A cyberpunk story

A Cyberpunk Story.

Chapter one.

I was dangling from a pipe making my way to the city, well more like a scrapyard, centre. "Hey Gilgamesh" said a voice from behind me, I climbed up onto the top of the rusty, unstable pipe and turned around. I saw Ryker: my partner in work.

"Hey Ryker". I carefully balanced across the pipe over to him.

"C'mon we gotta get to work, the coppers are looking for any excuse to take us in." said Ryker "Sad to say, I think they have."

"What do you mean?" I replied.

"I mean, they are gonna chuck us into a whispering death pit if you don't show up to work. I think they know you took their nuclear reactor." finished Ryker

"Damn. How'd they figure that one out? I covered my tracks."

"Maybe next time don't try making more of them in your back garden. And also-"

"OK, OK I get it, let's go".

The scrapyard we call a city these days is a dangerous and grey area. No one here is innocent; you can't trust a single soul as everyone has broken the law at some point. You must risk your life to move around the place by climbing over barbed wire, jumping over death-incurring pits, dangling on pipes and sliding down rickety roofs. Your average life expectancy is around 25; you'll be lucky to see your thirties. Go too near to a dodgy stranger and you're likely to get robbed of every penny. Here we don't have shops, or rather we have a trading spot that many call the Buck. Technically, trading is not allowed, but even the rule enforces are some the best costumers. If you get ill, you better hope you get better because no one's going to make medicine for ya. It's every man/ group for themselves. Try calling the police to sort out your problem and they'll have a laugh about it, by the time they hang up on you, you'll be out of time. All the houses here have little to no security, except of course the Mayor's. This isn't your most popular holiday destination we could say. If you're trying to see the wonders of our solar system on less than 10 alturian dollars a day, this won't be top of your average guide to the galaxy. Long story short, we'll probably never meet.

Ryker and I had just reached the crane site just before the morning work bell rang out, reason why I and Ryker got jobs here is because, and Ryker is a bulky, robust, radioactive Hematherdale. What is a Hematherdale? Well there another version of human, created by scientists trying to make a human, ages ago, that was stronger, less energy consuming and all around a healthier human. Ryker could help the crane lift by adding an extra push from below. I got hired because I'm adroit, scrawny but surprisingly good at climbing. They think of me as a spare because they don't care if I live or die. My job is to climb into the crane, hundreds of feet above the ground, to get it working again. As long as I unclog the machine, I'll get paid. Health and safety? Out of the question. I'm one of the lucky ones to have a job. I earn money for it. Some who aren't as fortunate have to resort to stealing or even killing. I was chosen from birth to do this until my inevitable death. This also means that the company pretty much adopted me; they gave me enough food to barely survive and gave a scrap metal hut -shared by 10s of people- for me to curl up and sleep in every night.

On paper its sounds quite good, they're keeping us off the streets which the mayor sees as a plus. Of course, this is only good for snobby rich kids who just deal with one less loser taking up their land. Yet for us 'losers' its quite horrible, for instance we have no parents also we're not allowed any free will without breaking the law as we're forced to do this one thing we were raised to be. Any passions for what you wanted to be can say bye bye because no one cares about you or your ambitions. Have fun with your pretty much starving robot life.