
City 24
Once known as Geneva, nestled in the heart of a country formerly known as Switzerland, City 24 stands as a grim beacon of loyalty to the Combine regime. After the Seven Hour War, City 24 retained its former European elegance, albeit warped into a sterile, oppressive version of its past self. The architecture, a blend of classical European design and brutalist Combine structures, remains intact. The city maintains the color red in a majority of its designs and infrastructure, as if echoing its former identity - a nod to the now-forbidden Swiss flag. Referred to as the "loyalist capital", it is praised for its prosperity. Only the privileged few, those who remain loyal to the Combine regime, reside within the impossibly maintained city center. The rest, however, nearly 80% of the population, remain in the outskirts or the underbelly of the city, transformed into slums.
City 24, although a seemingly functional and lively city, is home to an odd phenomenon. An uneasy silence engulfs the city, even though activity seems lively. An eerie stillness that lingers in the air, more unnerving than the other cities around the world. The hum of Combine infrastructures, the occasional roar of an APC engine and the screencasts around the city, often lighting up abruptly, rupturing the silence just for the voice on the screen to echo into an empty void, is the only indication of activity. Even loyalists who enjoy the luxuries of the city are reluctant to speak above a whisper.
Furthermore, the city’s cleanliness is unnatural, a clinical sterility. There is no litter, no signs of decay or waste. Rumors among the inhabitants suggest that anything, or anyone deemed "unwanted" disappears into the abandoned, pre-war sewage system of Geneva.
Beneath this city’s sterile facade, the Combine’s oppressive regime lingers. Every street corner is plastered with surveillance cameras, scanners float by the streets of the city. The citizens' daily lives are reduced to mechanized routines, and any deviation is met with immediate suspicion.
However, cracks are beginning to show within the seemingly well-maintained city. Resistance cells have begun to emerge from the slums, though their efforts seem minuscule against the Combine's iron grip, these pockets of rebellion use the underbelly of the city to stage their meager attacks, be it explosions, ambushes or sabotage - tiny sparks of defiance in an otherwise controlled city. Yet, even the loyalists, those who are privileged enough to live in relative comfort, find themselves trapped in a web of surveillance and paranoia. People turning on each other, reporting their neighbors to the authorities for any perceived disloyalty, if only to secure their own safety. The red banners that flutter around, plastered with Combine symbols, feel like blood-soaked reminders of what happens to those who step out of line rather than serving as an emblem - a symbol of the city.
Any citizen or loyalist that is expected to relocate to the city, more often than not, even with the benefits the city provides, request a desperate change for their city relocation. Often going for different cities and actively avoiding City 24 as if their life depended on it.
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