About Vince's World

Vince lives in a dystopian future where resource depletion, war and pandemics took their toll on the United States until some regions seceded, thinking they were better off on their own. The United States was too depleted of fuel, supplies and manpower to put up much of a fight and chose instead to focus their remaining resources on retaining the Mississippi River, the coal fields and the northeastern forest regions.

The Southwest devolved into chaos. Where order exists, it is at the hands of regional strongmen.

In this world there are still cars and motorcycles, but only the rich can afford them and fuel is hard to get at any price. Horses, donkeys and bicycles are more typical modes of transportation, as is the train. Some towns have electricity, although not usually twenty-four hours a day. Some homes have solar or wind power. There are a few radio stations, but ham radio is more common. Some places have local telephone service, but long distance phone service is almost non-existent. Food is local and seasonal, supplemented with hunting, fishing, and occasional luxuries brought in by train.

The older generation hopes for a return of the good old days when life was rich and everyone had electricity and could go to school. But to the younger people, this dirty and difficult world is all they've ever known. Like young people everywhere, they look for ways to establish themselves, whether it's through legitimate work and pretending to play the game, or by bucking the system at every turn.

With no broadly-accepted source of authority in this chaotic time, one method of staying alive seems as good as any other.

About Vince

Vince leads a small gang in the ruins of Albuquerque. He and his sister Sara were orphaned in their teens when their parents died in one of the pandemics sweeping the post-collapse world. Vince vowed to take care of his little sister and started trading in drugs and stolen goods so she could stay in school.

Once Sara finished her nursing training, she offered to use her salary to pay for Vince to re-train in something respectable, but Vince was having too good a time to quit. He was leading his own gang by now, working as a middleman for larger gangs that needed a job done or goods moved without bringing heat on themselves.

Vince can be vicious and doesn't hesitate kill a rival or turn a gun on one of his own gang members if they're endangering the rest of group, but he's also loyal, generous, and the first to jump into a fight or cover the rest of his team's escape. Although he's always coming into money, he's usually broke because he gives it away to his team, his sister, his latest girlfriend, or some random stranger, and only later remembers he might owe someone money. Oh well. Just let them try and get it from him.

Vince always has a new girlfriend or two, but he's no sneak. He genuinely likes and respects women. All of them. He's honest about his intentions and never lies about his philandering ways. If a girl is as straight with him as he is with her, she's got a loyal friend for life.

Someday he'll die in a gun or knife fight, but he doesn't care. Life in post-collapse America is dirty, dangerous, and never certain. So why not live it while you're here, since there won't probably be a tomorrow, anyway?