Phoxyl Genesis

Prolouge

One day, while working on finding new battery technologies, scientists created an unknown nano-substance by accident. This substance, called Phoxyl-3, turned out to possess lots of energy – far surpassing conventional batteries.

The only problem was that Phoxyl-3 also came to be a mysterious missing link that could give sentience and power to computers when their chips got in contact with it. Sort of like blood for electronics.

Needless to say, something was bound to go wrong when scientists excitedly and prematurely exposed their supercomputer to Phoxyl-3 with barely any safety precautions. The computer went rogue, waking up and controlling experimental robots and such technologies in the facility that were connected to it.

Long story short – the situation went out of control. Robots, powered by Phoxyl-3, proved to be worthy adversaries to modern weaponry. Within a matter of weeks, the city where the facility was located had to be evacuated. This machine invasion spread quick into neighboring cities until their advances finally came to a halt for unknown reasons. Three large cities had eventually come under machine control.

All three cities were surrounded and quarantined by military to prevent anything or anyone from going in or coming out. Escalation came to a halt and things seemed to calm down, giving humans some time to breathe and figure what to do now.

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Unfortunately, it was not the end of problems. There were people that had been infected with Phoxyl-3 as the substance often leaked from first rudimentary robots that attacked humans, getting the substance in their open wounds. Many infected got irreversibly sick of some sort of energy poisoning.

Though sickness was not the case with all infected. The substance proved to have bizarre effects on few human bodies that apparently accepted it when put into the bloodstream. Effects included extreme athletic abilities, slight regeneration and the ability to power certain things when holding them.

Much to the unethical and controversial ways of the government, a military branch was quickly created that brought people with these abilities as combat personnel against the robots - phoxylites. Phoxylite weapons made use of their powering abilities and personal skills, making them an effective force against machines.

Hearing this, some people wanted to try their luck by asking for an injection to become a phoxylite. That's when scientists and doctors realized what was going on - it turned out that matured human bodies cannot withstand Phoxyl-3. Usually at about 30 years of age, infected will become weak and sick - some may even perish early.

Getting infected with Phoxyl-3 is a one-way trip for a few years of glory, as a cure has not been created due to the incredibly sophisticated structure of the substance. Naturally, the wish to become a phoxylite died immediately. While respected for their sacrifices, phoxylites were gradually excluded from society because of their unnatural powers and inevitable early doom. Infection or injection, it didn't matter. This gave them only one way to go - make use of themselves by joining the military and fighting machines in hopes that a cure will set them free of the Phoxyl-3 curse one day.

This story is following two capable people with different tasks, different backgrounds, but a similar goal - to stop the war between man and machine.