Rookie Night in Pittsburgh
An increasingly popular form of mass entertainment in the United States in the latter half of the 21st century was the brutal sport of autoduelling. Inspired by the armed and armoured vehicles that drove the lawless lands between cities, autoduelling took place in large concrete arenas, where drivers would attempt to out-drive, out-shoot, and generally out-survive each other in a competition for big money prizes. Death or serious injury was a real consequence for the losers, but for many the rewards were worth the risk. Autoduellists typically had short careers, but were as adored as the sporting legends of the past were. And those wise enough to quit while still at the top of the game, with all their limbs intact, could look forward to a retirement lifestyle that the masses could only dream about, with sponsorship deals that far outweighed the prize money in even the richest competitions.
The cars were just as famous and revered as the drivers themselves, often more so. The top drivers bought or built their own customised vehicles, carefully selecting weapon loads to optimise their destructive potential, and finely balancing power-to-weight ratios to give their cars their preferred trade-off between armour and performance. Cars reflected the drivers' personal styles: fast but lightly armed cars allowed flashy, crowd-pleasing manoeuvring, while lumbering weapons platforms provided equally pleasing kill power.
The Pittsburgh Autoduel Arena (PAA) was one of the most prestigious in the country, a regular stop on the touring circuit for the big name drivers, with televised bouts between top drivers syndicated throughout the eastern states.
Friday night in Pittsburgh was Rookie Night. This was the night when any "no-name" driver could apply for their first bout, where they would be given a cheap, standard car with basic weapons and minimal armour, and would then clumsily try to kill each other for the televised entertainment of the masses sitting in their slum apartments. Despite the high casualty rates, there was never any shortage of applicants, with most seeing it as a way out of those slums.
The PAA was very loose in its definition of "rookie", however. While some autoduellists were true beginners who had barely driven a car in anger before, the PAA realised they could manufacture more exciting bouts by introducing ringers. Some were experienced road drivers making their first forays into arena combat; some were jobbing professional autoduellists, often from out-of-state, hoping for an easy win against the amateurs; some were autoduellists down on their luck or past their prime, looking for prize money that would buy (or repair) their dream car and move them back into the top echelons of the sport.
Friday 20 September 2075 was a historic night in Pittsburgh, though no one knew it yet. Six "rookie" drivers entered the arena, as drivers had on countless other Friday nights. They entered as rivals, but those that survived would embark on a journey together that would change their lives, and possibly the world, forever.