Post by tiernan on Jun 7, 2013 14:10:29 GMT 1
Chapter 1
My life up until the arrival of the Reapers was what might be charitably called a series of almost. Despite a decidedly poor school, I’d almost scored high enough to be trained as an engineer. I’d been born too late for the 1st Contact War, so when the war was over they had once again raised the entrance exams. The Alliance Military was closed to me, as well. Needless to say, I couldn’t make the college entrance exams either.
Things were not looking up, but the City of Oakland hired me as a sewage and sanitation worker. Someone has to repair the welding robots and the automated trenchers and pipe layers. So no I don’t have any stories of traveling through miles of sewage leavened plasticrete pipe. If you think that didn’t keep a lot of people from looking down on me, you’d be wrong.
The job didn’t pay much. I could keep clothes on my back. I was able to afford a fairly crummy apartment, and eat. I found I didn’t have much money left for anything else. My wardrobe was from a thrift store which had the unfortunate effect of making me a target of ridicule by the kids on the block. It was hard not to resent it, but kids are going to be kids.
I washed my face in the dented stainless steel sink. I brushed my teeth and got to look at my thin brown hair framing a face that looked more like a beaten suitcase. I was one of those working poor. I couldn’t get the free medical services offered to the actual poor, and I couldn’t buy anything else. The life extension treatments were something I could dream about but never afford. I looked every damned day of my fifty five years and felt it to.
“Zak, are you there?”
I honestly did have something that was 1st class though, my Omni-tool. Technically it was owned by the City of Oakland but since they have to attune an Omni-tool to a particular nervous system it was mine.
“Zak Dayson will you answer me damn it!”
“Hi there Jack, why are you calling me an hour before my shift begins?”
Jack Debreu was my line supervisor and a jerk. My Omni-tools holographic screen sprang up revealing a watery eyed, flabby faced white guy. Jack made three times what I did, something he loved to remind me of constantly. I’d be guessing, but I was pretty sure that most of that money was going to feed his 300 something pounds. Myself, well I was working on the slightly malnourished beggar look, with remarkable success.
“Zak, if I wanted to be questioned by the likes of you I’d be a line worker now wouldn’t I? The Alliance is paying the City of Oakland for an excavation job pronto. I need you to head over to the old Alameda Naval Air Station right now.”
“Jack that is in the City of Alameda for one thing you know I can go there to work.”
“I’m going to repeat myself again, you don’t question me you beggar moron. The Alliance is paying hefty for this job, and Alameda is getting a cut. We have better equipment, and Alameda is dealing with a main sewer line break.”
I scratched my head, Jack was a shifty bastard that would skin me out of cash at any opportunity. His favorite scam was to make us work off the books to avoid overtime. He took enormous pride in keeping to his budget and even more joy in making us work for free.
“I am going to take a wild guess my overtime won’t get paid?”
“You get to keep your job, and if you aren’t there ASAP you will be in the unemployment line this afternoon.”
“If you want me there fast Jack you are going to have to spring for an air car, I’ll be an hour at least getting there if I have to take the Alameda tube.”
“Alright Zak, I will give you that, besides I’m so under budget on my transport costs they will cut funding if I don’t spend some. I’m sending the thumpers on autopilot to NAS, and I will have an air car outside your door in 5 minutes.”
With that done Jack cut the link with a huge smile. He had accomplished his goals of securing a large bonus for himself and screwed me out of money again. He was a happy man. Muttering I threw on my clothes. I got out of my front door where the air car was waiting. It was an Elkoss Sapphire sky car capable of moving some 600 KPH, it would have me at the Alameda NAS in a exceedingly few minutes.
I found that unfortunate because I don’t get to ride in air cars often. I watched my shabby clapboard apartment complex drop down. The next block over was the shambles, a collection of roughened bits of light plascrete that served as home to the red sand junkies. Each of tenants of my apartment building paid the local gang to keep the sanders off our property. The morgue patrol would pick up the sanders corpses in the morning.
A minute later I was passing the jetty slips were berthing multimillion credit yachts. The blue glowing lines showed the perimeter fence where the auto turrets mowed down any biotic sander that got through the barrier. The Alameda Estuary that separated Alameda and Oakland whizzed by almost filled by gigantic cargo ships heading to and from the Oakland port Authority crawling along at 10 knots.
The expansive mansions of Alameda were a stark contrast to the slums of Oakland. The financial firms that generated the bulk of San Francisco’s business needed space for their executives mansions. The solution was that they purchased the entire city of Alameda and every property in the city proper. Once the transactions had been completed the corporations had evicted the entire population.
The entire popular outcry meant little when the lobbyist and backdoor wheel greasing were done. The corporate security types had weapons and the populace didn’t. The bulldozing of every building on the island ended the argument.
The air car whisked me over the shining new city. I even saw the Alameda Utility department working on the broken sewage pipe. Another 30 seconds brought me to the abandoned Alameda Naval Air Station.
The NAS was a valuable resource that was the poster child of competing interests. When the U.S. Navy abandon the base as redundant. NAS was capable of being a full-fledged civil airport. However since NAS would have competed with the already overused San Francisco Airport and Oakland Airports, such a use was denied. Plans to turn it into a park, military museum, and tourist attraction, were tried and failed with the 1st contact war. It seems that naval history wasn’t much interest when space was the new battle ground.
My life up until the arrival of the Reapers was what might be charitably called a series of almost. Despite a decidedly poor school, I’d almost scored high enough to be trained as an engineer. I’d been born too late for the 1st Contact War, so when the war was over they had once again raised the entrance exams. The Alliance Military was closed to me, as well. Needless to say, I couldn’t make the college entrance exams either.
Things were not looking up, but the City of Oakland hired me as a sewage and sanitation worker. Someone has to repair the welding robots and the automated trenchers and pipe layers. So no I don’t have any stories of traveling through miles of sewage leavened plasticrete pipe. If you think that didn’t keep a lot of people from looking down on me, you’d be wrong.
The job didn’t pay much. I could keep clothes on my back. I was able to afford a fairly crummy apartment, and eat. I found I didn’t have much money left for anything else. My wardrobe was from a thrift store which had the unfortunate effect of making me a target of ridicule by the kids on the block. It was hard not to resent it, but kids are going to be kids.
I washed my face in the dented stainless steel sink. I brushed my teeth and got to look at my thin brown hair framing a face that looked more like a beaten suitcase. I was one of those working poor. I couldn’t get the free medical services offered to the actual poor, and I couldn’t buy anything else. The life extension treatments were something I could dream about but never afford. I looked every damned day of my fifty five years and felt it to.
“Zak, are you there?”
I honestly did have something that was 1st class though, my Omni-tool. Technically it was owned by the City of Oakland but since they have to attune an Omni-tool to a particular nervous system it was mine.
“Zak Dayson will you answer me damn it!”
“Hi there Jack, why are you calling me an hour before my shift begins?”
Jack Debreu was my line supervisor and a jerk. My Omni-tools holographic screen sprang up revealing a watery eyed, flabby faced white guy. Jack made three times what I did, something he loved to remind me of constantly. I’d be guessing, but I was pretty sure that most of that money was going to feed his 300 something pounds. Myself, well I was working on the slightly malnourished beggar look, with remarkable success.
“Zak, if I wanted to be questioned by the likes of you I’d be a line worker now wouldn’t I? The Alliance is paying the City of Oakland for an excavation job pronto. I need you to head over to the old Alameda Naval Air Station right now.”
“Jack that is in the City of Alameda for one thing you know I can go there to work.”
“I’m going to repeat myself again, you don’t question me you beggar moron. The Alliance is paying hefty for this job, and Alameda is getting a cut. We have better equipment, and Alameda is dealing with a main sewer line break.”
I scratched my head, Jack was a shifty bastard that would skin me out of cash at any opportunity. His favorite scam was to make us work off the books to avoid overtime. He took enormous pride in keeping to his budget and even more joy in making us work for free.
“I am going to take a wild guess my overtime won’t get paid?”
“You get to keep your job, and if you aren’t there ASAP you will be in the unemployment line this afternoon.”
“If you want me there fast Jack you are going to have to spring for an air car, I’ll be an hour at least getting there if I have to take the Alameda tube.”
“Alright Zak, I will give you that, besides I’m so under budget on my transport costs they will cut funding if I don’t spend some. I’m sending the thumpers on autopilot to NAS, and I will have an air car outside your door in 5 minutes.”
With that done Jack cut the link with a huge smile. He had accomplished his goals of securing a large bonus for himself and screwed me out of money again. He was a happy man. Muttering I threw on my clothes. I got out of my front door where the air car was waiting. It was an Elkoss Sapphire sky car capable of moving some 600 KPH, it would have me at the Alameda NAS in a exceedingly few minutes.
I found that unfortunate because I don’t get to ride in air cars often. I watched my shabby clapboard apartment complex drop down. The next block over was the shambles, a collection of roughened bits of light plascrete that served as home to the red sand junkies. Each of tenants of my apartment building paid the local gang to keep the sanders off our property. The morgue patrol would pick up the sanders corpses in the morning.
A minute later I was passing the jetty slips were berthing multimillion credit yachts. The blue glowing lines showed the perimeter fence where the auto turrets mowed down any biotic sander that got through the barrier. The Alameda Estuary that separated Alameda and Oakland whizzed by almost filled by gigantic cargo ships heading to and from the Oakland port Authority crawling along at 10 knots.
The expansive mansions of Alameda were a stark contrast to the slums of Oakland. The financial firms that generated the bulk of San Francisco’s business needed space for their executives mansions. The solution was that they purchased the entire city of Alameda and every property in the city proper. Once the transactions had been completed the corporations had evicted the entire population.
The entire popular outcry meant little when the lobbyist and backdoor wheel greasing were done. The corporate security types had weapons and the populace didn’t. The bulldozing of every building on the island ended the argument.
The air car whisked me over the shining new city. I even saw the Alameda Utility department working on the broken sewage pipe. Another 30 seconds brought me to the abandoned Alameda Naval Air Station.
The NAS was a valuable resource that was the poster child of competing interests. When the U.S. Navy abandon the base as redundant. NAS was capable of being a full-fledged civil airport. However since NAS would have competed with the already overused San Francisco Airport and Oakland Airports, such a use was denied. Plans to turn it into a park, military museum, and tourist attraction, were tried and failed with the 1st contact war. It seems that naval history wasn’t much interest when space was the new battle ground.