Episode 2 · Coppelion

Coppelion

Three schoolgirls stroll through Tokyo, chatting like it's any other afternoon. Except the streets are empty. Windows blown out, vines crawling through office towers, no cars, no people. Twenty years ago a nuclear disaster turned the whole metropolis into a ghost town, and Ibara, Aoi and Taeko walk through it in plain uniforms, no hazmat suits, nothing. They belong to a unit called Coppelion, backed by the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force, and their job is simple: track down whoever is still alive in there and get them airlifted out. A distress signal crackles out of the dead zone. That's when the routine breaks. Somewhere in the ruins, the girls start doing the math on themselves. Why does the radiation not touch them? The Coppelion project was the last word in biochemical engineering, and everyone who came out of it carries full immunity. So are they still human, or just very expensive tools with a pulse? The question sits there while the mission keeps going, and the higher-ups clearly know more than they're saying. What is waiting for them in that silent city, and what happens when the people who built them decide they're done pretending?