Requiem Read Free Page A

their rusted curtain. She resisted
them, just as she had always done. Up until the moment she had
received the message from this Abigail person they had formed a
part of a life she had desperately tried to disown. The fact that
the city had been almost demolished helped to minimise any
potential comparisons between those memories, wherever they were
hiding, and reality.
     
    They had been
walking for almost thirty minutes before Seline looked back for the
first time at the platform's concrete stilted corpse. A gust of
wind whipped the edges of her hood against the side of her face.
She could make out a figure standing motionless by the guard rail,
staring out towards the city just as she had done. Another ghost
returning to the graveyard. She looked back towards the city and
quickened her pace until she had caught up to her companion and
moved to one side of the road while he walked along the other. She
glanced across at him, cleared her throat.
    'What did you
mean... you know, when you said the city was built to fail?' She
asked.
    ‘I meant
exactly what the words implied,' he said, his voice level,
indifferent. 'New-gen materials are what a lot of these buildings
were built out of. Left to their own devices new-gen structures
will begin to break down after one year.'
    'Then why were
they used?'
    He looked at
her curiously then back towards Vale. 'About a decade ago NeoCorp
rolled out the first step of their big plan to 'upgrade' the cities
and towns in the insolvency. What they actually meant was that
they'd replace half of the buildings and structures with the
cheapest and least efficient materials they could find. They were
designed to look impressive at first but within a year were needing
constant repairs. But the new constructions served their purpose -
to placate the population while NeoCorp mined the city and to
create a dependency on NeoCorp for supplies to fix the
buildings.'
    'They could get
away with that on such a massive scale?'
    'Planned
obsolescence is something your species began toying with a long
time ago. Everything breaks down eventually and being able to
dictate when and where that happens just means another market
share. Whether their plan went exactly as expected is something I'm
not sure about because the next step they took was not so
subtle.'
    Seline stepped
over a pothole, saying nothing, waiting for him to continue.
    'After a few
years they returned,' said Sear. 'They systematically harvested
anything that hadn't already been replaced with their waste
products. They threw families and businesses out of their homes and
offices. Those who resisted were killed.'
    'How many?'
    'Impossible to
say. Zero if you ask NeoCorp. Hundreds of thousands if you ask
anyone else.'
    'That's... a
little hard to believe. I mean I know things can be pretty harsh
out here but... you're talking about genocide.'
    'Given the
right values, the right incentives, and the right amount of time,
anything is possible.'
    Seline's eyes
followed the jagged cracks in the road as she walked. 'So, are
there still businesses operating out here?'
    'Not in Vale.
The last to go were the bars and a few small scale recycling
operators.'
    'And how do you
know all this?'
    'I was trying
to get a better understanding of your people. I had been
researching human architecture around the time NeoCorp targeted the
city. I learned first-hand how your culture operated.'
    'And you
decided to stay?'
    'There was and
still is a lot to learn. Your people managed to destroy an entire
planet's ecosystem. You're the first sentient species that we know
of to do so.'
    Your
people , she thought to herself. It didn't feel like they
belonged to her, nor her to them. She kicked a small rock along the
road as she walked.
    'What do the
Yurrick care about Earth, about humans anyway?' she asked.
    'Your species,
NeoCorp at least, has all but openly declared war on the Yurrick,
so we watch closely. We need to be ready.'
    'For what?'
    'To protect
ourselves and our