As one of their many part time jobs, Mal and Jessa are SecOps streamers with a lackluster following and slightly above-average skills. Two of these orphans – Mallory (Mal) and Jessa – managed to escape the rubble and the displaced-persons camps and find refuge in a meager but functioning apartment with pod-sized living spaces. Life under these corporations is, to put it lightly, trash especially with a seemingly never-ending war that constantly destroys homes and orphans scores of children.

Activities like planting unauthorized seeds or purifying drinking water are now the equivalent of domestic terrorism, as they interfere with profits. As corporations tend to do – they merged until only two were left: Stellaxis Innovations, which owns the country’s water supplies, and Greenleaf, which owns all agricultural products. In this near-future United States, each of the remaining 45 states have been auctioned off to separate corporations.

The same company, by the way, facilitates war crimes, and monetizes their super soldiers via memorabilia and NPCs in their popular streaming game: SecOps.

Nicole Kornher-Stace’s Firebreak has the kind of dead-end future that hits a little too close to home – people working numerous part-time jobs to eke out a living, sharing an overpriced, shitty apartment with numerous roommates, and barely surviving under an evil megacorporation that gives out company credits instead of a living wage.

Nicole kornher stace