PROLOGUE
Nestling high on top of a fifty-story urban city skyscraper made of sleek chrome and glass is an ultra-sleek high school classroom complete with personal silver laptop desk computers, fine brown leather chairs, and super thin flat-screened video panels on the walls. It looks and smells of new construction in the year 2122. Jutting out in an overly-populated city and smoking in the sunlight, this skyscraper was crammed in with many others.
A history class was about to start as a pretty, petite young Hispanic teacher with neat brown hair pulled high on top of her head greeted unruly teenagers one by one on their way to their seats, motley punked teenage school kids of all shapes, colors, and sizes. There was a stark contrast between the teacher and her students, one in all her silvery uniformed refinery while the teens dressed in torn and tattered shreds. Not because they were from a particular economic background like the street, it was simply their futuristic fashion of the day, the rebellious kind not wanting to be uniformed, neat, and mainstream.
“Why do we need history again?” said a teen with orange spikey hair as he entered the room.
“To pay her paycheck,” said another teen sarcastically, walking behind the first; he had a giant black mohawk.
“Is she a bot?” said a third teen walking through the doorway.
It was the first day of school, and the new history teacher knew she had to win this argument like all the others she remembered back in her days at New Atlantis University. She was used to having to make up for her petite size. So as soon as the school bell rang, she centered herself among rebellious eyes, looking for an excuse to ditch class, and addressed the issue, “Why do you think it’s important to learn about history?” She heard a few smirks, but nobody dared say anything. She continued, “What about the history of punk?”
“Hell yea!” said a voice from the back.
“What kind of history class is this? Because according to my schedule, it is called City History 101,” a girl with blue hair spoke up.
The teacher tapped a button on her wristwatch, which shut the lights off, and a holographic video image dropped between her and the students, wowing them in the unexpected process. It featured a moving animated map while an older woman’s voice started to narrate:
“Oh, sad eyes of my weary traveler, how much suffering in our cluttered world there has been. Our past was filled with wars and diseases, which shredded our country, once called the United States. All that was left of anything united are walled-up cities dotted throughout the baren and wasted post-apocalyptic countryside, little bubbles struggling to maintain their city’s technological and electrical infrastructure with rogue military defense satellites running wild up in the atmosphere.
“One such walled-up bubble of concrete mesh used to be called Atlanta in Old Georgia. But the self-proclaimed mayor, Duffer Sye, changed its name to “Tech City.” Of course, there was a significant uprising and angry protesting led by a cyber security hacker known as the French Fox. But Mayor Sye had a more substantial following, mandating the Law of Expulsion: anyone who dared oppose the mayor would be exiled out of Tech City, never to return. He had the Metro Skypoes (city sky police) hunt down the French Fox, banishing her and all her followers, dooming them to live out their days in the supposed diseased wastelands outside the city walls.
“Duffer Sye was orchestrating his underground agenda, using and abusing Neuralink brain chip technology. He wanted to implant every citizen in the city with a brain chip. At the same time, his scientists worked on a central control device known as “The Ark.” The original brain chip technology was created to aid disabled humans in controlling computerized devices with their minds. However, Mayor Sye wanted that technology to be reversed, to control all minds with a computerized device instead. He tried to shut off and block any neurotransmitters that would lead to any kind of protest, backlash, uprising, or rebellion.
“But the reversed brain chip technology had one slight malfunction in the humans who were implanted with the chip, such as with the city’s cyber engineers. Whenever they worked on restoring their technological capabilities, their minds would go blank, suddenly forgetting what they were working on. It made it virtually impossible to decode and reverse engineer the land-based satellite hub connected to the rogue military defense air satellites causing their city to have earthquakes that threatened the very foundation upon which the city sits. They could not find the Army’s secret satellite command center either. So, the tiny brain chip implant had a considerable price to pay, and Mayor Sye was not sure how to handle the bill.
“However, a little rebellious purple-haired thirteen-year-old punk from Tech City decided to record her memoirs.”
The hologram stopped, but the lights stayed off. The teacher started to circle the students and said, “City history, your history starts right here, with a little girl who started just like you.”
“Is this a science class or history?” the teen with orange spikey hair said.
“Sounds like the mayor wanted everyone to be deaf, dumb, and blind,” said the black-mohawked teen.
The teacher knew these kids wanted to be entertained. They wanted to be dazzled, they wanted excitement, and she was ready to deliver what they needed the most.
“Why don’t we start with an introduction of who…”
“C’mon, lady, you got a roster of names and pics already,” said the blue-haired girl.
The teacher thought this was an almost perfect moment, and she did not want to let it go to waste. “Okay,” she said, “you guys win.” As soon as the kids cheered, the teacher tapped her wristwatch and began the colorful hologram show of an uneducated young thirteen-year-old purple-haired urban punk recording her memories. At the same time, copies of the transcript popped up on each student’s personal silver laptop desk computers.
