MAD

chvpter 2

Yakuza Territory – Eastern Border

...

We run, whisking through the city for so long that the moon rises above our heads. It casts a nasty glow on every route we take. "What's in the bags, Vi?" He looks at the Glimm-Screen hovering above the duffel which details the Comm-Tech. He knows there's tech in this thing, but I don' reward him with anything other than a smile.

"Not safe yet." I huff.

Based on the kōkoku sain [Translation Note: advertisement signs] painted across every home and the sirukukāten [Translation Note: silk curtains] hung in each glass-less window, it's apparent that we're still thick in the midst of Yakuza territory.

We're not far from Hinansho [Translation Note: Haven] —the wealthiest suburb in the city.

Back when the bombs hit, the government declared Lake Darling as a RED ZONE, meaning, no government business would proceed. We were red zoned because the damage from the bombs was deemed irreparable... which made our land cheap, and under-legislated.

Now, Lake Darling is the biggest industrial hive in Australia, but the companies who own the factories we work for are all private. The Government wrote the RED ZONE laws to excuse them from the cost of running places like this, but they were so well fortified against any legal accountability for RED ZONES that they forwent the ability to enact any legal or governmental intervention of law and business proceedings.

Jargon for, no rights for workers.

The only legal obligation they have is to provide a quarter-annual pop-up hospital with public access and severely discounted procedures. Severely discounted is still expensive for a slave, though.

Now the men who own the red zones answer only to themselves, which suits the government because they don't have to concern themselves with the Rehabilitation Scheme which we are most definitely owed. 

Michigan Duncans and Osamu Aikawa are the capitalist leeches who own every factory, business and housing estate within our walls. They pay the wages of every military man in the city and own essentially any government official who finds himself unlucky enough to be transferred here.

Osamu Aikawa owns Akimitsu, and Akimitsu is the ex-military man who runs the Yakuza.

Osamu made Haven to attract more workers to his factories. By building the best housing estate in the city, men started to convert from my father's gang to the Yakuza, but when everyone figured out that Haven only had enough apartments for a select few, there were riots.

I glance between the skyscrapers looming around us, then at the dull glow of light pollution in the clouds right above Haven.

Michigan Duncans owns my father, Craig Warrendale, who founded the Ghouls.

Now, Osamu pays Michigan a heavy tax for the electricity, and Akimitsu forfeits seventy percent of the RED ZONE supply drop to my father, Craig Warrendale.