New New New York, was there a city less busy and intimidating than this one? Someone out there knew, but it wasn't her. There were not many cities left on Earth after the floods of 2205. It was after the great floods that New New New York was built over what used to be New New York, the old New York had been previously destroyed by some other disaster. History was a list of countless disasters. NNNY was a city filled with the endless static of commercials, holograms, neon signs, and dozens of other electronic parts that constantly buzzed behind the bustling of the city. There was little left beyond the cities now. Pieces of county land, cities, and in between large chunks of unhabitable land. Some due to the water levels rising, others due to toxic chemicals. It was all the same, large chunks of dilapidated terrain.
Those who could had long left the planet, but they had remained. Her grandfather was one of those earthists, a stubborn man who believed that if born on Earth, one must live and die on Earth.
It was only after her father had disappeared were they blacklisted and sent to the lowest levels. It was only after he disappeared that Jane was able to escape the buzzing of the upper city, escape into the slums at the lower levels of the city, and from the slums, it was easy to make it to the edge where the city ended, and the walls started.
Between where the roads ended and the wall began was a field of old cars, robots, mechanics, and other metal parts, all taken over by nature. Real flora.
She had never seen real nature, only plants and grass artificially grown in the academy, elevated parks, and garden domes she once could visit. The domes that every elite seemed to own at level 7 were domes in which beautiful houses portraying the architecture of some olden times were built, houses in which robot servants bustled around quietly, their mechanism also ticking with the city.
Now, they lived in the falling remanence of some old New New York, a place that the elite had only heard of in whispered rumors of android attacks and clan wars. To them, it was the place where they took half-people and gambies. Here in the slums, the mechanics screeched with age, and androids were discarded to roam. Androids who came from all walks of life now resided with the rest of the city's trash.
It was at the lowest levels, where the sun was substituted with neon glows and prostitutes with hair to match who stood scouting for customers on street corners, that she found some peace.
And sometimes, she would watch the open cruelty of humanity from her apartment. She would watch as one of those fancy cars would descend from the sky, pick up one of the girls with neon hair, and take her away to never be seen again. They all knew that the rich had vile fetishes. The girl was as good as dead, and no one would ever look for her. A few days later, her family would receive money, and it would flitter on, the hologram glitching as the numbers blinked; sometimes, it would be enough for them to move up and escape into another level of suffering. One closer to the top.
Here they did not discriminate. They all lived together in the city's garbage pit because the city had thrown them all out. Every day, she would get up alone in their dusty apartment, her mother already hard at work helping another patient, and watch the grimy landscape of level one.
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It was late. She sat on the dead corpse of a vintage car and watched the city in the darkness. A cascade of skyscrapers rose far into the sky, each level higher than the previous, separated only by height. Lights flickered on and off, almost as if the city were alive and breathing. The city was so high that even lying back, she could not see where it ended.
The wall behind her was the original from New New York's time. It was here before the new city was ever built, an ugly, humongous chunk of steel. It reminded her of her humanity, of how small and insignificant she truly was compared to the grandness of the city. It represented their hopelessness: grey, dull, old, insanely large, and forgotten.
After her father had disappeared and the police on level 7 dressed in neat fancy suits refused to help they lost their hope. They had pinned an android attack on her father and said that he had run away and maybe killed himself; after all, he had access to the android and could have easily downloaded the virus. After all was said and done, they were discarded with the rest to the lower city and blacklisted for the next 15 years.
They had gotten lucky that her mother could use her medical knowledge, and she could use hers from the academy. She climbed off the hood of the car and made her way to her nanocycle. The nanocycle was her second escape. She climbed on, straddling the bike, and pressed the button of a thin strap of metal that wrapped around her head. Her helmet opened, engulfing her face in its safety. Then, lying flat against the black reflective-less material of the cycle, she put her arms into the control panels, bringing it to life, and with a soundless woosh, she drove away, smoothly flying over cracks and bumps in ancient concrete roads. The old roads that nature tried to break through were covered in oases of grass and flowers.
She came home to an empty apartment, the hallways reeking of piss, alcohol, and feramot. Feramot was just another street drug to numb their depressive existence. Doorways stood open, showing the motionless figures of gambies, people who lived their lives within the Cybernet. It was from them that the smell of piss originated from. In the upper levels, they were well taken care of, but once the money ran out, they were discarded here. And she always stopped to wonder, when an especially rancid odor would infiltrate her nostrils, if one of Gambie's had died. Did it make a difference if they were as good as dead anyway? She wondered.
Those who knew better stayed away from cyber reality; it had, at one point, wiped out a 3rd of the human population, slowly melting the brains of those who used it. On Sundays, robot cleaners would sweep through the apartments, scanning and discarding the bodies of those who had died. Discarding them like trash. It was awful. She often wondered if they knew that they had died or if, at this point, their brains had been too far gone and downloaded into the cyber net to notice.
The apartments and homes on level 4 and up of the city were made to copy the style of a forgotten era with intricate wallpapers, velvet couches, and wooden tables that cost a small fortune, made from wood harvested from other plants. The elite often had their entire homes decorated in rare and expensive materials. Although they had been far from rich they also once had a beautiful wooden table in their dining room. It was her father's pride and joy. The heart of the house, he used to say.
She sighed. It would have been better if they had left Earth when they had the chance and escaped to some colony, some other planet, but now, from the slums, they could only hope to survive another day. If they had, things would have been different.