Animation of this excerpt:
Animation short at youtube.comThe train rattled down the tracks, coursing through the city and wrapping around Frisco Regions. Track 75 crossed from the Midwest over the sludge that once was Oklahoma, now coated in green from border to border. The tracks were designed to run a thousand meters over the sludge swamping the planet. No life dared to rake through the radioactive carnage that pocketed the Earth with organic debris, leftover from devastating wars. The swamps of green were a memorial to a past that was best forgotten.
Within the train, the passengers bobbed back and forth, scattered throughout the car, hiding their faces and secluding against the windows. They were bundled in heavy coats marked by holes and tears like their bodies, and like the car seats that were marred with graffiti and stabbed with holes. Breeds would venture eye contact with their train neighbors but as their retinas connected, a fear grew inside of them, realizing that they could inadvertently challenge the wrong Breed. A simple misunderstanding could result in a gun blast. They quickly turned away. They recoiled like timid, tortured animals, stuffed in an overused cage.
The sky deepened to a darker green, wafting pink puffs of toxic fumes.
Every few seconds, a sign sped past, warning the passengers with threats, fines and punishments from entering the City of Dallas. Colored in blue and black with gold stars, the signs promised periodic searches for weapons and severe punishments for illegal activity. On each passing sign, the language became more aggressive. Graphic pictures showed hungry and beaten criminals in DARC (Dallas Area Rehabilitation Center).
Subsidized by the local corporations, the Lone Star of Radioactive Dallas (LORD) exercised the legal constraints on the citizens and used DARC as their main imprisonment facility. Every city had a recognized police force to rein order over the chaos. Like most law enforcement, the LORDs started as a contracted gang led by a Robin Luddite but then transformed into a legitimate arm of the law, until the corporations tired of them.
In the front seat, a timid and round creature curled against the train wall, scared and alone, fearing the disapproving eyes and the scornful remarks from his peers. Gus Sips was not accustomed to being so far from home, so far from family, so ignorant of his neighbors; so endangered by random violence.
His coat tightly wrapped around him to hide the Biotech wired and soldered together by his own hands. He abused his body with Biotech so he could adapt and enter into cyberspace. He had survived his forties in a small town, outside of the major cities. He was old in the face, but young in the mind. His koala bear features were difficult to hide. The gray fur framed his face, his fingernails clawed, and the dark irises of his eyes widened.
Isolated from the cruelness of the corporate cities, Gus Sips had dreamed of a life in the Luddite world. He sought the chance to work as part of an underground that was feared and awed by many survivors. He wanted to breathe the toxic airs, to cruise through cyberspace for a Robin Luddite; to troll through a world that he could only relive in AV records.
Running from the ugliness of those cities, his parents had cowered into an isolated town surrounded by sludge, decay and poor. For years, Gus never revealed his secret obsession to his parents, afraid to offend his father.
Only two weeks ago, his father died. Now Gus was truly free. And so he embarked to the closest city. Naïve of the workings of such a corrupt world, Gus Sips charged ahead into the violent madness that very few had survived.
He dedicated his secret career to becoming a Loader; a contract hired to infiltrate corporate computer networks, to decode barcodes and passwords, to upload viruses and to download usable information. Biotech was the common technology infused into the flesh, used to reinforce the body with armor, but more extensive manipulation mutilated the body for nefarious reasons. Loader implants allowed the user to cruise through cyberspace like mentally tracking through daydreams.
Along the horizon, the disintegrating buildings of old Dallas stabbed the sky. The buildings wagged like old men waiting for their deaths; life dragged them along to suffer a little longer. Glass shards, metal scraps and paper trash tumbled from their sides. Between train tracks and bridges, sewage pipes poured radioactive sludge into lakes, creating moats around the city.
A Huey Bell helicopter patrolled across the horizon, panning searchlights into the dark recesses of alleys and vacant buildings. Gunfire chirped like bird calls. Sirens wailed in the background as LORDs hunted down contracts.
The Reunion Ball sat alone like a rejected classmate pushed into the corner by bullies. A chunk of its neck had been bitten out by mortar fire but its balled head defiantly stood proud over the neon signs of the neighboring clubs. Old paper files blew out the smashed windows, raining on the huddled Breeds scurrying across pothole stricken streets.
In the distance and far to the west, Fort Worth decayed. The city had been transformed into a Venice of sludge seeping between buildings. The old highways were now crumbled; a few stanchions, braces and pillars remained defiant, waist deep in sludge rivers and moats. Its city had been vaporized by chemical weapons and warheads that were aimed at Dallas but missing their targets and leaving behind skeletal metal frames.
Slithering around Old Dallas, a single train raced along a forgotten path, along a forbidden track. The train was vacant and powered by an unknown energy that no one could unplug. It was a symbol ghosting around the city in blind circles; life dredged along its continuous path, heedless and suffering.
Arriving at the Frisco Regions, Gus’ train screeched to a halt, stuttering along the track four more times before the doors hissed open. A crowd of blue and gold shadows assembled outside the car. Mumbles passed between Breeds as the LORDs argued over the operational protocols. At the engine’s sputtering shutdown, passengers stood at the exits while the doors released a hiss and slid open. They were greeted by LORDs guarding every exit with smiles and rifles.
Every few seconds, a sign sped past, warning the passengers with threats, fines and punishments from entering the City of Dallas. Colored in blue and black with gold stars, the signs promised periodic searches for weapons and severe punishments for illegal activity. On each passing sign, the language became more aggressive. Graphic pictures showed hungry and beaten criminals in DARC (Dallas Area Rehabilitation Center).
Subsidized by the local corporations, the Lone Star of Radioactive Dallas (LORD) exercised the legal constraints on the citizens and used DARC as their main imprisonment facility. Every city had a recognized police force to rein order over the chaos. Like most law enforcement, the LORDs started as a contracted gang led by a Robin Luddite but then transformed into a legitimate arm of the law, until the corporations tired of them.
In the front seat, a timid and round creature curled against the train wall, scared and alone, fearing the disapproving eyes and the scornful remarks from his peers. Gus Sips was not accustomed to being so far from home, so far from family, so ignorant of his neighbors; so endangered by random violence.
His coat tightly wrapped around him to hide the Biotech wired and soldered together by his own hands. He abused his body with Biotech so he could adapt and enter into cyberspace. He had survived his forties in a small town, outside of the major cities. He was old in the face, but young in the mind. His koala bear features were difficult to hide. The gray fur framed his face, his fingernails clawed, and the dark irises of his eyes widened.
Isolated from the cruelness of the corporate cities, Gus Sips had dreamed of a life in the Luddite world. He sought the chance to work as part of an underground that was feared and awed by many survivors. He wanted to breathe the toxic airs, to cruise through cyberspace for a Robin Luddite; to troll through a world that he could only relive in AV records.
Running from the ugliness of those cities, his parents had cowered into an isolated town surrounded by sludge, decay and poor. For years, Gus never revealed his secret obsession to his parents, afraid to offend his father.
Only two weeks ago, his father died. Now Gus was truly free. And so he embarked to the closest city. Naïve of the workings of such a corrupt world, Gus Sips charged ahead into the violent madness that very few had survived.
He dedicated his secret career to becoming a Loader; a contract hired to infiltrate corporate computer networks, to decode barcodes and passwords, to upload viruses and to download usable information. Biotech was the common technology infused into the flesh, used to reinforce the body with armor, but more extensive manipulation mutilated the body for nefarious reasons. Loader implants allowed the user to cruise through cyberspace like mentally tracking through daydreams.
Along the horizon, the disintegrating buildings of old Dallas stabbed the sky. The buildings wagged like old men waiting for their deaths; life dragged them along to suffer a little longer. Glass shards, metal scraps and paper trash tumbled from their sides. Between train tracks and bridges, sewage pipes poured radioactive sludge into lakes, creating moats around the city.
A Huey Bell helicopter patrolled across the horizon, panning searchlights into the dark recesses of alleys and vacant buildings. Gunfire chirped like bird calls. Sirens wailed in the background as LORDs hunted down contracts.
The Reunion Ball sat alone like a rejected classmate pushed into the corner by bullies. A chunk of its neck had been bitten out by mortar fire but its balled head defiantly stood proud over the neon signs of the neighboring clubs. Old paper files blew out the smashed windows, raining on the huddled Breeds scurrying across pothole stricken streets.
In the distance and far to the west, Fort Worth decayed. The city had been transformed into a Venice of sludge seeping between buildings. The old highways were now crumbled; a few stanchions, braces and pillars remained defiant, waist deep in sludge rivers and moats. Its city had been vaporized by chemical weapons and warheads that were aimed at Dallas but missing their targets and leaving behind skeletal metal frames.
Arriving at the Frisco Regions, Gus’ train screeched to a halt, stuttering along the track four more times before the doors hissed open. A crowd of blue and gold shadows assembled outside the car. Mumbles passed between Breeds as the LORDs argued over the operational protocols. At the engine’s sputtering shutdown, passengers stood at the exits while the doors released a hiss and slid open. They were greeted by LORDs guarding every exit with smiles and rifles.
The next chapter:
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