The city never sleeps. It tosses and turns at night, sweating, writhing in the heat. In the sixty years since The Fall of the former United States, what remained of the populace clustered together in a handful of megacities, scattered across the continent. The ashes of the old world left fertile ground for a new kind of power to grow; governments and mega-corporations formed symbiotic codependent relationships, like binary stars threatening to collapse in on each other in a terrifying supernova, but neither willing to break orbit. Out of the ruins of Old Chicago sprang New Astoria. Bureaucracy and capitalism wrestled for control, but the people knew the truth. There’s no controlling this city. Our movements ripple through the fabric of the streets. When you need something to hold onto, all you can do is grab onto a thread, and pull, and pray the whole thing doesn’t unravel. And things are definitely about to unravel for Ying, Emory and James. While investigating a gruesome murder, a cold-hearted Bureau agent with a malfunctioning robotic arm (Ying Wu) meets a streetwise biomechanic (Emory Sterlet) who’s about to get the worst case of “I can fix her” anyone’s ever had. They agree to an uneasy alliance to hunt for the killer, but quickly find more than they bargained for: Ying’s arm is a military-grade superweapon far beyond the bounds of legal human augmentation. While the Agency attempts to maintain the balance of power between the mega-corporations and the government, the gangs of the city struggle to survive on the streets, and Ying and Emory find themselves caught between all four. They’ll have to navigate the tension between old friends, new enemies, and the factions of the city in order to learn the truth. But they won’t get far if they can’t learn to navigate each other first. Sign up for the Alpha Reader Program to get early access to the books by filling out this form: https://forms.gle/4fVhraRE4sTWgnB98 Make sure to join the chhtv Discord Server, join the chhtv subreddit, and follow us on socials for more frequent updates. https://twitter.com/chhopskyhttps://bsky.app/profile/chhopsky.tv
