An economic crisis of epic proportions is imminent in 21st century America. In the pages that follow I would like to share with you my vision of America in the midst of a futuristic hyperinflationary depression, cyberpunk-style. The writing is on the wall for those who have eyes to see it. Let these words be a warning. I paint pictures of a dark future in the hope that it may be averted. Cyberpunk isn’t dead. Not by any means.- John, 10 May 2007

 

RIDING ON THE EL TRAIN

John Jacobs

 

Shannon Brown, a beautiful black girl with fiery red hair, untied her MonopStar Coffee apron and hung it on the hook behind the counter. She carefully initiated the shutdown sequence on the pay console, and when it had completed she went in back to check that all the switches were off. She let out a slow, defeated sigh when she noticed the bucket of wastewater from cleaning the floors was still standing behind the counter, its gray filth swirling in petulant glee. She’d get yelled at, maybe get docked a few bucks but she didn’t care. It was the last thing she wanted to deal with at moment.

Gingerly, she removed the universal ID card from her front jeans pocket and swiped it through the reader on the wall near the store entrance. A stuttering robotic voice responded from a tiny speaker.

“Payment complete. Your account has been credited: fifty... thousand... new dollars. Have a nice day.”

A prerecorded track began to play, the upbeat, insincere salesman voice she’d come to loathe. “Hey there! Is inflation getting you down? Do you feel like whatever you earn is never enough? Well, there’s a solution! SpeedPay™ lets you spend money faster, so you can stay ahead of the rising price waves and sleep soundly at night. So stop spending the old-fashioned way, and get SpeedPay™. This message brought to you by MJ12 National Bank, Inc.”

Shannon fought to stifle the bile rising in her throat. The advertisements were everywhere these days. She’d even heard from a reputable source that companies were trying to inject advertisements into peoples’ dreams via satellite. Imagine waking up in the morning and feeling a sudden, inexplicable urge to buy FungEx foot cream. She coughed, slammed the steel gate shut and started toward the people mover at the end of the terminal.

Past neon-lit store fronts glowing like electric Shangri-La’s, the decadent clamor of mini casino arcades and the limitless sea of tourists she strode, slowly making her way toward the Rail. Every so often a holographic salesperson would turn and pursue her with a certain capitalistic predatory enthusiasm, then stop short when it realized that she was an unsuitable target. People from all walks of life were brushing against her, bumping into her, groping her. She wanted more than anything to be out of there.

A voice above was blaring on the loudspeaker. “Welcome to Mitchell International Airport. Because we value both your comfort and safety, animatronic security personnel are present at all times to ensure your protection. Have a pleasant day.”

On the people mover she was surrounded by them—people who were better off than her, people that had money. Real money. And as the maglev entrance drew closer the crowds became ever thicker.

Through the maglev exit turnstile came another outpouring of people, probably going back home to their lakeside castles in Milwaukee’s posh Bayview neighborhood after a long day of shopping down in the Loop (downtown Chicago). All of them were rich. And white. The same people that often screamed at Shannon because their coffee tasted funny, that bragged in front of her about their designer kitchens and marble fireplaces and private yachts, that beyond a doubt possessed real, hard wealth that was immune to the insidious horror of currency debasement.

In her heart and with all her being Shannon despised them, because she knew deep down that they simply didn’t care, and even deeper down she knew that they were behind it all. They went about their ways, trading their ’rivatives (gold, silver, and palladium derivatives) amongst each other while people like her were praying to mother Mary that a new dollar would still be worth a new dollar from one day to the next, that there would never be another Black Spring, that the depression would finally come to an end. But such thoughts were flights of fancy. These people were riding life’s gravy train to the furthest extremes of pleasure and decadence. The rest were riding on the El train, taking that sucker to the end of the line.

A little girl wearing a fancy pink dress and designer sunglasses was prancing unabashedly in front of the crowd while her mother gawked over a stand of chinchilla pelt purses. Her pale face was painted, overdone actually, with high-end makeup. With cruel amusement the little girl pointed directly at Shannon.

“Mommy look! That lady has a stain down the front of her shirt! She must be what you always call the ’have nots,’ right? I would never go out in public like that!”

Shannon imagined herself picking up the little girl and strangling the life out of her. She would have felt humiliated at the insult, but that part of her soul was already numb. She wouldn’t cry in front of these people, and she wouldn’t get angry. To show them any emotion would have been a reward, and she wasn’t about to give them that satisfaction.

“I’m really sorry,” the woman said as Shannon passed her by, but a cold look of indifference was what she got in return.

The steel cage of the security bypass loomed before her. Animatronic guards like living mannequins moved through the shuffling throngs of people with plastic grace. Polychrome faces with red laser eyes scanned the crowd with neural net determination, ever searching for patterns that didn’t match, expressions that were out of synch. Their thin, wiry bodies were laughably out of place amongst the primate hordes, but behind each polymer smile was an intelligence of frightening complexity.

Square wave screams from the guards were all around. “Keep moving! Keep moving! Enter the turnstile one by one and remove your shoes. Do not stop! Keep moving!”

Under the first scanner arch Shannon was immediately stopped. The machine hand on her wrist pulled her off to the side and she found herself face to face with an animatron in a blue guard’s uniform.

“You have been picked for a random scan,” it said to her. “Please step over here.”

“Goddamnit I don’t have time for this,” Shannon yelled back.

“Your compliance is necessary,” the machine replied. “Please follow me.”

A curtain was pulled. Shannon breathed deeply while they strapped her head to the harness facing the emotive sensor. A forest of mechanized needles sprung to life, snakelike, as they maneuvered around her face. Never touching, always remaining at least a foot away, they nevertheless terrified her every time she had to go through this. After a minute they all stopped in mid air and dropped, hanging off the scanner base like lifeless, flaccid tentacles.

“Subject passed,” said a computerized voice from behind her.

Thank God, thought Shannon. Behind a locked door down the hall she overheard a conversation between some human guards and a man who apparently did not pass the test.

“You stupid asshole!” one guard screamed. “You don’t act like a terrorist, you don’t so much as think of the word ’bomb’ when we put you in there! Do you understand? What the hell were you thinking? Don’t you realize that you’ve wasted our goddamn time now! Stupid, stupid asshole. I should ban you from the goddamn maglev just for pulling a stunt like this.”

Shannon sighed as they escorted her back out into the main security line.

“Your account has been charged ten thousand new dollars. Thank you for riding the MLTA.”

The sun was a crimson globe setting over the western Milwaukee suburbs.

The shoulder harness came down across her torso and Shannon leaned back. A maglev attendant came by and pushed down on the harness to make sure it was locked.

The interior of the train was cozily reminiscent of some 1930’s dream of high life and luxury. The elegant wine-colored carpeting matched the designer drapes adorning each porthole window. Runner lights followed along on either side of the aisle. All the attendants were decked out like vintage 1930’s flight attendants, their attire evoking images of a swanky, post-FDR era future that was never meant to be. There was jazz music playing at all times on the wall speakers.

Perhaps they really did come from some far off corner of the universe, Shannon thought to herself, a parallel timeline of near utopian living, a society oblivious to the tumultuous events of the late 20^th century, and the near cataclysmic ones of the early 21^st. One hundred years after the first Great Depression, the retro-nostalgic illusion of the Midwest’s greatest public work was exactly that—an illusion. The ultra modern transit line that ran along the I-294 interstate saw only flashes of the American suburban dream as it hurled itself south toward the core of the Midwestern metropolis. The palaces of Kenosha, Gurnee, and Buffalo Grove were aesthetic miracles, their splendor and artistic genius a wonder to behold to the maglev passengers speeding along in their safe, insulated reality. And just beyond, the towering glass and steel magnificence of the corporate corridor stood like a sparkling, electric, dreamlike glimpse into the foyer of the Great Architect himself.

Perhaps they were half-blind, thought Shannon, those towering behemoths along the 70 mile stretch. Perhaps they had blinds down at all times across the western facing windows. Or did they leave them wide open, and look out at the desert wasteland and feel a slight tinge of guilt. Maybe in their minds there were still cornfields out there, stretching as far as the eye could see and not the grit and tears and desperation—the shantytowns that were everywhere and spreading with infectious ferocity. Did the Leviathan CEO look out from his high tower and wonder what’d gone wrong, or even fathom that he was a quite significant variable in the equation? She didn’t think so. In all likelihood the blind monsters went on about their ways with single-minded Machiavellian determination; investing, installing, and hardly caring that the great machine was growing ever more unstable, winding its way through time and mind toward complete and utter oblivion with each passing moment.

“Now departing,” said a mechanized voice. “Please remain in your harness at all times. The next stop is O’Hare International Airport. Estimated transit time: ten minutes.”

A cyclical hum grew louder and louder until it was a deafening roar. With a sudden, violent impulse the train exploded into motion, slamming Shannon backwards into her seat. Impressive as it was, the fierce vertigo always startled her.

A digital display at the front of the car was a blur of shifting digits, slowing ever so slightly over time until for a brief moment they stabilized at a respectable 879km/h. Then as quickly as they had risen the numbers started falling again and the train lurched backwards.

“Now approaching O’Hare,” said the voice. “Your harness will remain locked until the train has come to a complete stop. Please exit your car in an orderly fashion. Thank you for riding the MLTA.”

The lower level of O’Hare had seen better days. The antique turnstile creaked as it swung around. Down she went, to the blue line CTA platform.

Not quite as swanky as the maglev, the blue line El train nevertheless was clean as far as public transit went. The ancient electric-driven train slid away from the platform at a snail’s pace. Since time immemorial there had been the El trains, arteries running across every vital node in the greater Chicago metropolitan area. Compared to the Chicago-Milwaukee maglev they were abominably slow, but with the price of crude well within quadruple digits and motorized transportation unavailable to the average citizen, what choice did people have?

The train emerged from the dank tunnel beneath the airport into the golden orange glow of the settling sun. The vacant trains scattered throughout the O’Hare CTA rail yard were calm, silent spectators. Upon rusty side tracks they sat dormant, like rail-side hobos about to settle down for the night.

The train slowed for the first stop. “This is Rosemont,” said a crackling, analog recording. A city of hotels, casinos, and brothels, Rosemont was nevertheless beautiful to behold at dusk. The obsidian pyramid of the Stephens Grand Casino rose to titanic heights above the skyline, the neon blue lights along its four edges converging in an ever-burning multi-hued flame at its zenith. Inside one could find any vice that money could buy. Truly the apex of a city that was already known for pulling out all the stops when it came to luxury and comfort, the SGC was undeniably the hottest attraction in the O’Hare area. Business people, tourists, and anyone with a new dollar to spend flocked there in droves to catch the lavish stage shows, animatronic death battles, or just kick back and gamble away their savings. Celebrities made it their first stop when flying into town. Politicians and government officials were often spotted inside. Well-to-do suburban youth from nearby Park Ridge, Des Plaines, Niles, and Skokie swarmed there in packs and droves, drawn by some basic animal instinct to the neon glitz and glimmer of the neighboring clubs like Vortex, Sinister’s, or Fear9, venues that catered specifically to the underage crowd. It was there that they spent away their parents’ money on exotic designer drugs like Phrexanol, Spatz, and Xel-B while dancing with nihilistic abandon to the synthesizer overtones of a whole generation.

But that was it. If you couldn’t pay, you couldn’t stay. It was no secret that behind the sparkling facade the city of Rosemont was a police state. The political machine that ran the town was ever vigilant to keep everything in order, and outsiders out. It was business.

The train rattled along as the last rays of the dying sun shone through the cloudy windows. The train slowed to a stop.

“This is Cumberland. Doors open on the left.”

The doors swung open and a young man with dyed red hair, about the same age as Shannon, stepped onto the train. By his pasty white complexion, roundish face and distinctive facial features she figured he must’ve been of Eastern European descent, most likely Polish. His green eyes had dark spots under them, perhaps from lack of sleep, or maybe just thinking too much. His eyes were darting around the car, observing everything and everyone, reading something in the faces of the other passengers that wasn’t readily apparent to her. There was an odd process going on behind those eyes, an inner monologue so deep and profound and disturbing that Shannon found herself wishing that he’d turn around and walk back out the door, but instead he brushed a newspaper off the seat across from her and sat down directly in front of her.

He had on faded blue jeans, threaded at the bottoms from frequent wear, and a black t-shirt with the lone symbol of a serpent devouring its own tail on it in bright red. She wasn’t deceived though. His thrift store clothes were a disguise, smoke and mirrors to hide something that he was afraid to tell other people, or maybe even admit to himself. Was he... ashamed of something?

Ah, I see, thought Shannon. I know who you really are.

Suddenly, as if he’d heard her thoughts, the young man looked directly at her and smiled. Reflexively, Shannon looked away.

As the train crawled onward toward the city she gathered enough courage to look back, and caught a glimpse of something she hadn’t seen before. Yes, there it was—just barely perceptible under his left nostril, the remains of an old, old scar.

How did you get that? You have too much to drink with your rich friends? Did you do it to yourself? Shit, you haven’t seen what I’ve seen. You’ve never been below the Wall. You ever seen someone with half their face blown off?

Momentarily their eyes connected, however, and her bitterness fled from her. In its place was something she hadn’t felt in a long time—real, human empathy. There was a certain vulnerable, pathetic look in his eyes now that she thought of it. She closed her eyes but they were still connected, still in each others’ world. She could feel his pain, a desperate soul sickness far worse than the Chinese flu, a loneliness that could never properly be described in words. And he in turn felt her pain, the pain of rejection and the burning embers of rage at the pit of her being. In her mind’s eye were the images of times long past, flashes from her ancestral consciousness.

I’m sorry, the young man might have said.

Instead he stood up and stepped toward her. He smiled that odd half-grin again and slowly extended one hand toward her.

“For you,” he said.

Shannon looked down in horror at the human heart in his hand, dripping blood through his fingers onto the floor as it continued to pulse with some surreal, inner life. She looked at his face again and saw that he was crawling with snakes.

“Will you take it?” he said.

Shannon screamed and opened her eyes. There was no one in front of her.

The train clicked along, blue electric light flashing inside the car from the sparks coming off the track outside. It’d been a long day, but Shannon knew the hardest part was yet to come. The Chicago skyline drew ever closer, ominous black shapes in the distance like shadow-clad giants with luminous eyes. The train started to fill up. At every stop more people piled in. Harlem, Jefferson Park, Montrose, Addison. More people. White people. Not as bourgeois as the Milwaukee folk, they were nevertheless well-fed, well-groomed, and sure as hell didn’t feel unsafe. Not like Shannon did where she was going.

Her thoughts grew suddenly dark as the train dove underground. There was that familiar recorded voice again.

“This is a blue line train to 54^th and Cermak. The next stop is Belmont.”

But Shannon’s mind was elsewhere; lost, stumbling, trapped in the past. She was thinking about her mother, her childhood, and the harrowing events of her youth. A period in time that’d be forever remembered as the Black Spring.

Voices.

“It’s in the news everywhere, Joanna. The dollar’s decline continues unabated and prices of everything from diapers to food to gasoline are soaring out of control. A spokesperson for the Federal Reserve said recently that ’inflation is under control’ but main street America isn’t buying it. Domestic violence is on the rise...”

“...a sudden rash of racially-motivated crimes in suburbs across the country, Rick. State and federal authorities claim there is no cause for alarm but sociologists are concerned that it may be a symptom of bigger problems...”

“A vocal minority have expressed outrage at the fact that the government continues to print money at an unprecedented pace while showing little or no regard for its repercussions on the economy. They claim we are witnessing early symptoms of a hyperinflationary depression...”

“Economic conditions continue to deteriorate as entire industries are literally imploding one by one from inflationary pressures. Merchants can’t charge enough to stay in business, the average American can’t work enough to pay the bills, and it looks more and more each day like the middle class will soon go the way of the dodo. The Fed chief has been quoted as saying this is an ’aberration, a necessary correction,’ but the word on the street is that we are sliding into a new, more terrible Great Depression. You tell me, Robert. Back to you...”

“The growing pandemic of religious fanaticism is quickly getting out of hand in the industrialized world as well as third world countries. In the U.S. alone the ranks of the organization known as the Order of Namaath have increased geometrically in recent months and it’s believed that they’ve penetrated governments from the local level on up...”

“Gold and silver are in the clouds, Sean. Foreigners are selling treasuries at breakneck speed and U.S. debt has been downgraded to junk status. Martial law has been declared in New York and it’s rumored that Chicago and L.A. will be soon to follow. Shantytowns reminiscent of 1930’s ’Hoovervilles’ are springing up all over the Midwest and government officials are openly questioning whether the system is broken beyond all repair...”

“...it’s official, Joanna: the dollar has crashed. In homeless camps across the country people are burning the now worthless world reserve currency in stacks and heaps just to stay warm. The economy of this once great nation has been reduced to a primitive system of trading and bartering. If not a sign of the end times, I don’t know what it is...”

“Brad Johnson with CBN Chicago. I’m standing on the corner of Jackson and LaSalle where police have surrounded the Board of Trade building. Traders are locked inside until the exchange, working together with the federal government and a handful of banking giants, can find a way to settle all positions without causing further damage to a financial system that is already in critical condition. As you and the viewers are already aware, Bob, the prices of gold, silver, and several other commodities have gone discontinuous—trade an ounce of gold for a loaf of bread or all of a person’s possessions, it doesn’t matter. Just as long as you aren’t holding greenbacks, which unfortunately will buy you little more than a chuckle nowadays. Back to you.”

The Black Spring was a blurred collage of memories for her, unreal events that somehow pulled her down this slippery slope to the depths of her present state. Like a passenger on a lunatic train out of control she’d tried to hold on for dear life, but as it sped up, destabilized, and threatened to derail she came to understand the futility of it all. She was bound to her fate, undeniably committed to her final destination. After that unusually cold spring finally ended the world at large emerged as something new and scarred and transformed. But it was now a world divided—rich and poor, young and old, black and white. Everything, it seemed, had found a polarized equilibrium. Chicago, quite literally, was torn in half.

An endless convoy of construction vehicles from all corners of the city converged like ants on the middle “dividing line” that was Cermak avenue. In a desperate, last ditch effort to contain a rapidly spreading chaos across Chicago’s south side working class neighborhoods they constructed a wall, a behemoth mass of concrete and steel running as far east as the lake and as far west as the Des Plaines river. In one cruel, half-symbolic gesture they showed the world how two different worlds could be pulled even farther apart, stratified and solidified behind cold stone and jagged metal.

As the train twisted and turned beneath the Loop, the passengers onboard began to change. The better off people slowly dwindled and then disappeared, leaving in their wake a group who was uniquely poor and desperate. In their eyes—these, her brothers and sisters—Shannon saw the same story repeated over and over, one that mirrored her own.

At LaSalle, however, a lone businessman stepped onto her car. Shannon’s breath stopped short. His Italian black leather shoes were sparkling, his suit of the finest material, and his wine-colored tie was undoubtedly silk. A strong, athletic frame rose to a smooth, chocolate-skinned face that was perfectly formed. He sat across from her, set down his briefcase and smiled directly at her. Shannon blinked nervously and looked away. The man leaned back and pulled a copy of the Sun Times from his briefcase. Shannon smiled back at him.

The train lurched sharply sideways through the subterranean tunnel, now moving westward on the final leg of its journey. Once upon a time this segment of the blue line ran above ground but such was no longer the case, for this was none other than the stretch that ran along Cermak. In other words, they were now traveling directly beneath the Wall.

There was a growing uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach as her stop drew near. On the train she was safe but the tunnel... She thought about asking the businessman to walk with her but she was too nervous.

Be brave, she told herself. Be very brave.

Her stop had arrived.

“This is Cicero,” said the recorded voice. “Transfer to gray line trains at Cicero.”

The doors swung open. Shannon stood up, took a deep breath, and stepped into the damp, cavernous subway. The train platform converged in a sharp ’V’ into the transfer tunnel connecting the blue line train to the gray line. Along the chipping tile walls was an orange growth, some kind of subterranean fungus that turned a day-glo fluorescent color every time one of the dangling lights swung toward it. On either side of the tunnel entrance were stairways that once led up to the street above, but were now sealed off with concrete rubble. It seemed the CTA passengers weren’t welcome this side of the wall. There was only one place for Shannon to go.

She stepped carefully across the craggy, treacherous concrete floor. Above and around her were faint grinding noises, shouting and moaning. Every so often there’d be a booming thud from somewhere above, echoing through the walls and raining dust down on her head. Shannon tried not to think about what was going on above ground.

Eyes. Watching her. Footsteps behind her. It was like the walls themselves were radiating fear, the tunnel entrance slowly dilating and contracting with a disturbing, lifelike quality.

As she passed through Shannon deftly tried to avoid the little puddles of stagnant liquid at her feet. Everywhere around her the tunnel was littered with garbage and molding heaps of greenbacks, the now worthless ’old currency.’ In theory if you filled enough trash bags full of the stuff you could trade them in for a cup of coffee but unfortunately few, if any merchants accepted cash anymore. So by and large the paper accumulated in filthy, stinking piles in all the dirty little nooks and crevices of the city, soaked in piss and smeared with feces like the proverbial waste product that it was.

If she was going to get mugged... or worse, it’d happen here. She quickened her pace, still aware of the footsteps behind her. The stairs leading up to the gray line platform were just ahead.

Suddenly a little rodent head popped up from a metal grate near the tunnel wall on her right, staring at her with red, beady eyes. It’s bloated, mangy body followed behind as the rat scuttled across her path only a few feet in front of her. The thing was the size of a house cat.

Shannon shrieked and stumbled backwards. She feared she might lose her balance and fall into one of the disgusting puddles on the ground but two strong hands caught her from behind. Fearfully, she turned around.

It was the businessman.

“Nothing to be afraid of,” he said in a deep, calming voice. “just a Chicago hamster, that’s all.”

Shannon looked into his eyes and saw that they were a deep, sapphire blue color. She laughed nervously, yet was secretly relieved.

“Th... thank you,” was all she could think of to say.

They quietly walked together up the steps to the gray line platform, where they waited in awkward silence for the train to arrive.

“This is a gray line train to 111^th,” said the all too familiar voice. “For your protection all cars have reinforced ballistic armoring. Thank you for riding the CTA.”

With a metal screech and a spray of sparks the train emerged from the subway underground into a landscape that resembled 1945 Berlin. Skating along southbound at rooftop height, Shannon looked out at the crumbling skeletons of bombed out buildings, scarred earth, and the pandemonium of the wall behind her.

Under the starlit sky it stood, an eerie sight like something from a madman’s dream. Long strings of parallel canopy lights ran across the top section of the two-story concrete structure as far as the eye could see, disappearing into the distance. Little figures moved along the top in confusion as flames and explosions burst sporadically at different points along the wall. Searchlights swept across the ground at various locations, illuminating charred vehicle remains, tangled fields of razor wire and dark silhouettes of people running across the treacherous landscape. Crackling organ music blared from loudspeakers mounted on the wall, mixing with the screams, explosions and grinding machine cacophony in a cataclysmic symphony.

A sudden volley of rocket fire broke loose from the hollowed-out remains of a warehouse near the tracks, a chain of explosions igniting along the wall and sending shockwaves through the train. The attack was met with an immediate and fierce barrage of machine gun fire from several locations on the wall, the tracers sparkling in the night like little fireflies as they saturated their target on the ground. Shannon watched in horror and amazement as the metal alloy skeleton of an animatron engulfed in flames stumbled toy-like across the wall top, at last tumbling precipitously to its doom below. Military screams and orders shouted above the roaring chaos were followed by more machine gun fire while the organ music played like some sickening carnival from Hell. An orange glow lit up the whole train as the warehouse all at once exploded, sending pillars of flame high into the night sky.

How did this come to pass? thought Shannon. Where did we go wrong?

The train rattled onward above the endless fields of devastation and debris. The well-dressed businessman was on the same car with her again, this time facing the other way. Shannon found her mind wandering, a trance-like state coming over her as she listened to the rhythmic sound of stray rounds pelting the side of the car.

She was in his arms, staring up into his big blue eyes while one strong hand caressed her cheek. The train around them was empty, a lone car floating above a cardboard prop cityscape while rain fell hard around them with a constant, soothing pitter patter sound. His face was next to hers, smelling her hair, his lips touching the soft skin of her neck. His other hand reached down toward her thigh...

The train began sliding to a slow, screeching halt. Shannon looked out her window at the row upon row of ash-colored, blocky, identical high-rise monoliths that were the new housing projects. An old scrawny bald man and a fat Jamaican-looking man across from her were laughing obnoxiously about something. The fat man caught Shannon’s eye, then proceeded to stare at her legs and her chest. He smiled a hollow, black toothed smile at her. Shannon scowled back at him and looked away.

“This is 47^th,” said the recorded voice. The train jolted to a complete stop.

In dismay Shannon watched the businessman get up, walk toward the door, and exit from her life. Echoes of her daydream fantasy were still fresh in her head, playing over and over like a broken video feed. She looked out the window at him descending the long row of stairs leading down from the train platform, onto the street, and into the city of housing projects beyond.

The fat Jamaican-looking man cackled after him with his friend.

“Hey look, there goes snowflake!” said the fat man in a raspy voice.

“Yeah,” his scrawny friend replied. “You can take the ghetto outta him but you can’t take him outta the ghetto!”

The two of them laughed like hyenas.

Shannon wanted to stab the ignorant bastards. If she had a knife she would’ve done it too, without even thinking twice.

Onward they went, deeper into the darkest part of the city. They were passing the ’playground,’ the open stretch of pavement and rubble that once upon a time was Midway Airport. Now it was a gang infested hole in the middle of the south side, a no man’s land where the fiercest battles were often waged. Shannon looked out at the muzzle flashes sparkling from the capsized airport terminal, the little figures running from the jagged, severed fuselage of a jetliner and the cratered stretch of the old runways. What used to be runway lights alongside the strip were now a long row of ever-burning torches, territorial markers placed there along with the mangled remains of vehicles and animatrons to ward off would-be trespassers. A nearby explosion rattled her ears, and from somewhere outside Shannon caught a whiff of the thick, oily smell of machines on fire. The airport slid behind them. Shannon nodded off.

“This is 95^th/Evergreen Park,” said the recorded voice.

She was almost home.

A solitary tear slid down her cheek, though she was unaware it. The train was slowing down one final time. Outside everything was frighteningly quiet. Shannon’s heart sank, but she held on inside, focused all her energy into a single, burning determination. This was it. She readied herself for the final stretch.

“This is 111^th street,” said the recorded voice. “All passengers must exit.”

The doors flew open. Shannon was on her feet, running like her life depended on it. It did.

Like frightened animals the few remaining passengers scattered from the train station. Shannon had to make it to 115^th. It was the longest four blocks of her journey. Across the smoldering fields of what used to be Chicago two flats she ran, her heart pounding as her flight response shifted into high gear.

Sticking up from a mud pit that used to be a park a lone, eight foot high bronze statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. stared into the distance with a bold, hardened vigilance. At his feet was a plaque that read: “He stood for peace.” Unfortunately Dr. King had a molten hole through his chest about the size of a man’s fist from where he’d been hit with an energy weapon. In the right light if one looked upon the statue they might comment on how much the stains on his face resembled long streaking tears.

From the splintered wood remains of old buildings eyes peered out at the lone woman running under the moonlight, darting behind toppled vehicles and ducking into the smoky clouds spewing from street side sewer grates. If there’d been noise she would have felt safer, but it was quieter than usual in her neighborhood. And that was not good at all.

Shannon flattened herself against the broken remnants of a brick wall. The rest of the structure it once belonged to was completely gone. Her chest was burning and her breath came in slow, heavy, panting gasps. Only two blocks to go. She was going to make it.

A gun clicked behind her. Her heart sank once again.

“You will turn around slowly,” said a pre-adolescent voice.

Shannon did as she was told. A child’s face popped up around the corner of the wall. A little girl with corn row hair wearing a pink tank top stepped out into the open. She had an RPG slung across her back and was holding an AK-47. She couldn’t have been older than ten.

The little girl pointed the assault rifle at Shannon’s head. “You will give me all of your money,” she said.

“I don’t carry drugs,” Shannon blurted.

The little girl shrieked with anger and fired a burst into the air. With bloodshot eyes she stared at the helpless woman and then pointed her gun at her again.

“Don’t lie to me bitch! I know you got Phrexanol!” the girl screamed.

Shannon sighed. Don’t show fear. Don’t show fear...

“I told you I don’t have any money,” Shannon said calmly.

The girl dropped the muzzle and took a step back. Two more figures—teenage boys—appeared from behind the wall. One of them had an Uzi. The other one, the leader perhaps, was wielding a Desert Eagle.

“No drugs, huh,” said the leader. “Maybe her organs are worth something.”

Beneath his olive-drab flak jacket was a scrawny, half-starved body. With a quivering hand he pointed the gleaming pistol at Shannon and walked toward her. Shannon saw that his jaw was twitching, his lips opening and closing spastically in a sad, involuntary manner that beyond a doubt revealed the Parkinson’s-like symptoms of chronic Phrexanol abuse. If he didn’t die on the streets the drug would sure as hell do him in before long. He likely wouldn’t see his eighteenth birthday.

“Maybe we could have some fun with her first,” said the other boy.

The leader smiled a predatory smile.

Suddenly a burst of automatic fire broke out from somewhere down the block. A nearby telephone pole sticking half-tilted out of the ground all at once exploded, raining wood shards down on the four of them. The three kids turned around, startled.

From the cloud of fog and sewer fumes down the street a group of shadows appeared. The figures took shape as they emerged from the vapor, a marching row of nine black-clad samurai warriors like demonic apparitions of medieval Japan. Their attire was completely authentic, even down to the helmets and katana blades hanging at their waists. Instead of being armed with pole arms, however, they all carried firearms.

On a black nightmare stallion rode the leader, flanked on either side by four men on foot. He was a beast of a man, easily seven feet tall and built like an ox. His steed was the size of a Clydesdale. With one hand he held the reigns while in the other he brandished a fully loaded M-60 machine gun, its barrel still smoking. It didn’t look like he was having trouble holding the monster weapon.

His men were armed with an assortment of high-end weapons—M-16’s, grenade launchers, and a flame thrower. To her amazement Shannon saw that one of them, the man on his right, was wielding an energy weapon. From the chrome energy cell backpack of the weapon a thick, coiled cable fed into a cylindrical, pointed rifle about four feet long. God only knows where they’d gotten it from, but Shannon knew that it was no mere toy. In all probability he could melt a tank with that thing.

Like deer in headlights the three kids froze before the approaching samurai, then ran away screaming, the leader dropping his Desert Eagle on the ground in the process. In a flash they were all gone. The nine shogun warriors stepped forward and surrounded the trembling woman in a half-circle formation. Shannon’s back was still up against the wall.

The leader trotted up to her, the ebony horse’s face right next to hers. Shannon looked at the creature, and saw that its eyes were a bright red.

A genetically modified animal! thought Shannon. Only the police have th... what the hell?

The man let go of the reigns and dismounted. “Take two steps backward,” he commanded to the animal. The horse did exactly as it was told.

The man stepped before Shannon. She barely reached his chest. He removed his helmet, revealing an attractive, Kenyan-looking face with dark, dark skin. For a moment he just stood there, staring at her.

“A dangerous time of night for a woman to be out alone, don’t you think?” the man said in a deep, booming voice.

“Y... yes, I guess so,” said Shannon.

He placed his helmet under his arm and extended one giant hand.

“Atticus Rex,” the man said.

Shannon placed her tiny hand inside his. “Yes, I know who you are,” she said. “My name is Shannon Brown.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Shannon,” he replied.

When the man smiled, Shannon found herself smiling back. A feeling of relief came over her. She would live to see another day.

“I will walk you home,” said Atticus.

“That would be most kind of you, sir,” said Shannon.

In single file they walked, with Atticus in front holding Shannon’s hand followed by his horse and his eight comrades. As they walked he told her about the state of the world as he saw it, he talked about his plans for the future and he recited for her poetry that he knew by heart. Hearing the deep, harmonious sound of his voice even made her forget momentarily where she was and the troubles on her mind.

Atticus Rex was indeed a man beyond remarkable. Though never formally educated, had he been tested his IQ would be in excess of 150. He was a passionate man, a man of conviction, and a second to none tactical genius. He’d single-handedly grown the Samurai from a ragtag street gang into the most feared and respected force on the south side of Chicago. And now he was walking with her, leading Shannon home.

“A silent crash was years in the making,” explained Atticus as they walked. “The sheepish masses were slowly duped into complacency by doublespeak, tall tales of riches, and a veritable barrage of falsified statistics. There is no scheme so perfect, no better form of wealth confiscation than by the issuance of paper currency. Until these fiat swindlers who masquerade as ’inflation fighters’ are expelled from their posts, until the incestuous relationship between corporate America and the government is aborted, until our laughable revisionist history is replaced with truth and real insight, there can never and will never be a free America. This experiment in managed economy has failed; we became what the founding fathers most feared.”

Her house was coming up. Shannon looked with disdain upon the ancient two flat that was visibly sinking into the mud. Near the gravel pile that served as her porch she turned around to face the Samurai leader. With soft, tear-filled eyes she looked up at his warrior’s face.

“When will it end, Atticus?” she asked softly. “When will these white motherfuckers stop taking our wealth and leaving us with a bunch of worthless paper in return?”

“They’re not all white,” said Atticus. “In your eyes maybe, but only because that’s what you’ve chosen to see. What in times of prosperity makes us beautiful and unique is what drives us apart in times of adversity. You would do well to remember that. The situation at hand is much deeper and more pervasive than mere cultural bias. What we’re confronting right now is an ancient, basic greed and self-interest that knows no ethnic boundaries, and as that realization grows all people—African, Caucasian, Latin, Asian—will find their anger directed toward the selfish few who sold us out, and we in turn will be united in our vengeance.”

“General, I don’t mean to interrupt... but we should be moving on,” said the man with the energy weapon, standing just behind Atticus.

“Atticus, wait!” said Shannon, just as he was turning to leave. “Let me give you some money for your troubles. You saved my life, you know.”

“A generous offer,” said Atticus. “But I’m sure we’ll be okay without your drugs.”

“That’s not what I had in mind,” said Shannon. She reached down into a little notch behind her belt buckle and removed a small piece of metal. She held it up before them, the one-ounce piece gleaming like a tiny star in her hand.

Atticus gasped. All his men stared in disbelief. The man with the energy weapon opened his mouth to say something, but then his jaw just dropped wide open and hung there.

“Is... is that what I think it is?” Atticus whispered.

“Yes,” Shannon replied. “Point nine nine nine fine silver. Real money.”

The nine warriors just stood there in awkward silence, their eyes fixated on the miracle before them. At last Atticus stepped forward. One giant hand reached up for the coin, then slid under Shannon’s hand, closing hers around it.

“You are a remarkable woman,” he said. “But that is too much. Please keep your money.”

“So you will not accept payment?” asked Shannon.

Atticus thought for a moment. “Perhaps a kiss instead?”

“A mere kiss?”

“It would be heaven,” he said in a deep, charming voice.

He stooped down toward her. Shannon put her arms around his neck and kissed him full on the lips.

Still holding the silver piece in her hand, Shannon turned to go inside. Atticus remained standing there, watching her go. Before she opened the door she turned to him and sighed.

“Be well, Atticus,” said Shannon.

“You as well, my lady,” Atticus replied.

As she turned the knob she heard his voice behind her.

“Someday prices will come down, you know. Prices will fall back to earth, the middle class will return, and this Greatest Depression of all great depressions will come to an end. And the root of all evil, central banking, will be forever abolished along with the abomination that is fractional reserve lending. You mark my words, young lady. Have a good night.”

Shannon closed the door.

She kept thinking about his words as she turned out the light. What a brave man was Atticus, she thought. A visionary, a man who believed with his heart and soul in what he was fighting for. But what if he was wrong? What if the depression never ended, and the tears and the bloodshed continued indefinitely? Such thoughts troubled her as she lay awake in bed, listening to the rat-tat sound of small arms fire in the distance. After a while she fell asleep. Her dreams were filled with visions of peace and prosperity.

This is a map depicting Shannon's journey. The blue line is real and in fact follows the route described in the story. The gray line and the Chicago-Milwaukee maglev are fictional constructions of the author.