Factory

It was winter time on Karma 7, the commerce planet filled with shopping, gambling, and entertainment. A marvel of engineering, the planet was almost completely manipulated by artificial means. The little surviving nature was considered the world's only park and was used as an attraction. The entirety of the planet was made up of the enormous city, the similarly sized industrial sector that kept the planet running, and the shipyard of towering spires.

The city was the reason everyone visited Karma 7; a vast, never-sleeping metropolis which encompassed more than half of the entire sphere. Even with its huge size, more room was always d.e.s.i.r.ed. Much of the city shot upward into the sky by way of enormous towers that would climb for miles. Businesses and the like were stacked upon each other, creating more and more tiers of living and micro communities. The largest concentration of these towers stood in the city center, where most of the planet's sought after attractions were housed.

Flying cars created several levels of traffic between the towers like streams of metal and heat. As the towers grew, the lower sections of the city suffered and became dark. Buildings became abandoned, law became scarce, and many that actually lived on the planet ground were left behind. The bottom level of the city became a poor, crime-driven world, separate from the expensive good times above them.

The artificial snow drifted down around the gigantic towers during the man-made winter, landing wherever seemed fit. The flakes didn't melt even though the city was bustling with vehicles and warm neon signs, instead expiring after a predetermined time to preserve the pleasant weather effects. The expiration wasn't always precise, sometimes leaving large areas of snow in random sections of the bottom level. Artificial weather was just one of the many features that enticed people from all over the galaxy to come and spend their money and free time.

On the neglected bottom level of the city, a young woman huddled in the corner of an empty room in an abandoned apartment building of a dozen floors. She held her arms against her c.h.e.s.t for warmth, not shielded enough from the bottom level cold by her light red snow jacket, sweater, and sleeveless shirt. The dirty city bottom had stained and darkened her clothing, as well as her ponytailed brown hair, which hid underneath an equally dirty military style black cap. Only her winter jeans and boots were adequate at keeping warmth.

The building she called home for the time being was devoid of furnishings and had been long since vandalized and tagged by gangs. The young woman had often searched for places to hide and take shelter and no one had come into her current apartment building for a very long time. The emptiness gave her comfort. She did not do well with people.

Feeling the embrace of sleep finally wrap around her, she rested her head against her raised knees but was interrupted by a routine beep. Another cycle had passed and the backpack she was resting against was informing her of it. She reached behind her with a gloved hand to release a small, clear plastic bag of powder that the backpack was ready to give. Holding it in her hand, she stared blankly at the white substance. "Power" was its street name. The drug could supposedly grant the user great enhanced abilities, but the young woman wasn't about to test it, lest she get addicted.

"So much for sleep," she said through a powerful yawn.

The backpack she carried was an armored, self-sufficient drug laboratory and the source of the only name she knew to claim. Such individuals who carried those backpacks were referred to as a factory. Because of this, she took the label upon herself so she could be called something.

The young woman, barely reaching the end of her teens, took part in a dangerous business. On Karma 7, drug laws were incredibly harsh. The government over their solar system, the Faren Galaxy Overlook, decided that they didn't want one of their tourist planets tainted with the distribution of illegal narcotics. Possession could give you prison time on a desolate, lifeless moon. If you were caught manufacturing drugs, your life was forfeit.

Such scares made Factory the only one of her kind that was known to her, but she didn't have much of a choice. She had barely begun her new life a few months earlier, waking up in an alley with no memory or clues to her identity. The girl scr.a.p.ed together an existence on the bottom level of the brightly colored planet, making up things as she went along.