Drive Cars or Something I Forgot - Lore Bible 01b

Empire City is a machine that feeds on people. It chews through soldiers, drivers, lovers, and dreamers, and spits them out as corpses or criminals. No one escapes clean. No one gets to live untouched.

For Vicktor, Johnny, and Emily, survival is not just about the guns they carry or the streets they walk. It is about the few ties they still hold onto, the people who remind them they are human, even as the city turns them into something else. Friends. Lovers. Partners. They are lifelines in a world designed to drown.

The 3 friends/romantic partners of the DCOSIF protaginists.

Vicktor has Mikhail. A soldier who fought beside him, and never left his side since. Unlike Vicktor, Mikhail does not crave the blood and dirt of crime. He only wants silence. He only wants peace. But peace does not exist in Empire City. The war is still inside him flashbacks, restless nights, the sound of screams when there is no one there. He drinks, he withdraws, he waits for death or freedom. He is bisexual, but in a city that mocks vulnerability, he keeps it buried. And yet, despite everything, he follows Vicktor. Out of loyalty. Out of fear. Out of habit.

Johnny has Derrick. A taxi driver with a cracked smile and a tired heart. He runs his cab service in downtown EC, just enough to scrape by. He is not a gangster, not a killer. He is only a wheelman when the world demands it. But when Johnny needs him, he is there, engine running, streets tearing past in a blur of red and white lights. He is Johnny’s brother in spirit, bound not by crime but by trust. He wants no part in this life, but the city drags him in anyway.

Emily has Daniel. A boyfriend who works at Burger Elite, under the shadow of Mr. S, the faceless trillionaire who owns half the city. Daniel is calm, relaxed, maybe too relaxed. He runs from reality in sports cars, in clubs, in the empty glow of Night Square. He tells himself the city isn’t that bad, that he can just live and forget. Emily hates that lie. She wants him to wake up, to see what the city really is. She loves him, but she knows the man she loves is drowning in distractions.

In Empire City, these bonds are fragile, but they are all that keep the protagonists from vanishing into the void. Vicktor has Mikhail. Johnny has Derry. Emily has Daniel. But Empire City does not forgive bonds. And sooner or later, the city will break them.