By the time Jack had regained his senses, the black van had escaped the throng of emergency vehicles and fierce gun battles and fled Downtown. After a few minutes of retching and spitting globlets of phlegm onto the floor, Jack worked up the courage to stand up. Immediately his vision swam and he staggered alarmingly to the side; two henchmen grabbed him and guided him to the front of the vehicle, where he sat in the passenger seat. They were speeding down a skyway, skyscrapers to either side. The car directly in front and behind looked suspiciously similar to the matte black people carrier that they were in currently. “Where is he?” Jack asked, looking to the driver, a butch latino with gang tattoos crudely crossed out all over his neck and hands. “The Platinum Orbit.”

Jack didn’t frequent it much, but it was a favorite of his father. He paid a hefty price tag each month for ‘Platinum VIP’ status. This entailed complimentary drink, drugs and protection from law enforcement as well as regular citizens and gangs. The club’s landing gantry was situated half way up a tower nicknamed Hel, partly for its overwhelmingly Scandi-descendance population and partly because of the host of clubs that violated noise laws as well as firearms treatise. As the sun shone weakly through thick cloud cover raindrops began pattering down on the windscreen of Jack’s car. The young gangster scrunched his eyes up and tried to keep a visual lock on the van in front of them as the trickle turned into a torrent. “The biosphere is going wrong, what i heard.” The latino next to him grunted, turning onto a main boulevard.

A wide skylane with towers on either side, Jack could see vast neon displays through the rain splashed windscreen. Gargantuan neon holograms, mainly of dancing girls but also advertising products and services, “Anselm’s Chew tastes good, increases mental acuity and makes you irresistable; and now at fourteen credits a pack you can afford to be unstoppable.” an androgynous voice chimed into Jack’s earpiece. “Where is it again?” Jack asked. The latino didn’t answer, instead he activated a landing pattern and dropped the altitude sharply. Grabbing the armrests instinctively, Jack found The Platinum Orbit’s landing gantry directly in front of them. Large silver and black banners hung down the tower walls and Jack saw the club’s name hung in bright neon lights above the door.

Gently easing into place on the gantry, the van’s door slid open before it had come to a halt and Jack jumped quickly out. Trench coat flapping in the wind and hair already getting wet in the rain, he left his henchmen behind and approached the bouncers on the door. “Jack Thegn the Third. My dad’s expecting me.” Jack said, drawing up to his full height. Without looking at a list, the head bouncer grinned. “Sorry, he didn’t say anything to me.” ~Trust Jack Senior to dump me in it.~ Jack thought. “Alright, how much?”

“Eight thousand credits.”

Jack flashed his credit card on the scanner. The bouncer nodded him in. He brushed past the assembly and the line and entered The Platinum Orbit. The van took off silently and headed to the secret back door exit car park.