Black Market Merchant

Moab City was unprecedented. Ever since its founding, Moab had always been nothing more than a small out of the way desert town. Laying beside the Colorado River and intersecting with Highway 191, the town was once only considered to be a lonely tourists attraction rest stop for surrounding National Parks. There were no production capabilities, no resources being mined or farmed. So, there was really not all that much reason for anyone to live here. At least not until the Nuclear Wars and many bombings came to the nation, starting with World War Three, more than two hundred years ago.

When nuclear bombs dropped on most of the USA’s state capitals and other majorly populated cities, people evacuated many of the un-bombed cities’ and took to the country sides in droves. Once barren, empty lands for miles on end soon filled with desperate people escaping radiation and war. Moab was one such location.

The mayor of the town, at the time of the first Nuclear War, had wanted a way to increase the towns livelihood and income. As tourism was the town’s only real means of income and with the war going on, it meant that no one was interested in visiting National Parks. So, the mayor came up with a scheme to attract people to move to this isolated town and generate business revenue.

The plan was to advertise the town as a safe, out of reach haven from the war and nuclear fallout. The town is situated far from any major city, like Denver, Salt Lake City, or Las Vegas, and not to mention the roads in this area were vastly untraveled. This made the small town of Moab to be an extremely appealing place for asylum seekers. The mayor capitalized on this aspect and advertised it so well, that the town of just over 6,000 people, soon burst into hundreds of thousands in under ten years.

No village, town or city had ever undergone such population boom of this scale and speed ever in the USA’s history. Businesses flooded into the city to sell their merchandise, refugees found medical treatment, and stability was brought to the region. All this success that they mayor had gotten was especially gained from the Colorado River.

The mayor utilized the river in his advertising scheme to tell businesses that trade with the outside world was still possible. The river flows southwest from Moab towards the states of Arizona and Nevada, before traveling south along California and into Mexico; then the river flowed into the Gulf of California. Knowing this, the mayor advertised that businesses could ship their goods from Moab along the river and to the world.

River Barges and other smaller shipping vessels could travel up the river to Moab to pick up and deliver other goods just as good as trucks could. The isolated area and unmonitored river provided safe travels for the trucking and train industries to bring their goods to Moab, without fear of being bombed in route. This was something the current larger cities couldn't guarantee. Especially since all satellites were rendered useless to the world, traditional maps and knowledge of the USA would have to be used by the enemy. Since the river was never used by the USA before, no one would watch the river for item transportation.

The reason that Moab became the hub for river trade for businesses to the east and north, was that ships couldn't travel any further up the river. North of Moab was the town of Maple Valley (The Damn) and at this town was the hydroelectric dam, which completely blocked the river for any boat. If this were the only dam it wouldn't have been all that much trouble to destroy it and other cities to the north could compete in the river trade. However, in years past, the drive for clean renewable energies to replace the worlds dependence on oil created the desire for hydroelectric dam construction. The northern part of the Colorado River above Moab was so under populated, due to the high river canyon walls, that dozens of dams were built to fill the electricity consumption demands.

All in all, Moab thrived because of all this and more. Today in 2278 it is a powerful political zone that lays on the edge between civilization, the wilderness wastelands and competing military’s, such as the American Fascist Regime. Moab City is well known now as one of the few Independent City State.

…

The door to the Moab Mayors office was suddenly assaulted by a barrage of knocks.

"Come in." Moab Cities mayor, Cameron Bakersfield, called out with a tired tone.

The door lock clicked open as a thin man in glasses stepped inside. "Mr. Mayor, there has been another visual report of the Twisted hoard moving southward in our general direction. The elderly couple that made the report stated that it was just north of Interstate 70 and east of Highway 191."

"Is that so?" Mr. Bakersfield said giving a sigh as he leaned back in this plush seat. He then rubbed his hand through his graying goatee before speaking further. "Go ahead, Dan, and assign a task force to oversee the hoards activities. If it comes any closer, we might need to enforce a lockdown on the city. Additionally, we may need to activate the Defensive Shield. So, make sure the engineers approve that the power supply is stable."

"Understood, Mr. Mayor." Dan replied lifting his Solarium 6 tabloid and rapidly tapped out the mayors wishes and sent them off the responsible parties. "Done Sir. Now may I ask what your reply is going to be to the AFR military? I understand that they wish to send troops here to conduct an extraction of a highly wanted individual from the city."

Mr. Bakersfield shifted in his seat slightly. "Well, that's to be considered further. I still need to address the Board about it too. As you know Moab has remained neutral to the three governments around us. The American Fascist Regime to our north and east, the Texas Confederacy to the south and east and the State of Jefferson to the west and north. All three want to expand their controls of the wilderness lands and our city is smack in the middle of it. If we let any one of these governments get in too deep politically here, it might cause the other two to react or attack us. We need to keep our City's citizens safe."

"I understand that perfectly well. That is why I am glad you are Mayor and not myself." Dan said giving and honest grin. "I am curious as to who this individual is? Or am I overstepping my boundaries?"

"Not really. Though they didn't say what he has done or why they want him so bad, the AFR sent us this notification." Mr. Bakersfield sat up and tapped an icon on the touch screen computer built into his office desk. The image of a man popped up onto the holographic like screen before them floating just above the desk.

"This is Zac Evans, also known as Number 56. They want him found, but not to be engaged. If our police force spots him, we are to notify the AFR troops that they plan to send and they will take care of him. Whatever that might entail." Mr. Bakersfield explained casually. “They claim he is highly dangerous and probably armed.”

Dan looked carefully at the image that displayed a thinly structured, blond middle-aged man. It also showed that all his limbs had been replaced with cybernetic parts. It wasn't all that rare for people to have prosthetics in today's time, but Dan could tell that those were not normal. Dan could deduce that perhaps it was a special design of Zac Evans himself. Next to the man was a floating orb shaped robot. The exact type he didn't know, but it gave off a side kick vibe when paired with the man.

"Interesting. Well, I know that I shouldn't relay this information to anyone. So, my questions will stop here." Dan said looking away from the image.

"Very well. That's exactly why I hired you. You understand the importance of confidentiality." Mr. Bakersfield said getting comfortable in his seat once more. He rested his clasped hands onto his pudgy stomach.

"Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Now I must get back to work." Dan said turning to go back out into the bustling office floor outside the Mayor’s office.

“Well, guess I better inform the Board.” Mayor Bakersfield sighed reaching for his phone.

…

Somewhere in the industrial district of Moab City, near the river dockyards, a man and his robot walked along the freshly rained on paved streets. A light mist drifted up from the warm pavement and into the cool air. It wrapped around the man’s knees and he pulled his moist green over coat closer to his chilly body.

"Boss 56, you need to dry off soon. Wet clothing is not good for a humans health." The orb like robot, floating alongside the man, spoke in an upbeat robotic voice. "I know you wish to keep on with your mission, but my bosses life takes priority." The black painted orb floated ahead of the man and turned to look at him with multiple red eye sensors.

"I know, Orville." 56 said as he stopped walking and took out a handheld device from his pocket and turned it on. On screen a map of the city appeared, though it was not using the updated holo-projected technology, it was still accurate. His location was marked with a blue dot and another red dot was placed not too far away from him. "We are almost to the AO (Area of Operation). We get in there, get the data and get it back to base. I can dry off as we walk."

"Understood Boss 56!" Orville replied. A robotic hand on a rod like arm popped out of a slot on its underside and gave a dramatic salute to 56.

Orville was the special creation of Zac Evans, aka 56. 56 was a robotics specialist and hacking technician in the Navy Seals Cyborg Unit. As the Units were all mostly comprised of people with cybernetic devices, tech savvy types like him were much desired by the military. Orville was one of his pet creations that he had put together after being revived from cryogenic sleep.

Orville was roughly the size of a basketball, though he wasn’t as round as one. His shape more closely resembled that of a gumdrop. The shape allowed him to float above to ground using the same technology as the Hover Ships electromagnetic engineering. Though his component set-up was an inferior version compared to the Hover Ships, it was still an amazing feat for the size reduction of the components.

"Boss 56, what's the data for?" Orville asked as they started back on their way.

"We need better information of this future world and the AFR has completely taken control of the flow of data on their internet. We can't access it properly without drawing to much suspicion to find anything that's not censored or corrupted by their propaganda." 56 explained quietly. Though the streets were mostly empty it never hurt to be careful of eavesdroppers. "This City is considered to be a neutral area and the commanders back at base considered this a viable place to expand our intelligence gathering options."

"I comprehend Boss 56." Orville said bobbing alongside the man. "So, the place we are going to has free Wi-Fi then?"

56 couldn't help but smile hearing the joke. "Something like that."

It was then that they arrived at their AO. An internet café called Zhou's Hot Spot. Despite it being an internet café, it didn't look as friendly as a normal one. The street side brick walls were covered in lewd graffiti, metal bars covered every window, and an armed masked bouncer was standing at the door checking identification cards of the customers. The overall appearance looked more like a jail than a café.

"Well, here we go." 56 said putting his hands into his coat pockets and he headed for the door. Orville happily floating along in tow.