11 years, 82 days before The Incident – 1708H
District [REDACTED] Nest
Magister Office Headquarters
Lian Yue reclined in her chair as she went over the most recent reports. All around her was luxury befitting of the Nests, but perhaps even beyond. The desk was of solid wood of a deep red tone with visible grain, and covered with a thin top of black granite with an unnaturally smooth finish. The chair, generously padded with some sort of memory foam, was upholstered in black leather and its metal frame gilded of brass giving it a precious shine. Even the teacup that stood at her side featured a golden-hued brass armature framing the black porcelain, while red velvet curtains filtered the bright outside light and allowed the dimmed chandelier to provide a more cozy, comfortable light.
By contrast, the young Fixer’s outfit partially clashed with the black tones common in the office building, with a formal suit of white. The shirt underneath her white jacket, though, was deep red, like much of the livery. Her black hair was long and left freely flowing down her back. Her blue eyes narrowed as she continued to read for a moment longer, only to let out a weary sigh and set the file back upon her desk, instead reaching for her teacup. The brew was fresh, and homemade, a chrysanthemum bulb floating in the pale liquid which had a vaguely flowery, gentle aroma. Its relaxing taste was... most welcome
Because the content of the file were not. The Smoke Wars, as they would later be called, had been picking up. In the City, which was split between 26 Districts, each de facto ruled by an extremely powerful corporation called ‘Wings’ and using extremely advanced and unique technology to seat their power and control, the rise or fall of a single Wing could have devastating consequences. Roughly 200 kilometers across and that again in the other direction and with extreme population density, every single of those 26 Districts was a world unto itself, with enormous population and distinct culture.
And now no less than 4 of them were in open warfare against one another. On one side, I-Corp, which was (not) known for its arcane methods of information control that bordered on psychic and R-Corp, which was (well) known for providing some of the most effective and lethal paramilitary forces in the City. On the other, G-Corp which was the only true other paramilitary rival to R-Corp and which focused on genetic modification and essentially ‘bioweapons’, and L-Corp which was the primary energy producer that nearly everyone else had come to rely on, but had grown deeply unpopular due to the massive amount of smog they produced. It was partially because of that choking smog which many wanted to see gone that the conflict had earned its name of the ‘Smoke Wars’.
For Lian, the Smoke Wars were not a direct problem. They did not threaten her, her home, nor her family or friends. The fall of L-Corp however, if it came to pass, would spell a time of darkness for the City as a whole, with generalized blackouts and a mass scramble for alternative energy sources, which could in turn spark a hundred more smaller turf wars. It was a mess, and the powers that be didn’t want it to become an even bigger mess. No one wanted that, truly, but clearly there were also powerful interests that saw it as a necessary evil – a bitter medicine, and a time when things needed to get worse before they could get better – to get rid of the smog. It was the only explanation she could think of why nothing had been done about it.
The gilded teacup found its way back onto the black granite top with a gentle clink as Lian moved to the next file. Magister Office dealt with legal affairs, and their duties involved a mix of legal interpretation and arbitration, as well as enforcement in case of non-compliance with the above. Suffice to say, in the chaos of the Smoke Wars, there was a lot of people with grievances that required arbitration and people who had lost too much on their bets and were trying to shirk obligations or payments to their creditors or business partners. It was something of a paradoxical state, the more things went to shit, the more money the Office could make, and some people were actually glad for that, but the morality of wishing for more chaos and destruction as a source of enrichment... was not something Lian was fond of.
She was, of course, a young Fixer. Barely an intern, by the standards of the Magister Office, but those standards were high enough that ‘barely an intern’ meant that Lian was a Grade-5 Fixer with her own office at this level of luxury. To say the Office was filthy rich was not an understatement, and everywhere such things could be found, there was always a catch. Always. In this case, part of it was the reality of profiting off others’ misery, but the young Fixer did not know just how deep it ran. She’d joined for the simple purpose that she genuinely believed she could make the City a better place, no matter in how small a way, by doing this job and doing it well and fairly. The older members always dismissed that notion as a childish teenager phase she would ‘grow out of’ in time.
Whether that would come to pass, Lian scoffed at the notion with stubbornness. Another file was put down, and the remainder of her lukewarm tea emptied before she stood up and prepared to leave. She had an assignment in District 11, where a skirmish between R-Corp and G-Corp had caused unexpectedly high collateral damage. As expected, the lesser businesses that had been affected would never be compensated by the actual culprits – much too powerful to be held accountable – and were instead falling upon one another, while opportunistic vultures were preparing to pounce on weakened targets, ready and willing to tear them apart for whatever little they had left.
Sadly, this state of affairs was neither rare nor unusual. This kind of ruthless competition and opportunism was commonplace in the City, and the default way by which most people did things. It had certainly not been caused by the Smoke Wars, nor would it stop after it ended, but it had certainly accelerated the phenomenon. Even then, it was a cyclic thing. Before the Smoke Wars, there were other events that caused increased chaos and destruction, and after it there would still be others. All was but an acceptable excuse in the name of advancement. The only difference was that when small time individuals engaged in this kind of pursuit, it was barely noticed – a drop in the ocean – but when major ones did, tens of thousands would be crushed in the middle.
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For now though, Yue had a job to do, and so she set off to do just that. Office hours as a concept were a luxury that did not apply to Fixers, or anyone who actually gave a damn, though granted the latter were an endangered specie in modern times. Problems did not wait for the clock-in, and would just get worse if left unattended for a needlessly long amount of time. As such, the young Fixer intended to get the assignment given to her done without delays. It was at times like these that she begrudgingly appreciated the wealth of Magister Office, as it meant partially covered travel expenses, which made this a lot easier.
The young woman turned off the lights and locked her office, making her way down the long hall, only to reach the spiral staircase at the center of the tall building. For better or worse, with the older Fixers preferring the upper floors as if a status symbol, it meant her own was quite low and she didn’t much need to walk to get in or out of the building. Everywhere around her, the same themes repeated themselves: black granite staircase gilded brass guard-rails, solid wood walls, rich red carpet, gilded chandeliers whose black candles seemingly never went out or needed changing. Other Fixers also passed by occasionally, but none ever greeted or acknowledged Lian, too focused on their own things and seeing the ‘mere intern’ as beneath their notice. Lian, in turn, gave them the same treatment. She, as mentioned, had a job to do.
Past the double doors, the outside light was almost blinding, in contrast to the much dimmer atmosphere of the Office building. Not only was the sun still high at this early evening hour, but the maelstrom of colors and lights from the countless digital boards and neon signage cared not, blaring their lights at any hour of day or night and taking advantage of the merest moment of twilight or overcast weather without care for energetic cost. It was, no doubt, for reasons like these that L-Corp’s smog had gotten so bad. The City always hungered for more energy and had no concept of moderation or restraint. This... applied to most aspects of society...
It was easy to judge others of course, but could she say with such conviction that she herself was immune to such temptations? For the time being, Lian liked to think that she knew the value of things and was not prone to wastefulness, and she intended to keep it that way, but would that endure the test of time, as her co-workers so flippantly said? Would she too eventually get numbed to those thoughts and give in to convenience and callousness? Would it even be that bad? A single person’s restraint meant nothing in the face of hundreds of thousand who did not, so why bother being that person really?
Stubbornness was the only answer at this time. Naive, childish stubbornness of a young Fixer whose idealism had yet to die. This one was far more talented than the average Grade 9 rats and had access to far more money, which meant better equipment, but ultimately this still meant nothing. Even Grade 1 Fixers – even Colors – could still be squashed, humiliated and snuffed in their prime, for the City held dangers even they could not readily best. By the dozens, perhaps? Maybe by the hundreds? As the saying went, there was always a bigger fish, and for those down on the ground, it was impossible to imagine what could possibly be bigger than say, an Arbiter. The possibility that such things Could exist, though, kept the overly imaginative and the conspirationists up at night both. What laid beyond the Outskirts? Below the depths of the Great Lakes?
If anyone was alive who knew, they most likely would not speak of it. Had they managed to survive such encounters with their sanity intact – which was a dubious prospect in and of itself – who would believe them? Would the Head – the near-mythical organization that ruled the City far from sight – censure them with death to prevent the spread of information they found somehow dangerous? What could such hypothetical survivors even gain by speaking of their encounters? Not fame. Not money. Then what?
As Lian walked at a brisk pace, the luxury of the Office continued to be present in the Nest around her. Despite the crass bloat of advertising overhead, the people went by in elaborate, expensive clothes, with stylized hairdoes, makeup, jewelry, or a combination of the three, sometimes with aides or servants. Even those who were not truly wealthy had to wear clothes that at least pretended to be without any of the real thing’s true value, with fake silk or leather; fake gold or gemstones. It was the ‘uniform’ of the District, and Lian had no reason to believe it was any different in any of the other Nests. No one wanted to be mistaken for one of the ‘filthy plebes’ of the Backstreets.
Before long, the station of the Warp Train appeared before her. The patented, unique technology of W-Corp, from District 23 – also known as a Singularity in legal parlance – was their Warp Trains. As with all other Wings’ Singularities, the exact secrets of how they worked was completely unknown to the general public, and the Wings would shed rivers of blood to protect said secrets from corporate espionage. All that the public knew – all that Lian knew – was that those ‘trains’ were able to transport people near instantaneously just about anywhere in the 35’000 square kilometers of the City. It was, by far, the fastest means of transportation bar none, not even close, and while it was understandably not cheap, it was preferred by all those who believed that ‘time was money’. Or anyone that needed to get somewhere in a real hurry and had the cash anyway.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. As she ascended the steps of the station and approached the train, Lian double-checked the contents of one of her suit’s pockets. Magister Office had provided its employees with some strange and frankly suspicious medicine that they had been instructed to take before taking the train, but never to mention to W-Corp staff. The Office higher ups had never properly explained what the ‘medicine’ was for, but nevertheless strongly insisted on its importance. Frankly speaking, Lian didn’t like any part of this and was especially not a fan of taking weird, shady ‘medicine’, but there was one thing she knew for sure:
There was always a catch. Always.
