Jack of Harts

The Portland of today is dedicated to raising each generation to become better than the ones that came before. All children are selectively bred from the very best of Portland’s stored genetic profiles and grown to term in healthy and sterile glass wombs. No inhabitant of Portland is expected or allowed to carry a child in their own, disease ridden, prototype biological womb, as that results in profound health issues for all involved. Children are cared for by carefully selected adults in city-run crèches, and taught how to live in a tolerant and loving society throughout their school years. Any undue aggression or intolerance is grounds for immediate removal from the city. Those who best exhibit the traits of tolerance and love are chosen for leadership positions when they become adults. This is all done to ensure that Portland remains a beacon of continuing hope and change to Pacifica and the less enlightened lands of America surrounding them.

Portland stood against the worst dregs of society that crawled out of the cracks during the Second Great Depression by declaring a zero tolerance policy against any and all hate crimes of any kind. Portland quickly identified all corporations, religions, or other social organizations they decided were archaic, oppressive, cisnormative, patriarchal, or otherwise preached hate and exclusionism. Then they used membership books, public political funding records, and social media posts to identify and locate individuals that did not deserve to live in their tolerant and loving society. Portland confiscated all of the property and possessions belonging to the identified organizations and individuals before driving them from the city with all the shame and ridicule they deserved for being so hateful and bigoted. Then the city turned the new wealth over to more socially acceptable organizations dedicated to helping bring the most marginalized of America’s citizens into the new, improved, loving, and tolerant version of America that Portland was helping to found. Pacifica.

Seattle hosts the most integrated collection of virtual and augmented worlds on Earth and beyond. Citizens receive implants that allow them to directly access those worlds before their first day of school, and navigate them easier than most adults can walk their own city streets. Visitors wear full-immersion headgear to operate inside the city of tomorrow at all. But that is only a temporary measure. A relic of the technology of today that limits humanity to the frail human body we now inhabit. They eschew the idea of making our bodies better, or of exploring space and other physical worlds. Those are not fundamental transformations of life. Seattle looks forward to the day when they cast aside the limitations of mere physical existence at all. The day when their city of tomorrow will be Pacifica’s gateway to make the next great leap forward for humanity. To all the worlds of tomorrow.