Artificial moonlight filtered down from halogen bulbs, through the tangle of steel girders supporting the gleaming silver metropolis, melting into the neon haze blanketing the slums below. The smog hung still in the air, lifeless save for the dancing will o' the wisps thrown from trashy glowing signs advertising the latest consumer goods, distractions for the mind and soul. The black iron and crumbling brick structures stood in grim majesty, ruins of a lost age, against the curls of smoke and the titanium support pillars thrusting up to what could once have been called the sky, now obscured by the massive disk stretching to the horizon. In a desolate street the fog began to swirl amongst the trash of decades, two beams of dazzling light cut through the mist, coming to rest on the rusting hulk of an automobile, crumpled against the side of a wall.
The jet black hover car glided smoothly to a stop, resting scant inches above the torn pavement. The door swung open slowly and a tall muscular figure emerged, steel toed boots crunching the worn gravel beneath, breath rasping metallically in the near silence. The black wraith scanned quickly from side to side, hand calmly resting on the butt of the blaster holstered at his side, only flashed of silver at his breast and shoulder and a few strands of blond hair hanging down outside his kevlar helmet colored his stark figure. From behind the Plexiglas face plate of the compact gas mask, ice blue eyes, genetically heightened senses, scoured the shadows. There, staring silently from between rotting slates of a boarded window, the dark complexion of a peasant. He deliberately unstrapped his pistol and purposefully strode up the broken steps to the vacant doorway.
The drone stood stupidly before the towering figure in black before him, ugly gleaming gun leveled at his chest. The hollow voice began "JD630, for refusal to appear at work during your allotted time, you have been sentenced by the viceroy of Neoboston," he paused here as the pathetic creature before him doubled over in a violent fit of coughs subsiding gradually to a series of tremors wracking his body. He raised his red rimmed brown eyes upon his grim overlord, his black hair, matted with sweat, hanging limply over uncomprehending eyes. "Under our holy, benevolent dictator, " the droning voice continued, "for your acts of treason against our glorious republic, to death, effective immediately." His finger calmly tightened on the trigger. This ones termination meant nothing, workers were never in short supply.
With a soft click, the car door closed and the sleek machine hummed faintly as it ascended through the mist, leaving the whirling clouds of poison behind as it sped upward to the glittering city above. Emblazoned on the back were small angular letters spelling "mind police", below that "United American Empire".
