INSOLENCE

EXORDIUM

Life is weird.

Some people were born into normal lives, and many of those people lead what society used to call a "regular" life. Some of those people turned out to be horrible – murderers, corrupt dictators, blood-thirsty barbarians – a fair amount of the well-known ones came from average backgrounds.

And then, there's the people that are born into poverty. Their lives start out hard, and for many, stay difficult. The ones who just take that, the ones who don't work to change... they hardly end up any where. However, the less-fortunate who work their hardest often times find that they can end up better off than they started. But it would also seem that many of the hard workers with a rough background still don't get anywhere, because society can't make room for them.

And that's just some of the reasons as to why life is weird. Apparently, though, life likes to get weirder, harder and more unfair over time.

Such is the case with America.

I live a regular life when compared to those around me, but when my life is compared to the past... many things don't match up. "The norm" as many would refer to it, has most definitely taken a turn for the worst.

My name is Aero Rank, and alongside many of the surviving Americans who weren't infected during a nationwide pandemic, I live thousands of feet in the air on what everyone calls a "loft."

It started with the strain in upper Manhattan – somehow, the plague, PN2401, was rapidly evolving, infecting and killing. Patient Zero died within days, but already more and more people were reporting the same symptoms. Scientists couldn't research it fast enough. The government couldn't control it and prevent panic. Once it became easy enough to discern whether or not your average civilian was infected, large boundaries were erected around New York City and its suburbs, and a controlled evacuation was put into place. Everyone was forced to leave the city once they were cleared of all disease. If you had PN2401, you weren't allowed to leave.

It was, of course, ironic, that right about the time the pandemic began, Alpha Corporation, a prestigious engineering firm with billions of dollars to invest in their outlandish projects, was given the OK on building the first loft. Because they helped mechanics advance rapidly, similar to the way consumer electronics had been for decades beforehand, it would only take a few months for the towering society to be constructed. The CEO, Astrid Greene, began giving speeches around the nation about how the loft was going to assist us in stopping the growing problem of PN2401. Only days after the loft was finished and began admitting citizens, the President announced the quarantine of several more eastern cities. Irony set in again when the government commissioned two more lofts, each larger and more extravagant than the first.

It went on like this for quite some time – Greene would give a speech, another city would fall into anarchy, and more lofts would be built. America slowly had to become a self-sustained nation – the rest of the world was afraid that PN2401 would arrive on their shores. They weren't about to let a possibly infected American into their boundaries.

I moved into my loft at the age of seven, six months before the New York boundary was successfully destroyed by the incarcerated infected inside that quickly found liberation. Researchers were having trouble sustaining strains of PN2401 in labs, and little progress was made towards a cure.

After death tolls reached a record high in 2089, The most ironic thing of all happened on the 10th anniversary of the first loft. Alpha Corporation, was the Deus Ex Machina in the American story of sorrow, outbreak and death. Out of nowhere, they conjured up a cure in a matter of hours and nursed the remaining infected that hadn't already perished back into health. Everyone wanted to move back down to the surface, the "Below" as many had nicknamed it, but it was a false hope. Anyone with even a little sense could see that our towering cities were damaged beyond repair.

To address the concerns of the people, a final speech came from the President twenty-four hours after the disease was eradicated.

"On this day in history, I would like to declare the deadly disease, PN2401 eradicated."

Cheers erupted and quickly subsided as he opened his mouth once more.

"And yet, I also bring with this great news a more disheartening piece of...information."

When he said this, I remember that you could practically hear everyone nodding. They already knew what he was about to say.

"Because of the state of the surface, we have no plans to allow settlement to return. We are instead planning on using it as a sort of 'super prison' due to the penitentiaries in the lofts not having enough space to accommodate for the amountof crime. I wish I could tell you more, but my hands are tied until I address you once more early next year with details."

From here, he proceeded to reveal plans for several more settlement loftsand an "all government" loft where the Union's affairs would be taken care of. Many people knew as he described it that it was a speech written by Greene. Somehow, she had slowly corrupted and seized our government. No one discussed it, but everyone knew that Alpha had taken control of our nation, and they weren't letting go.

This became even more obvious as Greene began her campaign to run for President the following year. Thousands supported her without question, and almost double that number seemed to hate her. When the election rolled around,bGreene won by a landslide. The super prison opened, and swiftly afterward, only days after her inauguration, Greene announced plans to eradicate another"disease" infecting our nation.

"The time is now," she declared. "The time is now! We cannot wait any longer – this nation will find peace once we know we're safe. Anything written into law can just as easily be written out, but without the help of a strong militia, we will not be able to rid our once great cities of the crime that infests them at this very moment. I'm proud to announce that starting in exactly six months' time, we will be focusing our efforts towards reclaiming the Below and doing our best to move everyone back down as soon as it is deemed safe." Greene had won over naysayers with this, and because she had a grip on how things were run, it was easy for her to change the "Below Act," that allowed for criminals to be moved to the Below.

Greene's plans were put into full motion in, as she had promised, six months' time. Her original plan to draft males ages 18 and up, however, proved to be a problem. Many people were able to evade the draft, and she ran short on soldiers quickly. She changed the draft to ages 17 and up, and it only remedied the problem for a few more weeks. She eventually came to the conclusion that instead of allowing people to evade the draft, she would drastically lower the minimum age and randomly pick males ages 14-19 at school on a specific date each year. They would have a one to two year service requirement before they would be allowed to leave if they desired. This was easily the most effective, and not just because aclause in the bill allowed for "emergency drafts" before the next annual draft.

Another loft was built for housing and training these soldiers, and Greene's efforts finally began to come to fruition. Reports showed that the amount of criminals in the Below was lowering, and that she was easily going to have it captured by the end of the year.

However, another speech changed it all.

"The crime rate is lowering in the Below, but the lofts aren't seeing quite the same results. I address you with sorrow in my heart as I announce a new form of the 'Below Act.'"

Everyone went wild.

Greene continued on, and silence fell over the crowds.

"But I will not stop my efforts to eradicate crime completely in the Below. The draft will continue and only half of the arrested criminals will be released intothe Below. The opposite half will be put to work in the government lofts. Any form of resistance will result in immediate death. This is because I've learned throughout the years that it takes harsh consequences to keep people in line. I regret that we have come to this, but promise that as soon as we reach a low that will allow us to move to the Below, we will subside in sending criminals there and begin settlements as soon as time allows."

Greene, of course, knew that we had just reached a low in crime. But she also had surely found several enemies to be reckoned with in her short time as President, and wanted nothing more than a simple place to send them. We knew that too, and people were angry.