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Corrupted Memory
Chapter I - 2125

Chapter I - 2125

The year is 2125. The great cities of the Earth are marked by their skyscrapers and large power plants, whose smoke blocks the sunlight and the darkness is constant. Humanity is experiencing a new industrial revolution, once again people are the gears that move economies. There was, of course, the idea that machines would replace manual workers and thus humans could dedicate themselves solely to creative activities, but the nature of men did not take long to manifest itself. Artificial intelligence became the main tool of war, but it was only when the nuclear crisis of 2034 demolished the old powers that the real carnage began. The rich escaped to extraplanetary colonies, while mere mortals remained amid the radioactive remains of civilization, and could only live in three zones of the planet, known as Green Zones. The largest of them encompasses the midwestern United States, Canada and the northern part of Mexico, called New America. The second, in the region of central Asia, is known as Asistan. The third, and smallest, is a small region of the Yellow Sea, where most of the population lives on boats, calling themselves the Free Peoples of the East.

The period, called Nuclear Peace, was a time when the rich began to lose money, losing influence on Earth, so they decided to bring industries back to their home planet, using new, more intelligent and independent robots. At first, they built new cities, cleaned up some of the radiation from the Dead Lands and restructured agriculture, now artificial and vertical. For a few years it seemed that everything was improving, but the elite needed the people to remain ignorant, without education or time so that they would not be able to question their power and continue to consume blindly. Much of humanity did not have the opportunity to train themselves intellectually to carry out creative work and, therefore, they continued to depend on industrial jobs, which were being taken over by cheaper and more efficient cybernetic workers. So, once again, the people revolted, but the great propaganda machine turned them against the robots, and thus began the Great Robot War. The difference this time was that the rich were being directly affected, which led to the shutdown of all advanced AIs and, to control the masses, corporations created their own police force, unfettered by legal systems or moral codes. Any suspect can be taken without warning or apparent cause to New York's Crater Prison, a huge penitentiary complex built where the metropolis of the same name once stood, housing around four million inmates. Men, women, old people and children indiscriminately occupy the corridors of the Big Box.

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Humanity returned to industry, but capitalist cunning brought a new idea of how to generate money, now called the Unified Earth Currency (UUT). They recycled robotic technologies, creating cybernetic implants for increased function, to increase the workers' production, but the technology quickly became commercial for anyone who wanted to modify their body. The parts market is one of the largest movements of capital on Earth, and, like everything that came before, it didn't take long for a black market to emerge for those who wanted to have their implants for a lower price.

Amidst the chaos of the 22nd century, the city of San Austin, a corruption that combined the names of San Antonio and Austin in the lands that were once called Texas, is the largest metropolis on the planet and the base of operations for the elites. As a result, the criminal underworld and parallel markets also find their smuggling capital there. The urban mass encompasses about one hundred and twenty million people, but the majority live in extreme poverty in the peripheral areas that border the Dead Lands, where radiation and violence would fill the hospitals, if there were any available, and are known as "Marginalities". There is, however, a layer of the population that lives between the slums on the outskirts and the extraterrestrial elites, crowded, cramped and suffocated in the large urban centers, where they struggle and dream of one day leaving the great anthill.

In the early hours of the morning, the streets are lit by neon signs of the magnetic streets and the spotlights of the patrol ships of the corporate police. Amidst the beams of night, a middle-aged man, well dressed, runs through the streets. In a desperate escape, where the instinct to escape is stronger than rationality, always checking to see if anyone is coming after him. The head turns are only interrupted when the headlights of a car illuminate his eyes. The driver did not even bother to stop; it is known that crossing the magnetic avenues outside the pedestrian walkways is considered suicide. The man's terror ends almost instantly, and with no witnesses, the body doesn't even have time to cool before the body cleaners find it and sell what's left on the black market for implants and organs. It's as easy as deleting a file to end a life on New Earth.

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