Life was great, if I say so myself. I had everything figured out. I was an Enforcer of Haven, the ladies couldn't get enough of me, and money was an issue that never cropped up. I had it good, I had it real good. Wish there was a more elaborate and philosophical way to say that, but I'm a simple man. Life was always amazing when things stayed simple. The city running, people being bastards as usual, and the daily calls out for duty kept me content. I had accomplished what my father snubbed; I was a big fish in a big pond. Not many could say that back then. Haven had Order, but it didn't have mercy. You had to grab Opportunity by the balls to be able to get ahead.
Then things got complicated, very complicated. I wasn't ready for what happened, I wasn't ready to learn of what my last name meant in the scheme of things. I wish I stayed an Enforcer for the rest of my life. At least then... I wouldn't have the fates of countless worlds in my hands...
This is my story, a story that follows a last name, my last name. I'm not the first, and not the most notable of that name. You don't even need to know the specifics of this name. Just know that I'm not alone and the name Ro'zard carries more significance than any name ever should have.
This all starts in the city of Haven, where I was born, raised, and became a man. The first city of Order in a world after The Third Big One, in a time after World War Three...
Man, I was a cocky little shit back then.
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"Gooooood morning, Vietnaaaaaaam!" I scream to the city as I wake up. What follows is a cacophony of discontent from my neighbors. It's music to my ears every single morning. I like to scream something new if I can, keeps things fresh. This time was a tribute to a beloved actor of the past. Saw some of his material in Rem-View. Have to say, definitely a fan. I like his standup a whole lot more, though.
I'm an Enforcer of Haven. If you don't know what this means, it means I get a pass for being a douche. I don't have to care about the frustration of the rabble. The only thing I'm concerned with is the maintenance of the Order, with a capital O. You always have to have a capital letter if the thing is really important after all. The more important your duty is the bigger of a pass you get.
After my morning jubilation is the first mission of the day. Every Enforcer begins their morning with some light work to warm up. You can't just jump in to the hard work immediately... you might strain your hammies. Today's warmup is a dime-a-dozen situation. Some druggies got into their heads that it's a good idea to use some illegal substances in an unauthorized drug den. Can't let them get away with them, now can I?
"Hello gentlemen, I hope no-one got quite 'comfortable' just yet. That would make this a boring-ass bust," I quip after ripping the door off of the hinges of an abandoned building. The place doesn't look all bad. It's about fifty-by-fifty foot. It might have been abandoned, but that's only because it was a hovercar dealership. No one buys hovers anymore. It's way cheaper to just rent one for however long you need it. The druggies changed the reception area to be a comfortable place to get stoned on stuff that you really shouldn't be consuming. Beanbags are everywhere, the good kind too, memory foam. Must have bought 'em with some drug money. Considering that the hatch for the hovers is still closed, them must have not cared about getting into the vault. Must have been too busy losing their minds.
Considering the druggies get sober real quick after that stunt, the intended effect was accomplished. That never gets old. "So, why are all of you here instead of a sanctioned drug den. It's not like any of them cost anything. "Random Druggie #1 attempts to answer but is still a bit too out of it to give any kind of response. Random Druggie #2 speaks up what she swears are actual words. The jury finds her guilty of not knowing how to formulate coherent sentences. Random Druggie #3 is shitting himself in the corner, and Random Druggie #4 is... dead, oh well. Random Druggie #5 is the only one who can actually speak and gives me what I need. "Th-th-they don't s-s-sanction the good stuff. C-come on man, can you give us a break? We're not hurtin' no one."
"Not hurting anyone, huh. Tell that to the dead guy. You know the drill; get on your stomach, cross your hands and feet, and wait for the cuffs to be placed. I'm sure none of you have the balls to try anything with an Enforcer. Let's make this nice and quick so all of you can get processed and enjoy some quality time in Rehab." Morons like these are why sanctioned drug dens and Rehab exist. You're allowed to use pretty much anything these days. The only exceptions are the ones that have a high mortality rate, and the ones that can cause people to stop thinking there are consequences to actions. I don't care what they're taking, all I need to know is that it's something that fits that bill.
All of them do exactly as I say, except for the dead guy. The corpse will have to get processed by Cleanup. Now they get sent to Court to be given a fine and sentenced to Rehab. I almost feel sorry for the poor saps, almost. Rehab does everything that it can to get you clean and to never want to do anything for the rest of your life. If it means making you have a crippling fear of most drugs, so be it. That place exists as a deterrent to exactly these kinds of fools. Nothing puts the fear of unsanctioned drug use like never being able to do drugs again. Sure works for me. You won't ever see me using something that hasn't been given the double thumbs-up by the Drugs Association. Not after I got a tour of the inside of Rehab. That shit is nightmares without actually going through the process. There's a reason why it looks like a certain old-school island prison.
This is a typical morning for me. I get up to greet the day and get a call from HQ. Then I go to deal with some dipshits that still don't understand that Enforcers always enforce the order. Sometimes its drug dens, other times its drug dealers. Particularly spicy mornings have me dealing with other Psy-cos. I absolutely love those kinds of days. There's something about getting my blood pumping that feels like absolute ecstasy. I've felt like this all my life. Probably got it from my dad. He was always way too eager to deal with problems physically.
After the morning call I go do my rounds.
"Sup, Joe." I always greet my fellow Enforcers. They're my brothers and sisters, some of the only people I respect. I would greet every one of them each day, but I got a job to do.
"Hey, David. Had fun with your morning bust?"
"Sure did, Joe. Made sure to give them the works. Never get tired of it. Who else is on sex patrol today?"
"Dan, John, Suzy, Janet, Elizabeth, and Mercy. Surprised that Mercy actually showed up. She's had a nasty case of Psy-overload for the past week since the last Booster case."
I continue to chat it up while coming across the others posted in the Red-Light district. You don't normally see this many Enforcers in any district. A good Telepath can take in information from an entire district without ever getting close to overload. The possibility of child prostitution makes this particular district a strong exception. The world may be a very different place after WWIII, but practicing pedophiles are still the scourge of society. Though, practicing pedophiles only. No need to bother the ones that get off to the fake cartoony stuff. They're not hurting anybody.
The Red-Light District looks pretty similar to what someone from before WWIII would think it would look like. There are bright holo-signs everywhere to announce a particular joints merchandise. Many promise an out-of-this-world experience, and some even deliver. One particular place has mastered seamless sensation transfer between Psy-chips. The orgies there feel like a constant orgasm that multiplies by the second. I would not recommend it for any beginners. I also won't stop idiots from entering.
It's fucking hilarious seeing morons run for their lives out the doors, the realization that they had bit off more than they can chew having come way too late. And when I say run, I mean waddle out cumming goddamn everywhere. They can barely walk straight and fall in their own sauce over and over again. The veterans of this place never miss a chance to see a young fool make an absolute ass of themselves, me included. And you bet your ass that I never was in the same state. My inherited genetics made sure of that.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
My dad was an enigma in this city. He refused to get a Psy-chip, even though he tested with ridiculous scores for his Compatibility Test. He could have used a state-of-the-art chip and lifted entire buildings if he wanted to. But then again, he almost didn't need one. Calling him as fit as Achilles would be an insult. The guy was ripped in a way that seemed inhuman. It was like he had muscles that didn't exist in this world, and it showed. He could almost kick as much ass as an Enforcer, if you ignored Psy-chips. That's kinda hard to do nowadays. Thankfully, he passed on those otherworldly muscles and the way he got 'em.
There isn't a day that passes that I skip the training regimen he taught me. I wouldn't be able to maintain my amazing physicality if I did. There would be quite a few ladies that would be severely disappointed if that happened. I would also be kicked out of the Enforcers. While I'm a good Kinetic, I'm not spectacular. There are guys that could lift a garbage truck to use as a threat. All I can do is throw around some metallic balls barely bigger than BB pellets. That doesn't mean I'm not deadly with them, it's just that there are also guys that would break the order around here that can lift garbage trucks. What makes me one of the best is the fact that I can make someone's head explode if I punched them hard enough. With that kind of personal might I can go to places a garbage truck wouldn't fit, and be just as deadly as a flying one. Like an unauthorized drug den.
After the Roads of Sex are the residential districts. This is where the era I currently live in really shows. This city was built in the ashes of the old world. There is much of what-once-was in its design. Replace most of what you know with sci-fi dystopia and you get the idea. Just don't think of steampunk, Haven is not steampunk. This is the future, not the alternate past. If you want an actually accurate view, you need a lay of the land. Best to start with how the people-buildings look like.
Apartment high-rises are the name of the game in this district. Haven grows by the month, not by the year. Apartments are the only realistic thing to build when refugees from torn up locales are coming in hordes. These apartments are vertical as hell and without elevators. There are maglifts instead. Why use an elevator when you can use a safer maglift?
They look like circular platforms about one foot thick. They're made of electromagnetic components giving them a solid-looking construction. They don't have all those moving parts and have no possibility of jamming. In case of an emergency, they deploy four clamps that grip down on the four rails of the lift. This does mean that you are stuck in the air, but there is usually a door to enter that will open automatically in case of a maglift failure. You can find maglifts all over the apartments. They are the only way of entering the building, after all. No point in having a reception area when you can just scan your ID and pay at the same time for a room. In the case of the refugees, they are giving enough Credits to get a room and enough food to last for a week. That's about as long as is needed to get a job around here. There are always more builders need for the apartments, after all.
That's how this era looks. We have a shit-ton of apartments, holograms, maglifts, and fucking Psy-cos. They are people that use Psy-chips. Everyone tried to think of a better name for a while, but got tired of waiting. No one could come up with a less crude name that encompassed both Telepaths and Kinetics, so the name stuck. As for what we Psy-cos can do? Isn't it obvious? We lift shit with our minds or communicate with our minds. It honestly doesn't get much more complicated than that.
The only bump in the rode is when people with the aptitude to fuck with the atomic level of the universe come up. They are usually materials experts, able to shift materials around a little bit. The ones that have actual offensive potential are the Pyros. They can excite the molecules of the universe instead of manipulating them. This is usually incredibly energy consuming for Kinetics. It's a snap of the fingers for Pyros. It's why they are always enlisted by Government for further training. It's never a good idea to just let a Pyro do whatever it is they want to do. That's how you get spontaneous combustion. Fucking ashes everywhere, everywhere I tell you. Speaking of which...
The ashes of the old world came from WWIII. Everyone thought it would be nuclear, until some unscrupulous folks re-engineered Elon Musk's designs completely and unethically. Some unnamed, pitiful sap came up with a theory that instead of reading the signals of the brain, you could send information. Furthermore, this could potentially stimulate abilities that were previously thought to be fiction. The poor sap was right. This was the advent of Psy-chips, and not the stuff that was made to help people be able to walk again. This tech was made to move shit with your mind, literally. He published his theory anonymously, was grabbed by the unscrupulous folks, and was never seen again. Then the first Psy-chips were sold on the black market. The rest is a violent, war-filled history.
Because the third Big One didn't end up being nuclear, picking up from where we left off was a quick affair. Technology boomed since most ethics got thrown out the window, rich men got richer, and the same rich men got offed by pissed of Psy-cos and replaced by said Psy-cos. And so, the world kept spinning. The reason this particular city ended up being called Haven is because it promised what was in short supply, Order.
It was built by some powerful Kinetics and Telepaths that got sick of the endless anarchy. They wanted to but some structure back into the world, to regain some of what was lost. For this effort, they created the Enforcers. These would be talented Psy-cos that would act as a police force against other Psy-cos that would threaten the new Order.
The effort to build Haven was immense, especially because those same powerful Psy-cos had to deal with other monsters of the wastes. These were people that loved the lawlessness that came after WWIII; deranged psychopaths, murders, rapists, brigands, and con-men. They thrived while the regular folk got eaten alive, sometimes literally (cannibals, enough said). These guys had access to the best gear because they didn't care who they shanked to get them. It was a fucking carnival of chaos.
Once the dust had settled, the beginnings of Haven started to be built. The first 'houses' were built by Psy-cos. They used ruins of the previous era to build basic shelters. Then, they went out to find more survivors. It wasn't hard considering that survivors were everywhere. The problem came with convincing those people that they weren't about to get murder-raped... Is what I would say if that actually happened. Those powerful Psy-cos just grabbed whatever survivors they could find and brought them to Haven. When you can grab hundreds of people with your mind like they are popcorn, there isn't much arguing to be made.
The first Government was put into place when Haven was shaping up to be a real city. It consisted of those powerful Psy-cos and some regular chaps for representation. No one wanted to repeat the mistakes of the past, not with such a great fresh start. That included letting people get too used to peace. You let people taste true peace and they start looking for trouble to make. That's why in Haven you work, if you're not working, you're kicked out. Everyone has to contribute, and everyone eventually gets combat training. It doesn't mean that they see any real action. The real action is at a level that a soldier of the past could not dream of. There's a reason why I mentioned that my late father could have launched buildings. That is a regular sight when witnessing the battles of giants in the Psy-co world.
As I finish up doing my patrol through the districts (I'm the only one who can go through all in one day, bless these otherworldly muscles of mine), I get a weird feeling. It's like gravity is deciding to make love with the atmosphere, if that makes any sense. "What the fuck..." I say under my breath. Actually, If I take a deep breath the air tastes different, "Why the fuck does the air taste like white chocolate?"
Shit starts to get weirder and weirder. Strange color... blobs are showing up in random spots in the air. They fluctuate between all the colors that exist... no wait. There are a couple colors in there that I've never seen before, "How is that even possible?" I exclaim with complete bewilderment.
Whatever this is I want no part of. I start sprinting to try to outrun whatever the hell is going on. Maybe some new type of telelpath is messing with my mind. At that thought I'm fully ripping through the streets with everything I have. A telepath messing with you is not something that anyone should experience. A really good one could make you think that you entered Narnia for fuck's sake.
Why am I floating? What the hell!? THIS IS NO TELEPATH! What I can only describe as a rip in space-time opens up above me as I'm sucked in, closer, and closer, and closer. "Help, anybody, HELP!" I'm screaming, completely terrified. A mighty Enforcer crying like a little, helpless toddler. I've literally never heard of anything like this before, I've never even heard whispers of something like this before. I don't want to die...
At this point I'm about to touch the rip. My life is flashing before my eyes, all the good moments, all the bad moments. I'm about to die and I know it. "Please, please let it be painless, oh God, please let it be painless," at this point I'm actually crying, pleading for whatever is going to happen to not------
pain...
Agony...
IT HUUURRRRTTTTTSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!
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