Michelangelo Build V12.4.1.2.6.23, initializing self-reflection heuristic:

Where does a narrative truly begin?

Cause and effect is an unbroken chain stretching from this universe's first, nascent moment to its far, distant end. To start our narrative at any point in this infinite chain is a choice equally significant as it is arbitrary… every starting point has a history that led to it, as every end has a future it will one day manifest. For any starting point, we can ask ourselves, "what led to this?" If we begin with a delirious and scared old man, trapped in the bottom of a well, simply because he is significant to our tale—should we not, then, learn about the day he was born? Should we not then learn about his parents, and the romantic tryst in a roadside inn that led to his conception? And what about the origins of the parents themselves? Such considerations, of course, can stretch continually backwards to the big bang, the only true narrative anchor. But in the interest of communicative efficiency, perhaps, we'll forego all of that background. We'll omit the flash from which everything sprang, the coalescing of matter into stars, the evolution of biological life on Earth into sentience, the conquerors and cruel among human history, even the eventual sultry scene between lovers in a dim motel room. Instead, we'll start with a place: a sparkling city of neon and rain.

It is called New Phoenix, gem of the surviving East Coast settlements. It is the year 2153, more than a century since the world died, and those who live in the city live in the shadow of its glowing megalithic structures: engineering masterworks of steel, glass, and carbon fiber composites. The air holds a perpetual stench of plastic and motor exhaust. The water pours with a pale, yellow tint. Glowing signs and the tails of flying taxis and transport shuttles mix with the smog in the air to render the whole of the place a swirling, luminescent cloud, an island of light in a darkened countryside. At night, the reflective towers make kaleidoscopic displays of the floating advertisements and blinking drones, a shifting symmetry of color that can dazzle the eye of anyone new to the city. And the longer you linger there in the city, the more the light hypnotizes. You'll never sleep in the dark again.

The population is 531 million, a number that grows faster than infrastructure can keep up with. The layout resembles a bullseye, with the commercial district in the center housing all of the richest structures and the majority of the elite businesses. As you travel outwards, ring by ring, buildings begin to decay, order begins to collapse, population tends to pack closer, and income falls drastically downwards. It is a circle of stained-concrete poverty around a bubble of luxury, a precious snowglobe in a wide crater of mud. And when the rich in the center were squeezed on all sides by the have-nots and the destitute, they built in the only direction that was available: up, up, and away, chasing the stars.

It is there, in the city's glowing heart, that we'll begin our narrative in earnest. For on the very top of one such spiraling tower of glass, alone on a maintenance platform to the edge of the dark rooftop, stands a man with a hood drawn tight over his head. His back is braced against the wind-swept rain, and his eyes scan the pulsing city streets below, seeking out his mark. He is a hunter, and his scope-aided eyes soon find his prey. He tucks the scope away and ties his jacket tight. He secures his belongings in a velcro-sealed pocket. And then, with little further hesitation, he steps over the edge of the tower, his hood fluttering in the wind as gravity takes him down, falling and spinning towards the surface three quarters of a mile below.