7 January 2074 –Zhengzhou, China – The Central China Triangle as it is now called, wedged between two volcanic ash fields to the north and south, and nuclear wastelands to the east, still boasts hundreds of millions of people. Trapped between these wastelands and the deserts o the west, however, it seems like a land from a hundred years ago. Matrix access is non-existent. Food is in short supply,. Security is non-existent. Warlords, each with gangs of soldiers armed with weapons that range from spears to assault rifles, make a habbit of robbing and killing travelers, raiding corporate facilities, and massacring families in their homes.
“I would call it a war zone,” says former Zengzhou Police Chief Li How, “but that would paint a picture like beach instead of a desert. Both have sand yet, true, but only one is fit for families. We must fight every day for food and our families safety,” he tells me as the he rumble of a pickup truck – filled with armed adolescents rumbles by on the dusty road. Things are so bad that these proud, often isolationist people are begging for outside assistance. “It is with much sadness that we ask for intervention from the UN or the Corporate Court. If only someone could stop the warlords, we could rebuild.”
reporting provided by Kenji Wanantabi of the Associated Press