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REDUX : 003 : The World We Live In

  The rain descended, a brief respite from the relentless accumulation of dust and grime that had become synonymous with our city. I pulled my hoodie tight and began my journey, using the first building I encountered as my portal to the rooftops. From there, I navigated from one to the next, the persistent wail of sirens providing a constant soundtrack. I lapsed into a form of autopilot, muscle memory guiding me across this urban terrain while my thoughts wandered.

  It had been nearly two years since I became a Courier. Little remained of my memories about family—the past had become so obscure as to be unverifiable. On this unforgiving world, life was a ceaseless struggle where violence served as daily currency. Presiding over it all were mega-corporations like MainFrame, who enticed the masses with unattainable promises.

  For most, existence devolved into a form of serfdom for the likes of Melrose Farms or Neo Future Factories, where sanity eroded to the point of self-inflicted oblivion, either through self-destruction or the destruction of others. Slightly higher in this hierarchy existed people like me—Couriers, NeuroSlicers, and others who bartered away pieces of their minds and bodies for credits. And below these workers, at the bottom of the barrel, were those who would resort to any means for a few precious credits—criminals living desperate lives in Neon Underground or those who chose to submerge themselves in the narcotic escape known as Dream.

  Yet, on the city's outskirts, far removed from the heart of chaos, remnants of civilization persisted. Neighborhoods like Green Ring posed as quasi-suburbs, offering a semblance of safety for the privileged few. Beyond, on the cusp of the desolation that consumed most of the world, lay the fortified enclave of Sapphire Summit. There, the new elite—remnants of the past's engineers and corporate leaders—savored the dreams extracted from the masses. These places existed in stark contrast to the world most of us inhabited, accessible only to a tiny minority of the population who had somehow clawed their way to the top or been born into privilege.

  BAM!

  The sound yanked me violently from my thoughts, snapping me back to reality. A thunderous impact erupted beside me, concrete splintering from a nearby chimney. I reacted with haste, taking cover. Was it a stray bullet?

  Subsequent shots confirmed my theory. I was not the target. Amid the cacophony of sirens, screams, and car horns reverberating through the squalid alleys, I rose carefully, hand clenching my precious knife as I approached the ledge.

  Again, shots rang out. Then, an explosion rent the air, and the city streets were bathed in crimson flames and shrouded in dark smoke. I moved cautiously toward the edge of the roof, then lay flat to peer over the ledge while the digital zoom of my mechanical eyes deciphered the chaos below.

  In the middle of the street stood a man brandishing a makeshift rifle—the kind of weapon procured for a pittance on the black market. His cybernetic arms were of the bargain-bin variety, with exposed cables snaking across bared metal, a network of gritty conduits carrying the vital pulses of his existence. Grimy oil clung to these mechanical limbs, unadorned and untouched by cosmetic refinement. These utilitarian appendages spoke of a life marked by harshness, a ceaseless toil leaving no room for luxury.

  His bare chest bore a metallic contraption with multiple inputs—unmistakably a Deciton, designed to interface with Neo Future factory's automation systems. Similar to my Receptacle, these devices were leased by employees from their corporate overlords, a pact signed in blood and credits.

  This man was a factory worker, appearing to be in his mid-thirties, though it was challenging to discern amidst the harsh conditions and unrelenting hours that drained laborers of life.

  Another shot pierced the air.

  I instinctively shielded my face, though I wasn't his target. Strewn across the street were multiple lifeless bodies, their blood pooling amidst shattered glass and twisted metal—the aftermath of a car crash that triggered the explosion I had witnessed moments earlier.

  Further down the road, a young boy struggled to drag a woman's body. Tears streamed down his face as he desperately pulled at her limp form. Her head bled profusely, and zooming in, I could see she hadn't survived, her skull partially obliterated. A hopeless endeavor.

  The man moved toward the young boy, his shouts nonsensical. These lone gunman incidents had been increasing lately—a symptom of fundamental flaws in our system. Each one followed the same pattern: a worker pushed beyond breaking point.

  Life as a Neo Future employee was a brutal ordeal. To secure factory work, you had to rent cybernetic augmentations that cost more than your base salary. This forced workers into endless, often underpaid extra shifts, trapped in a cycle where it was almost impossible to actually earn any credits. With no alternatives available, masses of desperate people accepted these conditions, hoping that some small portion of credits might eventually find their way into their accounts. Instead, most found only mounting debt, leading many to lose their minds and sanity entirely.

  He fired once more, this time hitting the young boy in the chest.

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  My hand instinctively reached for my knife, but as my fingers brushed its cold surface, I hesitated. What could I do, after all? The answer was painfully clear—nothing.

  From my rooftop perch, I was witnessing the inevitable outcome of our broken world. Only two paths offered any escape from this misery: the elusive sanctuary of MainFrame Heaven, attainable by a fortunate few with enough credits, or the numbing embrace of Dream for those who gave up hope entirely. For the vast majority, life was nothing but contract-binding servitude under corporate overlords, a slow march toward madness or moments of violence like this one.

  Again, shots echoed through the streets. Three more rounds, two in the woman and a final shot in the child. Their lifeless forms now lay in a crimson pool, the rain slowly diluting the blood and spreading it across the pavement.

  My hand remained poised over my concealed knife, its blade undrawn. I wanted to help—to do something, anything—but what could one person accomplish against this system of mechanized despair? I clenched my fist in frustration, the weight of my own powerlessness crushing down on me.

  There was nothing to be done.

  As sirens drew nearer, two police cars arrived at breakneck speed, skidding to a halt. Officers swiftly emerged, using their vehicles as impromptu cover while aiming their weapons at the shooter. He was reloading, his nonsensical screams unabated.

  "My wife! My house! My kid! My kid! MY KID! MY KID!"

  He spiraled into a repetitive loop, like a malfunctioning computer stuck in an error cycle. There was no reasoning or humanity left in his voice—just the mechanical repetition of words echoing from what once had been a person. As soon as he finished reloading, he aimed his rifle at the officers. In seconds, they responded with a volley of shots, far more than necessary. The gunman's body was decimated.

  His lifeless form slumped to the ground, the makeshift rifle sliding into a puddle, the downpour washing away blood and black oil from his corpse. The street fell suddenly silent, save for rain pattering against metal and concrete. The once fiery explosion from the crashed vehicle had transmuted into a thick plume of darkness rising ominously into the sky. Blue and red police lights painted ever-shifting patterns across the urban landscape.

  I leaned back against the low wall of the rooftop, taking a deep, contemplative breath.

  This world was unraveling thread by thread, its fabric coming apart.

  Via my heads-up display, I accessed my savings account:

  6,785,941 Credits.

  I was tantalizingly close to escape, to realizing my dream. Every credit earned, every waking moment invested, every memory lost was a step toward liberation from this relentless hell.

  I sat there, lost in thought, as rain washed over me, droplets trickling down my hoodie and obscuring my vision.

  "Almost there," I repeated to myself, an incantation to sustain my resolve.

  As I struggled to muster the willpower to continue, the urban cacophony was disrupted by a helicopter's descent, its roaring blades cutting through night air and billowing smoke. A brilliant searchlight pierced the gloom, illuminating grimy streets and shadowed rooftops. The symbol on the helicopter's flank left no ambiguity—Neo Future.

  Rising to my feet, I fixated on the unfolding spectacle:

  The mechanical behemoth hung ominously in the sky, a sentinel of corporate might. Two Neo Future Security agents, donned in gleaming silver armor and faceless chrome helmets, rappelled down to the rain-soaked asphalt.

  I watched as one approached the gunman's lifeless body, efficiently securing it to a cable lowered by the hovering helicopter. With mechanical precision, the body was hoisted and ferried away. The second guard used a portable scanner to examine each body on the bloody street, methodically moving from one to the next. After scanning, he marked only certain bodies—the young boy and the woman who had died at the factory worker's hands. These were secured to cables and lifted away just like the gunman, while the other casualties were left untouched where they had fallen. Once the selected remains were aboard, the agents were swiftly reeled in, and the helicopter soared into the distance, vanishing into the bleak city expanse.

  The cold pragmatism of this common operation was chilling—these unfortunate souls, all likely indentured employees of Neo Future, would be dismembered, their organs harvested and sold to settle outstanding debts to the company. Even the battered Deciton apparatus could be salvaged for the next unfortunate soul bound by the corporation's relentless contract.

  In the distance, another shot echoed, prompting police to hastily abandon the scene. The subsequent arrival of coroners ensured the swift, unceremonious removal of remaining victims, leaving behind a chilling tableau of destruction—the shattered vehicle, debris, and pools of blood that no one would bother to clean. It would persist, a poignant reminder of a city perpetually teetering on despair's brink, slowly melding into its bleak urban landscape as rain diluted the crimson stains into rust-colored shadows.

  As the last coroner vehicle pulled away, movement caught my eye. From side streets and shadowed doorways, figures emerged cautiously at first, then with growing boldness. Like cockroaches sensing the absence of light, the city's scavengers crept toward the scene. They descended on what remained—stripping the wrecked vehicle of parts, rummaging through scattered belongings, even collecting scraps of metal from where bullets had struck concrete. Some knelt in the bloody water, fishing for valuables with bare hands.

  One woman approached a body left behind by the coroners, methodically removing cybernetic implants with practiced precision. A child no older than ten stood beside her, holding a rusted bucket to collect their findings. Nobody interfered. Nobody cared. In a world where credits meant the difference between salvation and oblivion, morality was a luxury few could afford.

  I watched this macabre ballet with a mixture of disgust and resignation. This was our reality—the unvarnished truth of our existence. When systems fail, people adapt, however grim the adaptation might be.

  Once again, a piercing headache pulsed through my skull, the cruel memento that the city's inexorable decay mirrored my own sanity's disintegration. I retrieved my vial of Beta-Blockers, one small pill dissolving in my mouth, its soothing embrace a rapid antidote to the chaos around me.

  It was time to retreat home. With renewed determination, I turned from the unsettling scene and leaped to the adjacent rooftop, my sprint carrying me further away, desperate to put as much distance between myself and this scene of horror as possible. I needed to reach my home—the one place where I could temporarily shut out the madness of this world.

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