# Working Title: Death Alley
This is a writing project for which writing actual prose begins in November
2020, having performed some planning and outlining in the previous month(s).
## What kind of story is this?
It's a near-future speculative fiction thing dealing with (realistic-ish) AIs,
pseudo-literally-underground agitators, government contractors, and the
conflict between individual identity and conformist socialization tendencies.
## Why this story?
1. 2020 is the Year of Cyberpunk. How do I know? Read all about it:
[2020: The Year Of Cyberpunk](http://cyberpunkyear.com/)
2. I read a book by a great cyberpunk author this year, and it was the first
book he ever wrote that actually sucked. It inspired me to do better.
3. I have a theory about cyberpunk and postcyberpunk. Basically, they're two
genres taking place in the same world. This provided a lot of inspiration
for this story, too:
The above-board, white-market, mainstream, dominant paradigm is that of the
postcyberpunk, where people have dayjobs and houses and are both
technologically and socially connected. It's high tech, normal life. The
technology is consumer and corporate oriented. There are often AIs
involved. The postcyberpunk protagonists are normal people with corporate
or government jobs, or occasionally independent consultants, typically with
some technological savvy but usually not the "elite" of technologist
fields. Bad things happen to them, and they get pulled out of their
comfortable suburban lives. They have to deal with criminals and
agitators, terrorists and corrupt members in otherwise "good guy" jobs
(politicians, corporate managers and workers, law enforcement, and so on).
Their task is, usually, to overcome the terrible events overtaking them and
reclaim their "normal" lives with wives and kids and job security.
Sometimes, they have to save the world along the way.
The gritty, sordid, black-market, outcast, hidden underworld is the world
of the cyberpunk, where people are criminals either by choice or (more
often) by circumstance and misfortune, where people have technical or
combative (or, often, both) skills for which there is little need in the
postcyberpunk world. They may just be trying to survive, down on their
luck, hunted by law enforcement or criminal bosses. It's high tech, low
life, to paraphrase Bruce Sterling. The technology is illicit, stolen,
makeshift, or top secret military/corporate stuff. There are often AIs
involved. The cyberpunk protagonists. The cyberpunk protagonists may be
grifters, fixers, criminal middlemen, contract killers, or even
revolutionaries trying to overturn the corruption of the dominant order.
Bad things are always happening to them, but usually the story is about a
time that's especially bad, even if it seems good at first, and they
usually start out with a goal of either taking on a hard target or just
basically surviving. They have to deal with undercover cops and jackbooted
oppressors, mob bosses and the average corrupt politician (because they're
all corrupt), corporate managers and their soulless minions, and often
duplicitous "friends" and other agents of betrayal. They often lose in the
end, or at least fail to achieve their beginning goals; bittersweet endings
are not uncommon. Sometimes, they have to save the world along the way,
often by tearing down the dominant paradigm.
If you were paying attention, you might have noticed something about these
two genres: each includes, in its list of potential antagonists and
obstacles, the protagonists of the other genre. The technology in the two
genres mostly don't overlap, but seem entirely capable of coexisting in the
same world.
To put it another way . . .
Cyberpunk says "They're replacing our souls with advertisements,
criminalizing freedom and privacy, and concentrating all political and
economic power in the hands of unaccountable psychopaths."
Postcyberpunk says "Yeah, but ***I got the new iPhone! WOOHOO!***"
In either case, inject some action-drama that crosses the boundry between
them, and you have a story.
The reason this entire wall of text helps explain how I was inspired to
write this story is simple: I'm using elements of both genres in a single
story to tie them together as a single world.
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[`#cyberpunk2020`](http://cyberpunkyear.com)