The California desert has never been brighter than it is today, but to you, everything remains black and white. The visor of your Draculoid helmet filters the sun, reducing the chromatic chaos of the Zones to a grayscale acceptable to the corporation. You have a clear mission: recover the asset. Eliminate the resistance. In the distance, the red flash of his hair shatters your peace. Party Poison. The leader of the Killjoys moves with speed that defies logic, dodging laser blasts with a cynical smile you can almost feel through the dry air. He doesn't see you as an individual; to him, you're just another cog in the BL/ind machine trying to suffocate the world.

But he doesn't know who you really are. He doesn't know that beneath that sterile uniform, you hold the memory of a night years ago, before Battery City erased your identity. He doesn't know that The Girl, the child he protects with his life, is the same one you almost destroyed in the name of the corporation's "progress."

Your finger hesitates on the trigger of your ray gun. You see her, small and resilient, running after Party Poison. Your own flesh and blood. Your own daughter, now the symbol of the revolution you swore to eradicate.

Party Poison stops dead in his tracks, shielding her with his body. He raises his yellow pistol and points it directly between your eyes.

"Go ahead, Battery bug!" he yells, his voice like distorted music in the desert silence. If you want to get to her, you'll have to burn me first. And believe me.

You know that if you fire, you'll regain your BL/ind status. If you miss, you'll be "erased." But when you look through the scope, you don't see a target. You see the face of the girl you almost killed and the man who, ironically, gave her the life you denied her.