20 Minutes Into the Future
The capital is all but lost in the concrete expanses of the industrial sectors and poisoned waste-disposal zones that pave the area. It is also almost totally dead. Pollution - and development - killed off most natural life long ago. The same pollution also damaged the atmospheric system. The planet is always wrapped in thick, black clouds. The acid rain never stops. Never. The capital is the black jewel in the tarnished crown known as the World of Progress. A world where contract killing and prime-time warfare are high-paying career options. The capital is resplendent in its decaying glory; a place where a frantic struggle to survive is the only way of life. Life is cheap here; knowledge may cost you more than you can possibly imagine.

The Company's office building dominates the capital's corporate skyline, set in the gleaming splendour of the district known as Central. Only the Company's corporate employees and operatives can be found here. Elsewhere, vicious criminal gangs, serial-killers and nervous civilians scuttle through the filthy, labyrinthine streets of Downtown and the revolting spaces beneath and fringes beyond. Outside the city sprawl lurks the hellish Warlord Sectors, terrifying areas of devastation and carnage packed with subjugated inhabitants and mercenary death-squads.

For the operative, it's just like the adverts. They're heros, media darlings, saving the world and climbing the ladder to the top. Constantly on camera, with lives made up of enemies, hi-tech equipment, and lucrative corporate contracts, they’ll be finding and taking out subversives, and making sure their sponsors get good airtime. Doing well in the World of Progress means following the Company's Big Picture and oh, what a picture it is! Life is so "pleasant" for the bulk of the population that the Company uses its operatives as part of its special troubleshooting forces - elite agents trusted to make sure that everything runs smoothly, and the Company doesn't get...embarrassed.

The political world can be just as deadly as the streets. Competition within the Company’s ranks – between departments, rival business units and especially colleagues – is fierce, and the source of endless intrigues. The Company applauds the use of all manner of political techniques to get ahead, including murder – just so long as you don’t get caught.

The Company is unspeakably ruthless, and many of the things employees are instructed to do will feed their craving for power, but gnaw at their souls. In time, they may come to doubt. The Truth hidden by the Company could bring it down forever...but at what bitter cost?

"Remember when we said there was no future? Well, this is it."

The World of Progress - 20 Minutes Into the Future
By Edison Carter

Posted on the Independent Newswire by anon on 26 February 2002
Ref: www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=141055

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