 Imagine, if you will, a hole. This is not a hole in the ground. The ground is a long, long way down. This is a hole in all that's above the ground, 2,000 feet of steel and concrete, gradually encompassing everything below, entirely separating the Earth from the sky. It's a strange place if you were to look at it from the outside. These edges are several miles of slow buildup, thin and dirty containment zones with barbed wire all around. These places would be considered miserable as sin by the standards of the early 21st century, but they're really quite tame in comparison to some of the horrors of the early 22nd. At least, they are for now. The people in them live in dread of when the construction deeper within catches up with them, but they try to make the best of what they have. They don't look behind them much. This slow buildup eventually rises higher and higher and higher. The gaps are fewer, the buildings filthier, until eventually there is nothing at all but a singular mass. Its tops are covered in irregular houses and towers, built by people desperate to stay at the top and not to be absorbed themselves. There is nothing below, or rather you can see nothing below, so you imagine it doesn't exist. Not to you. You only see a gray and unpleasant skin, but every now and again you come across a whole, miles and miles apart. These are rare things, usually square or circular, and all around their edges. The people come to pray. Imagine a human society on earth. Any such society that depends on the dominion of the powerful in the weak needs its safety valves. If you want to build your rich plantations or half-baked utopias, you need someone whom you can safely exclude, but still use, as a source of labor. The Romans launched endless campaigns to staff their minds with able-bodied men. The formations of medieval Arabia build what appeared to be a communist paradise, if you ignored the thousands upon thousands of slaves who toiled to provide the necessities of life. And the Americans transition from dependents upon chattel slaves to dependents upon migrant workers, for whom they kept finding unique ways to stamp on and humiliate. But you know all of this already, it's ancient history. The year is 2110, and the question is why this place has been allowed to exist for so long in a world dominated by a thin elite? The answer is simple. Surrender. The slums which housed the workers grew and grew only being regulated when it affected those on the outside. As long as there is a steady supply of workers emerging to go to work, they could not care less what happens within. But eventually the number of workers began to decrease. Fewer and fewer people emerged from within the walls, and nobody understood what was happening. Were they finally dying? Everybody wanted to end to the ache. Most couldn't afford the new brain transplants and even fewer could afford to go to sleep. But as long as they ached, they'd be sure to ache a little less and have their needs taken care of by people who ached a little more. So what would they do when not enough people came out of the slums anymore? They sent people in to see why the numbers were gradually declining and it became obvious. Nobody saw the point. To get to the center from the outskirts was a trip of miles and miles, and passing through so much territory was dangerous. It was too much trouble to go to just so they could be exploited when the rising gangs offered much better wages. And so, more and more, there was just a hole, an unproductive bleeding hole, and it would never stop growing. It was given up for debt. Barbed wire, walls, attack dogs were placed around it. The perimeter would be reassessed every year and adjusted accordingly. There was not enough political will and what remained of China to do anything about it. And these places popped up all over the place, surrounding what had been cities and then spreading out beyond that, faster, faster, more and more. A name was given to them. The new Kaloons was obvious why, little else was. And thus, imagine the holes. They are the only gaps that even exist anymore. As you circle around them, they look up at you. They are frightened and hungry, but you see many smiles among their faces and you wonder why that is. The answer is quite simple. These people spend their lives under the glow of an electric light. There is no sunlight except through what are known as the watering holes. They go their whole lives without seeing any sunlight, and to be able to reach one and see the sky is an aspiration that can take years to accomplish. The food and water supply is sparse. Those on top eat cattle living bartering the rain water that falls on their head for food and supplies. They have become the leaders of a caste system and the heads of the militia gangs that guard and scrap for territory. They dominate the watering holes, charging through the nose in order to allow people to, for a second, feel something real. Food comes from three places, artificial farms deep within the slum's bowels, natural farms on the rooftops of the upper layers, and the intermittent airdrops which plummet from the sky. Needless to say, there isn't enough to go around. The should-be-dad litter the streets twitching and groaning from drought, starvation, or old age. They splutter and collapse and ooze into the gutters, their minds fragmenting and reforming as every new kind of hell infects them. And all the while, the rest of the populace shuffles by, eyes cast upwards, trying to forget the inevitability of their fate as it claws at their ankles. Now imagine a helicopter. It is black and sleek, and moves efficiently over the roofs below. The sun shines brightly, and the faces dwelling below are so small and scared. The shadows move and are solid, regulated movement over a state of endless flux. Now imagine a gun, a shotgun, to be precise. Imagine that it's being held by a woman. She's about 30, and has known no other life, but this. She eats. She sleeps. She fights. She sings to her daughter, and she survives another day without collapse. She lives around the middle of her structure. It's not the grinding existence of below. If you've gotten this far up, then you have gangland connections, or a particularly marketable skill. In her case, it's the former. She works as a part-time enforcer for the Chin Sea dynasty, a family of drug-peddling warlords with pretensions of kingship. Beneath their golden thrones, they are just the same crooks as all the rest. The rulers rule, but the poor obey. The woman's job is to make sure that the tenant farmers on the dynasty's northern properties are providing their quotas. These are people who are allowed to live and work on the many rooftop farms owned by the gang, as long as they give a certain quota of food to the dynasty each month. She does not like her work. She does not like hurting people, or forcing them to give more than they can. She does not like yelling, shooting, or inflicting pain. But then she thinks of her daughter's laugh, and the beginnings of decaying teeth, and blue eyes crinkled in a smile. She shoulders her gun and goes to work. The company has a patent on certain materials, which essentially amounts to a patent on a certain type of procedure, if performed properly. The procedure involves removing the brain from a body and inserting a new one in, so that aging will never be a problem again. This company sources its brains from a variety of people. The demand is fairly low because of the expense, but the expense is such that it's a very important source of income for them. Therefore they can only afford to pick the cream of the crop. Excellent genetics, unearthly beauty, a lack of any known diseases, and no one capable of finding them. But although they can patent the genetic materials and synthetic tissues necessary for the procedure, the law prevents them from legally patenting the procedure themselves. And as always, scavengers begin to hang around the large predators. They offer cheap and nasty procedures using lower grade products and synthetic materials different enough to avoid an unwinnable lawsuit. And these companies cannot afford to pick supermodels from a lineup. They need something else, an easy and cost effective source of bodies. A lot of people aren't interested in beauty or customization, they're just interested in not aging and not having to exist daily in a slow descent toward the twitching madness. And they won't pay as much as the super rich, but they will pay. Where do the brains come from? Well, mostly from genetically grown clone stock, of course. No, we can't disclose information about the process or our facility, and yes, there are sometimes willing volunteers. We have people in Chiang King who take care of their every need, and they usually come to us excited about the new, better lives we can make for them. Really, we're almost a charitable institution, giving the worthy poor a new and better life, away from the new Caloons or the Yellow River ranches. There are no cloning facilities, of course, and the vast majority of people are taken, not made. But there are some volunteers, a few who believe the billboards plastered on the edges of the roads, or the adverts bellowed out over the watering holes. They enter the room, smiling. It's not clear what their expression is when they leave. Now imagine that you also have a gun, that you are standing in a helicopter 50 meters above the surface, you and your companions training your weapons on a single woman standing below, who screams as she attempts to dodge the tranquilizer shots. This woman fires at you, but a shotgun's range is not quite that far. She misses, and she fires again, this time yelling and sobbing while she does so. One of your darts hits her. You give a whoop, and your colleagues cheer and clap you on the back. As she falls asleep, the helicopter's screeching blades swoop down below, its wheels looking like great talons. You're not a bad person, you say to yourself. You're just doing your job. Someone has to do it, after all, if the world's going to keep turning and besides, you've been told that the brains are fine. They have all their comforts dealt with by specialists in Chiang King. Make sure that they'll never want for anything. Really, you're helping this woman, bringing her out of poverty and into a brighter future. You consider her, as you haul her on board, pretty. This one will sell for a lot. You own a silver watch and gold cufflinks. Your flat is rich, tasteful, expensive, mercenaries willing to fly over the new Kowloon's can earn a lot of money. You have no bookshelves and no paintings. You have a television, a computer filled with tasteless pornography and a great table. Sometimes you stare at the table and you feel things that you don't have a name for. Now imagine a child. She's been wandering for days, scared and alone. Her mother did not return one day. She told the child never to leave the little flat they dwell in, but she needed to eat and drink. The pains would come. She felt the pains before when she was very little and she never wants to feel them again. Imagine begging. Imagine being sneered at, crushed in crowds, pushed down crowded staircases and breaking your fall on kicking knees. Imagine finding yourself desperate and alone and wanting something. Anything to bring your mother back. Imagine your mother's eyes. Child knows where she has to go, but she resists going there. Her mother wouldn't want her to. Her mother would tell her that she must never think about them, but she does. She knows where to go to get food. And finally, desperate and cold, she enters a golden room where a dynastic prince sits on a golden throne. She explains who she is and who her mother is. She explains how her mother had taught her to be careful, reliant, good with a gun, fierce with her words. She explains how she would be a good enforcer given enough time, how she could learn very easily to yell and shoot and inflict pain. If only it would stave her pain away. The prince's mind considers her and it smiles to itself. Now imagine green eyes and a smile of decaying teeth, singing the songs of the old country. Imagine not being a child anymore. Imagine all of these things. Imagine your daughter is all right. Or at least imagine she's alive. Imagine you are rich and you are powerful and you are alive. Imagine that you were the captor instead of the victim. You have the tranquilizer gun. Imagine that you are not here. Picture these images. Keep them hard and whole. Keep your mind together. Pray that the plastic bag you were contained in does not break as you slowly sink to the bottom of the upper yank seat. You are not aware that you were inside a plastic bag, but your synapses keep firing anyway, screaming in pain and confusion, forcing you awake when all you want to do is die. So imagine and keep on imagining. And you may stave the herd away for a few frail moments in the dark.