Sky-City

"You know why the call it sky-city? 'Cuz the sky itself is a commodity, a luxury even. The wealthy at the top of their towers, in their floating palaces, they get the sky, the blue, the puffy white clouds, the glowing sun. Those of us below, in the gutters, the streets, we might catch a glimpse of the sky, maybe a minute of warm sunshine on our face in a year, if we're lucky. The few, the rich, the powerful, they own the sky.   We could take it if we wanted, there's enough of us, we could stop working for them, protest, break the very mechanisms keeping them afloat up there in their ivory towers. We could cast them down. Problem is...everyone thinks they can rise up. Everyone thinks they can climb the stairs, not realizing that everyone up there was born in an elevator, know what I mean? The rich get transported up meanwhile the rest of us crawl up a ladder that, 9 times out of 10, will fall before you ever reach the top.   But, despite the depressing nature of it all, you can make a living. If you got the skills and the will, you can take what you want. The corporations are all-powerful but they are not omniscient. They own the world but they don't own the people. There's work out there for contractors who can run, take, fight, hunt, hack or kill. Maybe you can take just enough work to make it out with a decent payday. There's plenty of places to hide in the sprawl.   Maybe you can rise up. People still believe, even if you start in the gutter, you can somehow make it to a sky-palace. People don’t realize, though, that it’s a lot easier to fall than it is to rise. It’s a lot quicker, too.