"The toxic dust clouds are bad for health, but great for Healthcare™ shareholders."
In the not-so-distant future, the Great Salt Lake is nothing more than a memory—reduced to a barren expanse of toxic dust storms and forgotten history. In its place, an endless sprawl of neon-lit corridors, subterranean infrastructure, and gleaming high-rises has risen. The locals call it Salt City, a name both nostalgic and ironic.
Built on a hyper-organized grid system, Salt City extends in three dimensions. Addresses now include a Z-axis coordinate, marking altitude or depth in the city's labyrinthine layers. You might live at 300k West, 200k South, +250 Z or work in the -600 Z depths, where the only light comes from flickering holo-ads and the glow of terminals.
The city thrives as a corporate stronghold. The air is thick with particulates from the dried lakebed—bad for lungs, but lucrative for Healthcare™. Filtering the air costs credits, and staying inside corporate-sanctioned safe zones requires loyalty. Independent districts and runners survive by hijacking filtration systems, ducking between abandoned sectors, and exploiting the cracks in the grid.
Salt City may be a corporate dystopia, but the grid is alive with runners, rebels, and those who refuse to sell out. The question isn’t whether the city will crush them—the question is how long they can run before the dust settles.