Synthetic 2137 (Chapter 3: Jax)

Things are wrong in Neo Angeles. A hundred years have passed since the twin shivas of nuclear holocaust and climate collapse heralded the slow death burn of humanity and only the omnipressive militant hand of the Pan China Hegemony keeps the final desolate wolves at bay. The hour is late when commissioner Hall arrives at Derik’s apartment to recruit the ex-detective for one last case. Lim Sung, daughter of an Echelon family, has disappeared and her loss has shaken the city to it’s core. From the crime lords in the Pits to the hushed corpocrats of Skyrest, machinations long inert are beginning to grind again. Of course Derik could care less. But the chance encounter with an idealistic resistance fighter named Red and the sarcastic video game caster Jax could change everything…

Chapter 1: Cracks (3505 words) https://docs.google.com/document/d/14B8uSLmBIZ9VUeEVzFDmt9tPZrf8ZSTVVB_JOpxoEig/edit?usp=sharing

Chapter 2: Skyrest (2797 words) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Og9wnPmKGhK3GC75ZYvUHTQj_QKoFfsJlG9rJfK4070/edit?usp=sharing

Chapter 3: Jax (3180 words) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VzfXxa8Z1DifNySOHvS-Cae9KCM83id7gK2N7FLT6bM/edit?usp=sharing

The Towers

Neo Angeles was a testament to the indomitable perseverance and ingenuity of the human soul. Founded in 2058 among the still cooling radioactive ash of old Los Angeles, the city was an amalgamation of constructed mountains and carved out canyons. Each level reflecting an associated class and a specific purpose. On a clear day, from about a hundred kilometers away, you could see the Towers. These massive citadels formed the adamantine skeleton of the city. Their colossal titan alloy and granicrete cores were the foundation upon which every generation since had build on. Each of these mammoth towers had a name.

Lakshfi, vault of prosperity, home of the banking guilds and mega finance firms, was bedecked in opulent gold whirls. Her marketplace traded cash, commodities and wealth from the Trans-African Republic to the United Pacific Nations yet all commerce stopped when the enormous silver clock face on her north side rang shut each night. Anbal was adorned with marble columns and topped with a statue of blind lady justice herself. In her halls the judge courts safeguarded the city from unlimited lawlessness. Seshrat, a tubule stylus monolith where unnamed bureaucrats toiled to keep the gears of society continually turning. Beside this was a verdant spiraling helix, birthplace of biomedical conglomerate Genaea. Her terraces were overflowing with every variation of designer vegetation drinking in a fathomless photosynthetic morning. Cartoon animations danced over the multicolor cubic surface of the Budyha. This was the headquarters of the Happy Corporation, supplier of franchised acme products worldwide. Behind the Budyha was an ominous scarlet knifed ziggurat, a scarab husk left over from the drone wars, abandoned for years but now reanimated by TyrX Nanorobotic Industries.

The last Tower, the triangular Irez, rose above them all. Its entire height crawled with vid screens and vox speakers and an expansive satellite array atop the pinnacle. This was the main channel by which Pan-China Telecommunications broadcast their syndicated programing to the world, the nexus for the Neuro Electronic Terminus. It was said if you stood at the bottom and put your hand on the base you could feel the vibrational groaning dreams of all the poor souls who had been lost in the NET.

The Boxes

The labyrinthal sprawl at the foot of the Towers. A concrete jungle of commerce squares and residential sectors stacked overlapping each other connected by a zig-zaging network of bridges and roadways. A billion people dwell here, all struggling to find meaning amid rampant commercialism, ancient divides of creed and race, and a society become machine.

In the south end of the city, the illustrious Gates University. Those who did well in primary schooling were chosen to ascend to a higher class, everyone else was assigned a vocation college or labeled forgotten and destined to fend for themselves in poverty. The Neo Angeles Archival Library serves as a repository for knowledge. Buried under stacks of dusty books are classical tomes from the pre-fall era, tales about wizard schools and even banned copies of religious texts.

Major transit hubs service the city bulleting fast rifle-trons from station to station. On an elevated plateau, Asimov Airport receives jet flights from across the globe. A single X-21 space traveler sits on the launch pad, on government lockdown since the moon colony went dark. Fishing trawlers, cargo freighters, juvenile sports craft and private yachts stream through the cities two ports, Northend Marina and Rancid Bay Harbor. Across from the Marina was the Medical Center. Genaea Memorial Cross serviced those with priority insurance while St. Bellevue provided indigent care. There was also the Children's Hospital and the Elderly and Infirm Crematoriums. The Art district played host to the Grand Aero Theater, Studioway and the Rave Circuses. The Upper Eastside was the entertainment focus with upscale nightclubs, opulent restaurants, extravagant casinos and the occasional classy brothel.

The Boxes had several parks. Eastwest Gardens, a jumbled swatch of common terraces. The Electric Aquanox, a submersive glasstube maze where the hip party with the fishes. Lakeshore Hills, serenity living for the country club suburbanites and visible from those pristine beaches was Vacation Island, tropical destination for elite. And Hybrid National Zoo, where beasts and birds of the forgotten wilds roam reanimated. There was also the family centric incorporate theme park, Budyha Land.

At the very edge of the Boxes is the Wall where the brimming city comes to an abrupt halt. The Wall is a hundred foot tall fortification of pressed brick, electrified barbed wire, Ryche-steel and railguns aimed out at the Wasteland. The military outposts which line the Wall are patrolled by enforcer drones. Land mines pocket the perimeter as search lights and infrared sensors sweep for survivors. Meant to keep those out from getting in and vice versa.

The Pits

Beneath the Boxes are kilometer deep boreholes penetrating the earth’s crust. The Pits, as they are colloquially known, are counter-mirror images of the Towers. These are dark places where all the undesirables fallen from higher society seem to settle. The poor, the villainous and the lost condemned to a life sentence of eking out existence among the subterraneas.

The Tech Caverns house the massive nuclear facilities and hydroponics plants which pump water and power surface side. Augs, individuals who have chosen cybernetic enhancement for medical, cultural or personal reasons, are shunned by higher society but welcomed in certain sub-communities down here. Slave heads, owned by bosses for protection, food and shelter toil in massive factory towns here. The work here is long, laborious and dangerous but, in an age of machine manufacturing, alternatives for these despondents are few. Ringing these smog-choked factory towns are the ethnic enclaves, Little India, Euroburg, Asiatown and Latinville. The crime families here are engaged in unending gang warfare amid ghetto squalor.

Dropping another level down and we find the excavated Subterrestrial Farms where luminescent mold biovats, gen-edited crop plantations and meat slime nurseries grow the sustenance to feed countless starving mouths. Harvesting drones nurture, gather and protect these fields from pilferers. Descend another level and we have the Sewer Swamps. Slugs, those addicted to drugs or virtual stimulation, litter the tunnels down here as literal human trash.

The deepest layers of the pits extend down to the way into the lithosphere and are mostly unknown. The black site prison “Hole 64” is restricted to all but the most craven criminals and their machine wardens. And the abyssal “Hole 51” is omega classified. Some say it collapsed long ago. Some say it contain relics from pre-Fall civilization, and something called The Gateway. Those who say anymore, disappear.