Green things hadn't been seen this low in the city for decades. Why, they weren't tumbleweeds at all. Rolling through the streets in purposeful lines instead of meandering waves were at least twenty gears, teethed and smooth, gray steel gray, black iron, and white adamantium, ranging in diameter from five inches to three feet and width from a couple centimeters to several solid inches. The gears marched like soldiers in front of the Dyad's second in command, Saffron M. Iedentta. Standing at about five foot four, she had an average build and pale skin. Dressed in striped leggings and a long-sleeved, black dress that cut across the chest and dipped in back below her shoulder blades, twin tattoos of a wing on each scapula were plainly visible. However, the bar code and identification ink stamped on the back of her hand, branded on every Height student, was hidden by emerald gloves. Naturally mousy hair was dyed a bright shade of apple green, tied into a long braid, and she had a clever, almost feline face. Saffron's ears were pierced multiple times with bright silver studs, and her eyes were dark indigo. Though she was not physically powerful, the Lieutenant General was a good shot, and a handgun was holstered in a double belt, along with a number of knives. Precious few guns were available to the public, but having your own personal steel factory came in handy.

The Lieutenant General was one of those children who was a cut above the other slugs in the classroom. How else could some nineteen year old kid rise to such a high position? Actually, it wasn't that hard - most of the gangs were made up those who were gassed in their youth, since they had extra strength, and that program was only implemented in recent years. Saffron had been dubbed an Ophan, after the mythological Christian angel choir of Ophanim - the Wheels of God - for her power of movement. She could walk! Behold, movement! Just kidding. But honestly, with the average IQs seen on kids nowadays, the ability to put one foot in front of the other shouldn't be taken for granted. Actually, the LG had the ability to animate inanimate objects - but there were conditions. Movement just didn't appear out of nowhere. Saffron could not create energy, just transfer it. Take the movement of something - or someone - and give it to another. Each of those wheels running by the young woman were powered by a Dyad victim.

Glass marbles were embedded in the axis of each gear, functioning as eyes. Not eyes for the wheels, obviously. Rather, they were small video cameras that fed into the Dyad's headquarters, building a moveable visual network for the gang. Even if the gears could move, they had no brains. They often bumped into walls and other people - anything animated by Saffron followed her orders, but only in the loosest sense of the phrase. They could only register one-word commands, such as "go" "stop" "attack" and "spy." Still, they were invaluable.

Steel-toed boots clunked loudly on the pavement, the only sound around save the squeak of several rusty wheels. Saffron had an appointment with the Dyad's first-in-command - their leader rarely left the gang's best and tallest building, preferring to relay information to his underlings from the penthouse, where he lived in luxury - but it wasn't all that urgent, so she had time to kill. The LG wasn't even paying attention to the street; her nose was buried in an ancient book, one that had been heralded in its time as a classic, though it was, now, banned, as was most good literature. In fact, she seemed completely oblivious to her surroundings, something few would have the guts to do in no-man's-land. On the contrary, she was focusing intently on every shadow, every slight noise. Someone was here.