| R O L E S | E S S A Y S | E Q U I P M E N T | H O M E | |
| FICTION | BOOK REVIEWS | ESSAYS HOME |
| Ashes: Prologue | ||
| Index | Ashes: Chapter 1 >> | spacer |
| The year is 2022. The United States of America has been ripped apart by internal division, horrific bio-engineered plagues, and a ruinous war against the South American drug barons. The power of the multinational corporations now equals, and perhaps even surpasses that of the government.
The ordinary people are the ones who have lost every time, and it has changed them. The light of hope has gone from their eyes, and they no longer dream of the future. They plod on through their monotonous lives, anaesthetised by a constant stream of television, radio, drink, and designer drugs. It is only the leaders of the corporations who still dream - dreams of money and power. They constantly strive to reach the top of the pile, clambering over the broken bodies of brothers, sisters, lovers, and friends to do so. This is the perfect world for the Assassin's Guild, an ancient and secret organisation that exists for one reason: every life has its price. This is the world where Shadow makes his living, earned with the proceeds of death. Torn from his family before he could walk, he was trained in every possible way to kill a man. However, the Guild also gave him honour, self-belief, and the overriding directive that his knowledge should never be used against the innocent. Unfortunately, innocence has died along with the birds. The world's going to Hell in a hand-basket, and Night City's poking its head over the brim, wanting to be the first to see it. Eco-Front won the local elections on an anti-Corp ticket but once again it was the ordinary man in the street that bore the brunt of their hidden agenda, the corps being the only ones with enough money to get away. Eco-Front has deemed cyberwear, nanotech, drugs, television, and most other things they can think of, un-environmentally-friendly and recruited the growing ranks of the Inquisitors to police the city. The Inquisitors - religious zealots who make the Taliban look like pussycats - deal out justice in the manner they believe God would want them to, and those who receive it usually get to find out if He agrees. Without their technological anaesthetics, the only thing left for the people is pain. But there are those who still have a shred of good left in them, those who feel at the back of their minds that things don't have to be this way. Most importantly there are still those who dare to hope. |
| SEE ALSO: | Index | Ashes: Chapter 1 >> | ||
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Ashes: Chapter 1 |
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| R O L E S | E S S A Y S | E Q U I P M E N T | H O M E | |
| FICTION | BOOK REVIEWS | ESSAYS HOME |
| Questions, Comments, and Submissions are all gratefully received, and promptly replied to. | Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. is a Registered Trademark of R.Talsorian Corporation. Original Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. material Copyright 1994,1995 by R.Talsorian Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Used without permission. Any use of R.Talsorian Corporation's copyrighted material or trademarks in this archive should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks. In all other cases the copyright belongs to the original author of the pieces. |