The Patriarch of our family is Dell Howard. Father was in the running to be a state senator when the fall came and all the people feel asleep. When Lux, I mean Mr. Lux proposed the council of the judges, Father was a natural to be the ruling judge of Harlem, which is now called the 6th JD. Father is good and means all people to be equal and free.

Our mother is called Apple Howard. Father says she’s called that because when he saw her she was sitting in the back of a truck between a barrel of apples that you eat and a stack of Apples that you used for a computer, which was like a really fast pad that connected to other pads to play games and write documents and stuff. So basically just like a pad, except it folded in the middle. Mother doesn’t like that story. But everyone says Mother is the most beautiful woman in all of Harlem. She has skin that’s almost black and dark brown hair. She doesn’t look anything like me and Perry because we’re adopted, but we don’t care, we think she is the most beautiful woman in all of the boroughs, and dad says so, too. She’s also very intelligent and taught me and Perry Math and how to read spell. She read us lots of literature and even some Latin and French.

Me and Perry, I mean Perry and I, are blood brothers, and we were adopted when we were little. We came out of the first JD, which was called Statten Island, but it’s gone because of the fire. That’s why Mr. Lux makes his people take care of all of the lightning rods and tries to get people to reign their fires in. Dad says he wishes his people were as good as Lux’s people, but Mother just laughs and says Mr. Lux has charisma but Dad has wit. That seems to make Dad pretty happy.

Our family lives in what Mother calls a “Well-Preserved Brownstone”. She’s proud of it and always makes sure there are flowers outside.

–Andrew Angelo Howard, 12 Years Old
January 2119

Last week, I hired a young man named Grant Hill. Mr. Hill arrived on the heels of my new step-daughter. He had that hungry look in his bold, black eyes, the look that said if she walked out of the room his heart would follow. He denies that he’s in love with her but I’m not blind. It’s the same look I wore for the two months that I spent searching for her mother.

I sent the girl upstairs with her mother – my new wife – so I could get the measure of him while she wasn’t around. Turns out he’s solid to the core. I’m a good judge of character – have to be, in my position; wouldn’t have survived this long otherwise – and I think I’ve got a keeper here: ethical, industrious, honest, selfless. I offered him a job on the spot, never expecting him to accept right away. He said his mother wouldn’t approve of his taking a brand in exchange for a salary. Said she values freedom above safety. That made me laugh – sounds familiar. I think I knew somebody like that when I was young. I reminded him that there are some kinds of freedom a lot easier to obtain with a pouch of gold. Well, I thought he’d run home to mother to hash it out, but he only talked to the girl and then presented himself to be branded the next morning. Said he’d deal with his mother later.

Probably more about the girl than the gold, but I think the choice will benefit him as much as it does me. You can be damn sure I’ll do right by the kid.

Best part of it all? Kid’s strong as an ox and says he’ll play for the Broilers. Looks like Frenner’s getting demoted to sub.

Lux

Alexander “Lux” Jackson
October 2131

One of the first marks of civilization’s return was the renaissance of football. Football in the boroughs is played with a round, heavy, kicked ball. The Boroughs play on three teams. The Bronx and Brooklyn play for the Broilers. Harlem and Queens plays for the Mudders. Manhattan and the Airports play for the Towers. (Staten Island, the first jurisdiction, was abandoned due to wide spread fire before the Football leagues were established.)

There are two rules of football – no hand on ball or man. The ball is kicked from one end of the field to the other. When a ball is kicked into the goal, the team wins three mocks. If the referee sees a member of a team touching the ball, they are marked mock down one. If they see a player touching another player, they team is marked mock down two.

One game is played each Saturday, with the teams meeting each other successively. The best two out of three play on the fourth Saturday of each month.

No one model of learning would accurately represent the education of the Boroughs. The methods are nearly as varied as our citizens themselves.

Among the lower classes, education is primarily accomplished through an informal system of apprenticeships, usually among family and friends. Illiteracy among the undergrounders is common. Unskilled labor can be taught at a young age and the standard of living is such than an undergrounder can support himself on unskilled labor. He can support a family on skilled labor, of which there is no shortage, and which he can learn from a neighbor who will, in nearly all cases, welcome an extra pair of hands in exchange for knowledge.

Above ground, the economics are more complicated. We are building a system of labor which includes working for salary, legalized ownership of property, and in cases of unemployable criminals, permanent indentured employment. Because of this more complex system, education is even more varied and certainly more demanding. Many citizens, like our family, choose to tutor their children in the home, with one or both parents passing on wisdom and knowledge through oratory and books. Still others have small schools where a teacher is retained by the parents to teach such skills as reading and mathematics. As aboveground children are coming of age, we are expanding our education by working for skilled laborers who are family or friends.

My brother, Andrew, has chosen an internship under our father’s friend, Lux. Lux is the seventh judge, just as our father is the sixth judge. He is a good friend to our mother, too. In a few years, I will be professionally employed as an artist, doing sworn in sketch work for the Boroughs.

-Perry Dell Howard, at Age 15

When mankind fell asleep, they left a lot of canned beans behind.

They hadn’t left many deer.

Deer are native to the Manhattan area, though, and after a decade without lawnmowers, returned in droves. Another decade and they lived in and around the boroughs by the ten-thousands.

Right about when we ran out of canned beans, we started to remember how to hunt. How to build stoves. How to tan hide. How to use all the pieces of an animal.

And best of all – how to make deer jerky.

While beef is a treat if you can get it, deer is the primary source of meat in the boroughs. In the underground, citizens wear deerskin moccasins, tunics, and breeches. The leather pouches we carry our belongings in are made from deer skin. The deer is one of the bounties that was returned to mankind when we lost everything else we had. Part of the trade. Just don’t ask us if we’d trade back…

-Jerky Joe’s Oral Memoirs

The council was not created because of the desire for power. The Council of the judges was created to protect people from being oppressed by one another. To stand up against the inevitable survival of the strongest. After 10 years of living in the wild, we wanted to return to what made humanity great. To what had made America a good place to live. Peace. Freedom. Equal opportunities. So we divided up what remained of the population into 7 jurisdictions.  Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island stood as they had in the past. Those residing in La Guardia and the preserves demanded a jurisdiction of their own. More heavily populated Manhattan was divided into Harlem and Lower Manhattan. Finally, although only the lower half of the Bronx was inhabited, enough people lived there to allow it to stand on its own as a jurisdiction. Naturally, the 7th judge chose to stay in his home in the Bronx. His best friend, Dell Howard chose the JD next to his and became the 6th judge, ruling over Harlem.

The Council of the seven judges meets weekly to discuss the precedents established in their boroughs. No written penal code applies to the boroughs. Instead, the judges rely on their previous cases as established precedent. Several of the judges also rely on trusted advisors. These advisers may be experts in specific fields, family members or lovers, friends, or simply wise citizens. These citizens are considered non-ruling members of the council and may sit in meetings.

While the position of a council judge affords a great deal of honor, respect, and authority, the judges have no salaries. For this reason, their standard of living varies greatly, depending upon their individual resourcefulness.