At this point it should be briefly explained where exactly our heroes are, because the reader has already been confronted with a couple of confusing details. For this, however, it is necessary to go further, to describe at least roughly the cosmic dimensions that led to the fact that these three different characters could meet in the first place. Very far, to be precise, and still much farther than one would suspect. In 2027, the world found itself caught in a major crisis and civilization was on the brink of destruction. Nuclear weapons were being deployed for the first time since the end of the Cold War, and diplomacy was failing in some crucial negotiations. Unlike the Cold War, however, generations who had not themselves experienced a world war were now facing each other. The horror of an all-encompassing danger had faded for them in the times of peace. They were ready to take the last step. Thus, danger of total and final annihilation increased with each passing day. Peace demonstrations and new attempts at negotiations kept coming to nothing and reason had seemingly ceased to exist. The end drew closer and closer. Finally, the situation almost escalated when a large swarm of unidentified flying objects appeared in U.S. airspace. Interceptors rose to try to force the flying objects to land. It quickly became clear, however, that these UFOs had no human origin. They could not be fought or stopped. In this time of the greatest crisis of mankind occurred in this way the first contact with a technically far superior race, which was later just called "Angels" by mankind. It was great luck that these visitors had no hostile intentions. On the contrary, they felt first of all pity, empathy and love for our species, which had brought itself to the edge of the abyss by its drive and negative emotions.

The Angels were very similar to humans in their anatomy and had managed over the millennia to overcome all their primitive traits and form a peaceful society. It was a society that could be called a humanistic utopia. Their last conflicts were so far in the past that they inferred the character of people from their own peacefulness, which in retrospect turned out to be a big mistake. They believed in a good core that had to be in every rational being. At first, a time of trade and exchange began. Mankind profited immeasurably from their new teachers and, with the help of the Angels, skipped many hundreds of years of technological development in a comparatively short time. In secret, however, individual states of Earth finally began to develop better weapons systems, combat robots, and military spaceships. Humans began to populate more planets with the help of the new technology of "terraforming". First in their own solar system and later also outside. In this way they multiplied faster and faster and conquered larger and larger areas of the universe. The coexistence with the pacifistic Angels, who strictly rejected the often brutal actions of the humans against each other and the exploitative behavior on the newly colonized planets and in time also openly criticized them, became more and more difficult. At some point, it finally came to the first battle of the humans against the Angels, which the humans could clearly decide in their favor. The conflict quickly got completely out of hand and weapons of mass destruction were used. In the following years, the Angels were pushed back further and further, and on many planets only ruins of their great civilization remained. Their complete destruction was prevented only by other alliances of humans who had sided with the Angels. Despite all this chaos, humanity continued to spread after the war, occupying suitable planets and repeating its old mistakes over and over again.

The centuries passed, then a millennium and then another. However, the development on the individual planets colonized by humans was not always linear. Some colonies degenerated due to wars, environmental destruction and conflicts, some stopped in their development, others created a great blossom or became indescribable hells for all their inhabitants. Some were also simply forgotten because they were outside the great centers of space that had emerged. After initial pioneering work, they were no longer supplied with new settlers and technical equipment and at some point had become uninteresting for the new cosmic order. On these forgotten planets it was often no longer even known where mankind had originally come from and from where it had set out to conquer the universe.

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This was also the case on the 1,986th colonized planet, which was actually called Purgatory and whose stage of development corresponds by and large to that of Earth around the year of its number. Yes, it's true, the level of civilization had fallen back to the 1980s level relatively soon after the colonist ships landed a little over 400 years ago, due to a lack of supplies and a lack of certain raw materials necessary for interstellar flight. Occasionally, there were still some technical remains from the colonization period, which could not be reconstructed at all or only with an extreme financial effort due to lost knowledge. Paradoxically, this high technology from the colonist era is still called the "old technology" or "the technology of the ancients" by the inhabitants of this world. Originals have become almost priceless and resemble sacred artifacts. The spaceships with which the colonists once came from the stars have long since been dismantled and their individual parts are found in various places, on the black market or at auctions.

Each of the 17 colonist ships, which transported between 80,000 and 200,000 people, in turn became the basis for a new city. On "86", as the planet is called by its inhabitants, only ships of three nations arrived at that time: the American, the Russian and the Japanese. Consequently, only these three cultural groups exist and are partly in competition with each other. Elysium is the largest American-dominated city on 86, Utopia is the center of the Russian-cultivated north, and Neo Tokyo in the east is the most important and largest Japanese city.

We are here in Elysium, a city with a clear American influence. It is located on the largest continent quite far to the southeast, directly on the sea coast. The climate is mostly pleasantly mild and warm. Now, in summer, the beach is full of surfers and the expensive yachts in the high society area called North Beach are anchored in the sparkling turquoise waters. Further south along the beach is the commercial Harbor District. To the north of the city lies the most dangerous neighborhood, simply called the North Quarter. To the west is the so-called Wild West, used mainly as a residential area for the working class in the commuter belt. To the south is the Industrial Quarter, with its countless production plants and steaming chimneys. To the east, between the Downtown and the beach, is the Border Area. This area is also still considered comparatively safe, because there is a great interest in keeping the route from the North Beach to the Downtown as quiet as possible for the wealthy residents. The Japanese have always been the largest minority in the city. Why this is the case, however, no one can say today.

The apartment of our heroes is located, as already described, directly in the Downtown and thus strategically favorable for their further endeavors. But now let's find out what they actually want here.