Los Athenos

The camera opens on a long pan of the sprawling, retrofuturistic skyline framed by the glittering ocean as the words "Los Athenos'' appears in Pacman font. Ah, Los Athenos, the dingy, white pearl nestled inside the giant clam that is Midway Bay. The landscapes are idyllic, ranging from white sand beaches to lush, green forests on the outskirts, and the days are warm, at least during the Summertime, but mornings and nights the fog rolls in and blankets the city in a cozy solitude. People here definitely look forward to their opportunities to seek reprieve from their high powered careers time in the sun or other facet of the city's top notch leisure culture, but mostly daydreamed about while bundled up and sipping volumes of hot, caffeinated beverages of choice. The local motto is "live where you vacation and vacation where you live." Life in Los Athenos is good, albeit predictable. At least it is for the haves.

Industry is booming these days, especially between tech behemoth Atari Corp. and the recent investments made into R&D in many branches of Mt. Olive Holdings, the mega conglomerate owned by Los Athenos' premiere corporate dynasty, the Olive family, which includes Olive Press Media, Olive Branch Resorts, and Elysium Fields Afterlife Services. The city government enjoys a fantastic collaborative relationship with these rising industrialists, who donate generously to their campaigns and other public institutions like Grimm University. We see a brief news reel of Mayor Landon Budinski flashing his charming smile for the camera as he hands a cartoonishly large and overly ornate key to Rey Olive, President and social media darling of Olive Press Media, fine Italian suit with slicked back amber hair and two bodacious babes hanging on either arm, the monstrous pinnacle of Atari Tower looming in the backdrop.

Now the camera pans backwards past the shining oceanfront properties, past the bustling corporate workers and across the tracks to the south end of the bay, the neighborhood of Independence, where the plastic, pearlescent facades of smoothly streamlined Grecian-inspired architecture are distant backdrops between the blocky slabs of concrete and tarnished sheet metal. Here the homes and businesses are heavy and brutalist in appearance, constructed of large, cubic building units, lingering under a heavy layer of permanent fog. The impoverished and underprivileged community here has made the best of their inherited industrial derelicts by painting everything in bright colors and patterns, even the 16th Precinct Station of the LAPD. Flickering neon signs advertise local owned businesses: Eros con Pollo, The Never Bland Cafe, Burrito Cabeza, and the Off With Her Ends hair salon. The sound of motorcycles rumbles the mural-painted street surface as the local Motorcycle Club known as the Hellhounds rip through town, shouting obscenities as they pass by a crowd of thugs belonging to their rival gang, the A Street Kings, leaning against a dropped golden El Camino in front of their busy Lucha club, El Ciclón Rojo. On the other corner, a brightly plumed and heavily painted street walker from the House of Quoi calls to passers by until a cluster of stoic men in grey suits walk within range. Each of the residents recoil from their presence as they pass through, unsure if they are private ops for a corporate power, bureaucratic enforcers, or even some unknown new gang.

Finally, we land on Bradda's warehouse, the Sol Men’s Forge, wedged right on the liminal border between Independence and downtown.