(Author's Note: Hello everyone! To help you better understand the world James lives in, I've prepared this short guide. This contains some basic info about the city, its social structure, and its currency. It's completely optional, but might make the story clearer. Back to the main story in the next chapter!)
The City: Aethelburg Autonomous Corporate Zone (AACZ)
Known simply as Aethelburg, this is the world's first city-state governed not by a country, but by a council of five mega-corporations. The most powerful and influential of these is the Japanese-based OniCorp.
Life in Aethelburg is a gleaming corporate paradise for the privileged, a gilded cage for the workers, and a concrete gutter for the rest. There is no government police; law and order are maintained by the corporations' private security force, CorpSec.
The Social Ladder: The Three Classes
Citizenship in Aethelburg is not a right; it's a privilege defined by your corporate contract.
Executives: The top 1%. The high-ranking officials of the five corporations and their families. They don't follow the rules; they are the rules. The woman James met is from this class.
Contracteds: The working middle class. They have a contract with a corporation, which grants them access to stable housing (like OniCorp Housing), healthcare, and relative safety. Losing their Contract is considered social death, as it means becoming...
Uncontracteds: The lowest class. James is an Uncontracted. They have no corporate affiliation, no rights, and no access to basic services. They live in corporation-owned slums (like Sector 7), scraping by on temporary jobs and whatever they can find. For them, securing a Corporate Contract is the only way out of the gutter.
The Currency: The OniCorp Credit (CR)
The "Credit" is the universal digital currency of Aethelburg, controlled by OniCorp. It has replaced all national currencies within the zone. To understand James's desperation, here is a rough idea of what things cost:
A cup of cheap synth-coffee: 2 CR
A bowl of cheap noodles (James's meal): 8 CR
One week's rent in a Sector 7 tenement: ~200 CR
A basic Corporate Contract (Tier-F): Requires a security deposit of 1,000 CR and a clean record.
A pair of Executive-class shoes (like the woman's): 5,000+ CR
The System (Known Information)
A mysterious interface that appeared only to James. Its origins and purpose are unknown.
System Name: The Almighty System
Known Skills: [Temporarily Shoo Pigeons (Level 1)]
Known Achievements: [Bootlicker (Tier-F)]