City of Light and Wonder / 1 /

Switch, Blink, and Feedback stood on the edge of the world. They were a sight to see. Switch was fit as a fiddle. He had the air of a soldier and dressed in his sweats he looked like he belonged training a group of recruits. Blink felt more comfortable in a tank top with her laptop handy. Whereas Feedback wore something more like an amorphous wizard's robe with his face hidden beneath the hood. Behind them was the endless expanse of desert, depression and death.

Ahead of them was their home, Clifton: the City of Light and Wonder. Clifton was not even a city, it was a bastion built at the end of the Old World. Thermal or solar or geological, something had destroyed the world, so said the history lessons, and places like Clifton were built to protect what was left. It was a technological marvel. Entire districts of the city were devoted to growing and harvesting food. Machine shops and fabrications studios worked all hours of the day with the sole purpose of churning out updates, upgrades, and repair parts.

Not everything survived the end of the Old World. Remnants passed down were eventually broken or forgotten. The only true survivor was the Old World's digital footprint. It was microscopic compared to the digital reach of the Clifton. Even so, it was enough to give Humanity a glimpse into the past. Media blended fiction and reality. No clear delineation could be made between history and art. It was nothing more than an idea of what life had been like, most people could not look past the green grass and the blue skies. That was why the Old World Media was mostly ignored. It was difficult to look at the beauty of the Old World, only to return to the grimace of the digital era.

For Blink, the Old World Media was a glimpse into Humanity's struggles. A glimpse at what Humanity had accomplished. Proof that no matter what the human race faced, no matter what oppression or overwhelming odds, freedom rang true. It was a calling they could live up to, a hope for a brighter tomorrow. The Mech Wars of the Old World proved that no matter how technologically oppressed people were, someone would free them from their shackles and they would rise up. Blink considered herself just as stuck as the rest. Despite her beliefs, she was one of the few who would cut away the cables and lead the rebellion. Even if she would never be ready to admit it.

The tech that Those On High built trickled down eventually. It did not always come through clean. Most times, it was buggy and full of source code errors. But even though it was a grimy third world version of the original, the trio still looked out on holographic billboards, hovering cars, and soundless explosions of light and data. Clifton truly was the City of Light and Wonder.

If it were up to the trio, this would be the sole reason for their vantage point on the edge of the world but unfortunately they didn't answer to Those On High and word had come down that Beth Andrew Hammerford, AKA Blink, was a member of Console Ghost. Unfortunately for those that came looking, they didn't know that while she was just a member her brother Samuel Andrew Hammerford, AKA Switch, was a former Old Guard Lieutenant.

Console Ghost might be closed-mindedly defined as a Net-based Terrorist Collective. As far as the general public knew, they were the bad guys. As far as the general public knew, they were the last Cyber Gang that Those On High would crush like a bug. From Console Ghost's perspective, the only Cyber Gangs that were extinguished were those that failed to fold in to multiply their strengths and hopefully ease the burden of pressure from Those On High.

So it was truly unfortunate, as a team from the Security Force walked into the alley beneath the trio that they knew nothing about Switch's presence or the potential that some of the rowdier Cyber Gangs still survived by flying under a different flag.