Real Drive

In 2061, half a century after humanity built a networked society meant to link people at the level of consciousness, the promised utopia has frayed. Data leaks and the spread of manipulated information have become everyday hazards, yet dependence on the Network runs so deep that walking away is no longer a realistic option.

A more tightly secured domain emerges in response: the Meta Real Network, known as “the Metal.” There, personal memories are stored inside protected virtual enclaves called bubble shells, and the Metal steadily weaves itself into ordinary life. Behind its safeguards, however, people begin to indulge and unleash their instincts, creating a growing tension between the freedoms of the virtual world and the constraints of reality—until that friction surfaces as unsettling anomalies.

Those who dive into the Metal’s vast “sea of information” to analyze these distortions are called cyber divers. Masamichi Haru is one such diver, investigating incidents that form in the unstable boundary between the real world and the Metal.