Endless City

[Webmonkey]

Who am I?? That's a really good question. But in order to answer that, I guess I should first tell you about where we are, and what happened to bring us to this,...

By the year 3054, the human population was replicating out of control. To try to accomodate the huge upsurge in the population, the governments consolidated under one roof and began the 'Outward Expansion' project. Construction began on an unparralelled scale. By the year 3104, most of the earths surface had been covered. Marvels of human engineering had allowed even most of the oceans to be paved over with roads and buildings. The old cities and countries had ceased to be as they once were, and the borders between the countries became nothing more then lines on a map. This eased the mounting pressures of the ever growing population some. But as the population doubled and then doubled again in less then one generation, the governments had no choice but to begin to building skyward. So, out of the 'Outward Expansion' project, came the 'Upward Expansion' Project.

By the year 3137, the buildings have reached far into the heavens. Some of the tallest reach so high into the stratosphere, that the air is non-existant, and that a rock hurled from the rooftop may well float off into the far reaches of space.

By this point, human technology had advanced to the extremes. Cars flew between the tall structures, medicine had advanced to the point of cybernetic engineering, and a person could spend their whole life with never once having set foot on the ground. Most of the daily functions of the buildings of the world, (bathrooms, food preparation, police and security, even the basic opening of a simple door) were controlled by a mainframe computer.

Soon after the completion of this project, an African born rebel/scientist by the name of Kali Rem'-Rabela, began to question the validity of the goverments and of their willingness to give so much control of their lives over to a computer. After having spoken up, publicly, before the goverment council, he found that many more shared his beliefs and they soon rallied around behind him.

Fearing their impending loss of control of the world which they had so meticulously built, the governments began a secret war against Rabela and his followers,.. using their new automated police force to make surgical strikes against those who would speak out against them. Rabela and his few remaining followers went into hiding and began work on his "Ultimate Solution".

Realizing that the majority of the goverment seats of power were held by white men, he created a virus that looked for specifically caucasian DNA, and eradicated it. He released this virus into the air ducts of one of the goverment buildings. Everyone inside became infected, and as the people came and went from the building, they infected others,.. who then infected others,.. who infected others still. Those who were white began to see the effects within 48 hrs, those who were not of caucasian decent (though immune to the disease) were still carriers, infecting and/or killing others that they came in contact with.

The white leaders, unaware of how quickly the virus had spread, had considered it a local disturbance, and in an effort keep the mass public from harm, they launched a barrage of nuclear weapons at the city where the plauge had first showed up. They belived they could kill two birds with one stone, the nukes were supposed to not only kill Rabela and his followers but the heat and force of the explosion was supposed to sterilize the area and exterminate the plague before it got out of hand.

Their actions did not have the desired effect. They did destroy a small section of the now planet-wide city, and they did manage to kill Rabela.. however the virus was not eliminated. The nuclear radiation actually caused the virus to mutate. The disease's new form spread much more rapidly then even Rabela had anticipated. By the end of the first week, 50% of the white poulation was infected. By the end of the second week 85% of the white population (who had previously made up about 40% of the worlds total population) was already dead. By the end of the third week only about 2% of white people remained. These few seemed to have some sort of natural immunity to the virus, though they still carried it in their bodies and helped to spread the plague to others.

This created a huge vaccuum of power, as the positions of government chairs, mob bosses, and economic enterprises sat unheld. The black and asian communities now comprised the majority of the world populaton. (each being about 45% of the world population, with the remaining 10% being divided between the remainder of the races. Pacific Islander, Indian, Native American, Eskimo, etc, etc,...) The old system of doing things quickly collapsed as the black and asian communities quickly swept in to fill the void. They are now the two main political parties (as it were).

From the black population, Rabela was eventually hailed as a hero. Not only had he rid the planet of the overly white oppressive government, but he had drastically reduced the planet-wide population. Allowing for some breathing room for those who remained. This ~worship~ of Rabela, turned into a cause, then an ideology, and eventually, it's own type of religion. They took his decision about the white race to heart,.. and have largely centered their beliefs around this idea.

With only a handful of white people left on the planet, the black radicals of Rabela saw their opportunity to end the white menace once and for all. They formed extermination squads and scoured the planet,.. hunting down the few hundred thousand white people that remained, and killing them. The black and asian communities were more then happy to oblige, as the rewards for turning in a white man, were great indeed. The white population was reduced even further by the extermination squads. To date, only a few hundred white people remain. Most of those are bought and sold on the "Black Market". (sometimes jokingly referred to as the "White" Market.) Others are kept as pets, slaves, or "sideshow attractions". Those few who were lucky enough to escape the extermination squads spend their lives living in fear, and doing their best to try to hide in a world that has them marked for death.

The year is now 3253 and the world has degenerated into somewhat of a caste system. This system is largely defined by where you live.

The Rabelis:

At the very top live the Rabelis (plural= Rabelai). These are a caste of what are essentially "Techno-Clerics", who use their advanced technology and an obscure form of religious belief, to try to control the planet and those that live beneath them. They are essentially what has become of the the old governments. They believe in law and order, and worship the computer (which still controls their lives) as an all power being. The Rabelai are "pureists" of the strictest form. They do not pollute their bodies with the tainted air of the world around themselves. Instead, prefering to live in their sterile, computer controlled environments. Nor will they allow themselves to be tainted or altered by cybernetic implants. The Rabelai are predominantly black (though some asians and other races do fill in their ranks) They will usually help the computer and the automated police force whenever possible,.. Their Ideology and Laws are as follows...

1. Being White has been deemed illegal. Anyone of Caucasian decent is to be eliminated. Failure to comply marks you for termination.

2. Cybernetics have been deemed illegal for those who follow the path of Rabelis. Technology is to be used with the computers permisssion only. To make oneself partly a machine, is to try to imitate God,.. you are not worthy of God, thus, it is illegal, and punishable by death. (exceptions are made, and permits issued for those who's work requires cybernetic enhancement. A "Tracker/Police Officer" for example, may be given a permit to have his lungs cybernetically enhanced to be able to filter out the poisons of the radiation cloud,.. should he need to go there to follow and/or apprehend a fugitive. These permits are rare however.)

3. Being a Mutant is illegal. Mutants are abstracts from the norm. This detracts from the perfection of the race.

4. Being out of your respective zone without the computers permission is illegal. (Thus a Dregg cannot enter the upper levels where the Rabelai live, without having asked the computer for permission) or Failure to have the proper permits is punishable by death.

The Rabelai Priests believe themselves to be the blessed and the chosen. They have access to all forms of technology from flying cars to plasma rifles to laser swords. Any technology is viable for them to use,.. so long as it is not incorporated into their bodies. (cybernetics are, after all, illegal)

The Rabelai have one problem though. They have been living in computer controlled, virtually sterile environments for so long, that they have relatively weak constitutions. Leaving their environments and venturing into the open expanses of the real world, can be fatal for them. As such, they have developed an assortment of immune system enhancing drugs that must be taken daily.

The Dreggs:

In the next section down (just above the radiation cloud layer, commonly reffered to as the smog) live the Dreggs. (taken from the phrase, the Dreggs of Society) These are the poor, the normal people, and the outcasts of Rabelai society. They are not 'criminals' by any means, (at least not outwardly) but are also not as gifted, or as fortunate as the Rabelai Priets. They are subject to Rabelai Law, but many do not share the Rabelai's radical opinions and nature.

Not able to afford the Rabelai's luxurious lifestyle, these 'Dreggs' have adapted the buildings and the city at their level, to suit their own needs. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention. Lacking the flying vehicles that the Rabela posess, and still needing to travel between the buildings, and sometimes, unable to afford to price of living inside one of the buildings, has led the Dreggs to build an intricate network of rope and cable bridges between the pre-existing structures. Whole streets, neighborhoods, and shopping markets hang suspended in mid-air,.. thousands of feet from any actual building, and miles above the ground. The largest amount of trade and commerce happens here.

This is the area of largest mix between the races. Asians and blacks can both be found here in equal numbers. The police drones fly through the tangled web-like structures of the floating cities, enforcing the laws upon those that dwell there. Some fly like birds, (usually surveilance drones or many gun drones), others are built like spiders and crawl effortlessly through, over, under, and around the great chasm spanning streets. Others still are large, hulking units. Slow and heavy, these units are the easiest to escape from,.. however they pack a lot of firepower, and are capable of killing whole streets full of rioting people,.. if need be.

The Mutants:

Below the Dreggs' "floating" cities, lies the radiation layer. This is an ever-present cloud mixture of the poisonous radition fallout of the nuclear weapons and the mutated virus. This also marks the beginning of the criminal elements of the planet. Those that have choosen (or been forced) to leave the "upper worlds" have been forced to live below the radiation line. Long term exposure to the elements here have resulted in some peculiar adaptaions and abnormalities within the human genome. This has given birth to a "sub-species" of humans, commonly just called "Mutants". This is "no man's land", as no single faction can remain in the cloud long enough to truely control it. Though if a faction were to claim possession, or take permanent residence,.. it would be the Mutants. (The Rabelai and the ICS both tend to avoid the radiation layer or pass through it as quickly as possible. Not only are the Mutants unpredictable, but there is a static charge in the cloud that travels in intermittant waves and acts like a low level Electro-Magnetic Pulse. This pulse causes cybernetics or other technology to go haywire or stop working all together.

Mutants have a wide range of powers that are often undetectable by the Rabelai and since they cannot control it, it has been deemed illegal. Some of the most common adaptations are the ability to breathe the toxic fume without suffering any negative effects, or the ability to travel between the buildings by the power of flight, or the ability to adversely affect technology.

The Intelli-Corp Syndicate:

Below the radiation cloud layer is the remanents of the old city. This is the domain of the Intelli-Corp Syndicate (ICS). A largely Asian dominated faction (though other races do make up some of their ranks) The ICS are part government, part mobsters. They control the black market, and like the Rabelai,.. they hunt down and seek out those few white people that are left. Not to kill them necessarily,.. but more for the profit. White people fetch a lot of money on the black market, as slaves or curiousities. The ICS are the Yin to the Rabelai's Yang. They hold vastly different views on many political issues, and the two enjoy an uneasy truce about the matter. The Rabelai hold law and order in the highest regard, but they tend to turn a blind eye to the actions of the ICS. This is due in part to the fact that the ICS tends to do a lot of the "dirty work" for the Rabelai,.. capturing, and sometimes killing the Rabelai's enemies, with no need for the Rabelai Priests to have to travel outside their own sterile habitats. Secondly, the ICS lives below the Rabelai. And for all their technology, they'd be screwed if the ICS decided to blow the supports of the buildings out from under them.

The air at this lower level is breathable, though nowhere near as pure as the air above the layer. The cloud blocks all of the suns rays, making all lighting sources here artificial. The cloud occasionally dumps buckets of rain down upon the city floor. This rain is acidic and eats through most materials. Computer animated worker drones are ever vigilant in the repair of the buildings.. many of which are asigned to vast underground mines where they work tirelessly (along with many slaves from the trader guilds) to procure raw materials to manage the upkeep upon the buildings. As such, many people have been maimed or otherwise disfigured by being caught out in the rains. This has generated the need for replacement parts.

One of the biggest money makers for the ICS (outside of white slave sales) is the manufacturing, installation, and sale of cybernetic parts. Anything can be found on the cyber market here,.. from arms, to legs, to eyes, to ears,... anything. Good cyber parts are expensive however. This is how the ICS gains most of it's recruits. It gives the person whatever cyber-enhanements are necessary, but then forces the person to work their debt off. This process can sometimes take the rest of their lives. A secondary problem with cybernetics is the installation process. Good and reputable cyber-docs are both illegal, and hard to come by.

(to be continued),....

Edited July 16, 2013 by Webmonkey

[Thechosenone]

Its an interesting prompt for whatever you intend to use it for. Its very dystopian and the race element is intriguing. Its different because race war related issues rarely filter into most of the fiction we read on such a down to earth basis.

Keep writing and i'll keep reading

[Webmonkey]

The smell,... that god-awful smell. But he had to endure it. Best not to breathe. Besides, panting as hard as he was, was going to draw attention anyways. Jake had to be quiet now, no matter how bad his leg hurt, and he knew it. If he didn't, the automated police force would find him, and that would be the end. He had the unlucky priviledge of walking past a Spider when his cloak failed and exposed him.

***Side notes-(A spider, for those of you who may be new to Endless City, is basically a self automated tank turret with 6 spider-like legs. It's built for crawling over, under, or around the huge maze-like rope city structures that hang suspended in the air between the "proper" buildings.

Jake's cloak is a holographic image, projected by his watch. Its sole purpose to make him appear to be a black male. Being white, it's the only way he can move about freely. The downside,.. it only has a limited charge time.)***

He could hear the sirens outside, and the creaking of the rope walkways under the weight of the machines. He pulls his knife out from his jacket and places the handle in his mouth, biting down hard on the handle. He pauses to take a deep breath, and with a quick snap, he uses both hands to force the broken bone in his leg back into place. The pain is almost more then he can bear. But he knows he can't cry out. So he bites down into the wooden handle even harder, until he thinks his teeth are going to break.

He fumbles through his pockets, looking for the medi-kit. But it's dark in here and hard to see. Not that more light would help much, since his eyes are watering from the pain.

Finally, he manages to locate the pack. He flicks it open and feels around the inside with his fingers. There were only 3 stims (doses) left. He takes one out, but his hands are shaking and trembling with fear and with pain. The first one he drops, and it sinks somewhere into the surrounding goo that flowing down the bottom of this pipe.

DAMN IT!!, He thinks to himself.

He tries to calm himself down even more to stop the shaking. Once more, he removes a stim from the pack. He takes the cap off to expose the small needle and thrusts it down into his leg at the site of the break. The stim makes a small hissing noise as it force-injects the compound into his leg. A moment later, the pain begins to subside, as the bone begins to knit itself back together at a hyper-accelerated rate.

He breathes a sigh of relief as the pain lessens and then all but disappears. The leg was good again. Which is a good thing, since he may need it to continue to run. But for now, he wasn't going anywhere. The police force was on high alert. He was pinned down, but safe. Nobody knew he was in here. He would just have to wait it out. Eventually, the police force would move on.

Now though, without the pain in his leg to distract him, his head began to swim from the concussion. When the Spider saw him it began firing at him. Lots of innocent bystanders got hit by stray bullets as the police force fired relentlessly at Jake,.. regardless of the surrounding crowd.

Unable to to hit Jake with the small arms fire, the Spider opted to fire at him with it's main cannon. The shell missed Jake, but hit a nearby wall. The blast wave sent him flailing over the rope-bridge railing and set his ears to ringing. He tried to correct himself during the fall, but the blast had disoriented him. He fell a fairly long way, and busted his leg on impact with the sewage pipe.

The pain of the break had snapped him back into reality. That's when he had crawled inside the pipe and hid. He didn't begrudge the pipe though. After all, not only was it giving him a place to hide for the moment, but if it hadn't been there,.. he'd have likely been dead. The rope cities hang between the skyscrapers,.. miles in the air. And he could have easily fallen to his doom.

Now, he was stuck in this horrible smelling pipe, but he was safe. His head still pounded and swam. He looked over and saw his precious case. A metal breifcase, with a simple handle and 2 combination locks. One on each side. This was more precious to him then his own life. It was the one chance that the white people had of surviving at all. Its contents couldn't be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.

He picked the case up, placing it on his lap, and then pulled his legs up to pin it between his legs and his chest,... protecting it the best he could. He wrapped his arms around his legs, hugging them into himself, and rested his head on his knees. He could feel the coolness of the metal surface against his cheek. It felt good,... reassuring, somehow. The knife handle tumbled from his mouth, rolling over the the top of his arm and landing silently on tail on his jacket.

He couldn't help it any longer. The darkness took him. But the case was safe for now,.. and that's all that mattered.

(to be continued)

[Webmonkey]

*bump*

[bowchikawowers]

Good start! The first post reads a start to an rpg world, very interesting setting! I hope you'll write more! I want to know what's in the case!

---------- Post added at 11:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:59 PM ----------

One thing I'd watch out for though: you switch quite a bit between tenses, you should pick one and stick to it, makes it much less confusing to follow.