In this city, hope is just another commodity and it's always in short supply.
The Eastern Dam doesn’t forgive. It doesn’t forget. And it’s running out of patience with dreamers, liars, idealists and kids stupid enough to think they can hustle their way to the stars.
About the Author
George G. Olczyk
George G. Olczyk is a Technical Director by day and a professional head-in-the-clouds dreamer by night. Born and raised in rural Poland, he somehow survived without a single neural implant or cybernetic augmentation (that he’s aware of) before escaping to London, where he now writes about the very technological dystopias he helps build during office hours.
After years of writing technical documentation that made people want to throw themselves into traffic, George decided to try fiction instead. Turns out the same imagination that created elaborate excuses for missed deadlines could also build entire post-apocalyptic megacities populated by morally questionable characters with cool cybernetic eyes.
The Eastern Dam series represents the culmination of countless stories that previously existed only in his head, finally given an outlet before they formed a union and demanded better working conditions. When not writing about corporate overlords and desperate survivors in toxic wastelands, George enjoys throwing few weights around the gym and crisp pint in the sun. If you ever see him in the pub, go say hello, he is quite friendly despite his appearance.
He currently lives in London with his collection of unfinished side projects and a growing suspicion that his coffee machine is becoming sentient.
Eastern Dam
When the bombs fell, it was not the mutual annihilation everyone feared, but something messier. Russia’s nuclear arsenal turned out to be mostly theoretical and what actually worked didn’t finish the job. Instead, it turned most of Russia, Belarus, and northern China into a radioactive desert stretching from Warsaw to the Bering Sea.
Warsaw got lucky. Two warheads hit the city. Both were duds.Now the Eastern Dam rises from the Baltic Sea to the irradiated wastes, a 500-kilometer urban corridor housing forty million souls who've lost everything and found each other. Refugees from the Baltic states, survivors from across the continent, all packed into a stratified nightmare where altitude determines your worth.
The eastern wall stands two hundred meters high, concrete and composites, lit with warning lights that glow red against the smog. Beyond it lies the wasteland. Inside, corporations rule openly now that governments have collapsed. The police are underfunded and outgunned. Gangs control the streets. Augmentation clinics range from pristine corporate suites to back-alley chop shops where you might lose a kidney or a limb instead of credits.
Humanity just cracked FTL travel. The stars are finally within reach. But down here in the Dam, most people are still trying to survive another day-trading in black market tech, running jobs for Fixers, racing through neon-lit streets, and dreaming of escape while the radiation scrubbers hum overhead and the warning lights blink on the wall.
Welcome to the last city standing between Europe and the end of the world.