Distant rain pours across the grasslands and wild steppe of the Western Sahara. The vast three million square miles of the Sahara have only been tamed by Phaethon Energy in the past 30 years after the creation of the "Phaethon Relay." Despite the short timeframe, corporations, private investors (wavemakers), and nations have already leapt to establish towns, cities, and infrastructure. The roads and cities only extend so far. A few hour's journey in any direction from a city will prove just how young the frontier really is. The empty hills, grasslands, forests, and jungles only exacerbate the surrealism of such a world. Few long winding roads stretched across the Sahara as if they were stray hairs shed off a long dead giant. The fertile lands were untouched, with a few exceptions being deserted vehicles, abandoned compounds, or barren homesteads. Be it by chance, the planet's diminished population, or political intervention, there were no claims to the lands of the new Sahara. Not from the Emerald Emirate in the east, Nigeria and Three Crowns in the south, or the Corporations in the west. The vast majority of the frontier was for the city-states, the wayfinders, and the gangsters within the steppe and forests.
Wild animals capitalize upon the new grounds, almost free of human ensnarement. Most of the beasts of the Sahara are altered invaders from a bankrupt American company called Altos. The plethora of creatures are highly adaptive, which allows them to fit into a unique ecosystem mixed in with African lions, hyenas, elephants, and hippos. Some of the genetically altered wildlife has even grown predatory towards humans. Primarily the rattler, hysadis, and the Saharan Veskar. The apex of the three is the Saharan Veskar, which often shows an intelligence level on par with a human child. Within the vast new lands, Jay and Rich traverse along a deep concrete road. New Marrakesh is merely a spec on the horizon. There isn't a living settlement in sight. Distant trees only faintly shelter a factory's smoke rising above the horizon.
"Mind if I ask some questions?" Rich yells, attempting to overcome the wind's bellowing call. His hand held onto the metal bar for dear life.
"Go ahead!" Jay replies.
"Why are there so many empty buildings and cars out here? The frontier is over two decades old; shouldn't cities be everywhere by now?"
Jay scratches his head before answering. "I'd say people are putting their money into places with working water—well, working enough. It's also much easier to sell a product to a megacity like Seattle than it is to invest in a fledgling city not able to fight off some gangsters in a DIY tank made two days ago." Jay speaks as if such a thing happened recently. "The point is that's not where the money's at. Give it a few years, and maybe they'll fuck up enough in the big cities and come crawling to the ones here."
"What about the barren things littered about?"
"Could be tons of things." Jay shrugs. "Maybe they ran out of juice. Got stranded, and some lion or veskar ate em." Jay stares at a shambling home far away from the road, bullet holes bluntly sprinkled through the outer walls. "People could've been raided too."
"That happens a lot?" Rich shutters.
"Well..." Jay starts. "I hear some chatter about gangsters doing this stuff, but most people aren't looking to zero folk without good pay involved."
"So you don't think gangs do this?"
"Oh, they definitely do." Jay nods. "There are some claims that dusters do it."
"Dusters? I'm not familiar."
"I'm personally not sure if they're real. Wherever you go, everyone has some kind of story. They just parrot bullshit half the time, but sometimes you'll hear about Kranos convoys going missing, people and all. People point at the Saharan boogie men."
YOU ARE READING
Silver Sahara
Science FictionIt has been roughly 20 years since the end of a global conflict lasting well over a century known as the Chrome Conflict. The long, brutal war waged between the people on Earth versus a nefarious programmer named Darius Leads, whose consciousness ha...
