Minder: Secrets of Mind

Chapter 6

Crescent City is the place where a million dreams die before the sun even rises. By the time the wealthy in the Hill District have their first-morning shower, the only dreams left are those who are too drunk to be up yet for them to die. But this city is vital to the UHR for all the wrong reasons, so those dreams always will be crushed.

The wall surrounding the city was built as a replica of sorts by the Personnel Council, which rules the city, with the wall around Humanitas as its inspiration. But the 'Grey Wall' was made of concrete rather than metal and was rarely guarded. No one was attacking this city. Crescent City wasn't a trade and economic hub connecting the UHR's north and South. It wasn't some warrior-producing city like the ones in Southern Texas. And it wasn't a technology or engineering Hub like Toronto or Quebec were. Crescent City and the Council gained their Free City status because they knew something the UHR wasn't willing to grapple with. Technology was too few and far between in the early days to properly rebuild society, so it had to be done by hand. By Human hand, Diamonite Hand, Minder Hand. Though the latte was a hard thing to openly found these days, regardless of how little the Council cared.

Crescent City was the population center of the known world; within its towering concrete walls were millions of lives. Some believe the number of people filling the city for safety and survival was around ten million. If you asked the Council, however, they claim the numbers are even higher and could have some validity to that. Considering they had access to the camera networks that had access to the Underground, where countless utterly destitute and undesirables have coddled together, forming a city below the main one. Its system of tunnels and train access points were even more significant according to some than the city above, and according to the Council, some twenty million people lived and died down there. They didn't have any dreams.

These millions lived in The Towers, for the most part, massive two-hundred-story self-contained cities. Like their wall, the towers are made of concrete with huge tinted windows covering five stories a piece, letting some light in, with a floor between each window allowed to be bathed either in artificial light or none at all. Pedestrian bridges connected some if they were close enough, while a catacomb of entombed concrete structures connected train lines around all the towers. In the space in between, large transport craft slowly lumbered from the city's many Docking Ports on the ground in front of these towers. An interlocking collection of multistory buildings, complexes, warehouses, and major factories covered the ground between each tower. With a layer of thick dark brown smog often resting just above the top of these buildings, one would only stand a chance at a lengthy life using Respitor Masks to move about among the crowded streets down below. The closeness of one's tower to the Hilltop district was the marker of whether those Masks were of any value or simply a lie to make one think they were protecting themselves.

The Hilltop district sat on the edge of the city closest to the ocean, where the wall didn't completely close off the outside world. The water of the Pacific ocean was not as tainted and deadly as the Atlantic had proved to be; it kept much of its blue-hued beauty and self-cleansed any contaminants over time. Not only did the owners of the significant labor provisions companies and most powerful of the city's citizens live in this idyllic neighborhood, separated from the rest of Crescent city by Bridge River, but many of its homes were owned by some of the most powerful families in the UHR. Crescent City was not only just the source of necessary labor for the United Human Republics; its towers and underground had built up major clubs and large casinos hidden in plain sight. And even more, the ruling council deployed little to no security forces outside Hillside!

Unlike the other entertainment possibilities outside the UHR, such as in Memphos, which offered similar breaks as a Free City away from the UHR's prying eyes. But in Memphos, the leaders there enforced order. They had to. Mercenary companies and all manner of deals went on all across that city that could be bad for business if not reigned in, and so even some of the most powerful UHR citizens had eyes on them while there. Not in Crescent City; once a person had crossed the river separating the rich from the "unvaluable," they were on their own! They did it, however, bringing mercenary teams with them or hiring one of the powerful gangs in the city for protection as they enjoyed themselves among people they would never let be known they once associated with. Wanting to keep their actions so secret in the City that they traveled about in vehicles covered in tinting and armor, with many often giving their protection orders to eliminate those who looked as if they were press or as if they might comment to enough people that they saw someone of importance in a particular club doing a certain thing.