Prologue: The Grim Truth.
Chemical precipitation isn’t water in my neighborhood; it’s a frigid acid that devours both skin and soul. The streets are a labyrinth of puddles where the reflections of broken halogens and synthetic flashes go to drown.
I am Jax Riven, Subject A645. I survive in the Wushi Qu District: “the district of the ignorant.” Yeah, poetic like that. We’ve been living like this since the New Republic took command, and in this damn 3050, things have only gotten worse. The dynasty and the old Tsarists carved up the country like stale bread. We are modern-day slaves, trapped in the most advanced city in the world, yet entitled to nothing.
Technology here is a spectacle for the settlers: life-enhancing implants and flying vehicles… meanwhile, we only have access to Tier 3 tech-trash, useless even for keeping a hospital running.
In this hell, names don’t matter; only the pigment branded into your skin does:
Yellow: The elite. Well-fed dogs serving the settlers.
Blue: The middle class. They breathe, they eat, but they obey.
Red: Those who bleed to keep the city running.
Black: The ghosts. Homeless, lawless, hunted like vermin in the underground.
