The world has never been a favorable place for the insects.
Permanently branded as a pest and a nuisance, they have faced an impressive array of threats to their existence, from flyswatters to pesticides to the soles of human footwear. Yet th...
<Behavioral Record: see SOCIOLOGICAL DATABASE #373>
Purpose Of Visual Study: Follow-up on Abnormal Behavior
Time to MOLT 1: 2 wks
Written Transcript of Camera Feed From Dwelling/Vehicle Of Subject
Intellectual Property of the Governance of MOLT, Central Division
March 26, 2254
Wyn Rivera rushed home in a fit of rage after her decidedly unsuccessful Pre-MOLT guidance session. Her tiny, gray Governance-issue electric car shot through the winding, layered streets of Freziere, gradually making its way through the maze of bridges upon bridges as it climbed up alongside the glassy sides of colossal skyscrapers toward the rooftop neighborhood of Fallen Bird. Thousands of identical cars filled the city, but there were enough roads stacked neatly on top of each other to allow all of them to travel at a decent pace.
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Wyn had always thought the name of the settlement was rather depressing. She was reminded of this as she drove up alongside the metal plaque mounted on its geometric gate, sporting an engraved image of a bird with its wings flailing, holding up a stylized representation of the words "Fallen Bird." The gate let out a long beep and popped open as its motion sensors locked on the vehicle, recognizing it. Wyn sighed to herself, adjusting her hands on the wheel as she gingerly stepped on the gas, moving forward as carefully as possible onto a thin bridge that spanned the gap between two skyscrapers. The sloping road underneath her, made of compacted garbage from the city below, trembled under the weight of her car. Her breath hitched in her throat and she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, pausing at the bottom of the slope before gaining the confidence to proceed upward at a faster pace.
"You'd think the most effective government in the history of the human race would build better bridges," Wyn hissed to herself as she swerved into one of the few available parking spaces on the rooftop that marked the end of the road. Technically, it wasn't really a rooftop, since an entire apartment building, the primary residential area of Fallen Bird, was built on top of it. However, it did mark the end of the world below and the beginning of that above.
Modern cities were built twice as high as their pre-Fall counterparts, spiraling endlessly into the clouds. This was a result of the Governance's efforts to prevent the problems of the 21st century world from recurring in this period of regrowth. Most of the world's remaining human population, some hundred million people, was packed into three megacities, located in the most remote areas of what used to be North America, Europe, and Asia. The high walls around these cities served both to protect them from the wild world outside and to prevent the reemergence of the once-pivotal issue of suburban sprawl.
