The Prologue

Welcome to Sector 7 of the wondrous city of Jiopharen in the country of Nebrios. It’s not much, but it’s what I call home. If you could call a garbage heap a home. Trash litters the street like bushes and trees. The people living here live simple lives. Most of them just wander aimlessly around, as there is nothing to do here. No official jobs. No high paying resource. Just a haven for the Exiled and the Unlucky. I myself am an Unlucky.

My parents were successful business owners over in Sector 4. They ran a bakery of all things. In fact, before they were married they were rivals in the bakery business. But they combined their business with their love and practically became a monopoly in the bakery business. Now the government didn’t like that so they shut them down and booted them into Sector 7. They lived long enough to see me reach my eighth birthday. After that, they got caught in the crossfire of the revolutionary group and some government police officials. So I’ve been living on my own for the last twelve years. It’s been quite nice.

My name is Alfred. Alfred Younts. I am a courier, or at least that’s what the rich people call me. A courier of goods. I wander around Sector 7 looking for anything useful or enticing. It’s not hard, but it pays well. The people pay unimaginable amounts of money for some of this useless junk. Last thing I sold was a worn out blender. I got two hundred neggets for it. Now that is a good deal in my opinion. One negget is worth ten negs, and one neg is worth twenty gens. Simple to remember right? Twenty gens to a neg, and ten negs to a negget. I bought myself some hot water for a week. It was nice. Now it’s gone and I have to go out on my own again.

What I really want though, is to get outside. To go back to where my parents lived before me. To the rest of the city. Unfortunately, that is out of the question for a poor guy like me. Sector 7 people don’t get any pass cards. Nope. All we get is the largest, most worthless sector. It looks almost the same, no matter where you go. People outside this dismal place, however, have cards that allow them to go almost anywhere. People of Sector 3 have green cards that allow them to get into Sectors 3, 4 and 8. People of Sectors 4 and 8, like my parents, have blue cards, allowing them to visit lovely Sector 7 as well. Sector 5 snobs, (and high paying customers), and Sector 2 police officials have purple cards, allowing access to any of the previous areas. The high and mighty government employees have yellow cards, which allow them access to any part of the city, except for the Sector 9 reactor. High ranking government pricks have red cards, which can go into Sector 9. And our glorious idiot of a leader, Ralphonse III, has the single white card, which allows for him to go anywhere, including the mysterious Sector 0, if it exists. I doubt it. Clariia says it does, but I highly doubt it to be true.