Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Legends

[Osric]

INTRODUCTION

 

Author's Note: To make the GTA IV universe more realistic, I placed Liberty City in New York, and made Alderney a county in New Jersey rather than an entire state. Everything else is the same.

 

Welcome to Liberty City, where the only dirty word is hope.

 

The year is 2011, and some things have changed since Niko Bellic, Johnny Klebitz, and Luis Lopez stirred up the city's criminal underworld.

 

There are new players in the scene, and new changes to the city....

 

A new mega-corporation based in Europe has sprung up. They are the Poseidon Corporation. Their primary business is pharmaceutical products and health care, but they also are involved in insurance, computer and electronic technology, scientific research, media and communications, and military developments. One of the largest companies on Earth, the Poseidon Corporation has established a major presence in Liberty City when they moved the main North American HQ from Toronto, Canada, to Liberty City in the spring of 2010. Their major offices are in Star Junction and several floors of the Rotterdam Tower have been remodeled to fit Poseidon Offices. Nearly every major hospital, clinic, and pharmacy in Liberty City and Alderney County have been purchased and taken over by them.

 

The mayor of Liberty City is a strong supporter of the Poseidon Corporation, as are most of the politicians of the states of New York and New Jersey. The Poseidon Corporation brought tens of thousands of new jobs to the area in these difficult economic times. It seemed like they were re-invigorating the spark of life in the city's economy.

 

What most people don't know, is that the Poseidon Corporation is involved in the criminal underworld of Liberty City. They are steeped in white-collar crime and business crimes such as fraud and insider trading, but they also have a hand in the drug trade. Bootleg prescription drugs are being shipped into Liberty City every day secretly by Poseidon employees, and now the corrupt Board of Directors are beginning to work with the cartels in Vice City. Illicit drugs such as cocaine, marijuana, heroin, meth, and acid are being slipped into the city and Poseidon is distributing these drugs, along with the surplus prescription drugs to major gangs and syndicates across Liberty City and Alderney County.

 

Then they have a monopoly over a new drug called HADES.

 

HADES is a black pill developed by the Poseidon Corporation, originally meant to be a potent painkiller as well as being a base for anesthetics to be derived. It was potent and caused a sense of massive euphoria. But it was dangerous and the FDA rejected the licensing of HADES to be sold to the general public.

 

Now, the Board of Directors wants to make more money off of HADES, by selling and distrubuting it on the streets. They do this mainly through the major criminal gangs, and through the Field Projects Division of the corporation. The only major crime syndicates not involved in trafficking HADES are the five Italian families that form The Commission. After the implosion of the Pegorino Crime Family in 2008, the Commission, headed up by the new Don Roy Zito, decided to implement a total ban on the narcotics trade within the Five Families. This would be strictly enforced and any member or associate of the Five Families caught with their hand in the drug trade would be whacked.

 

HADES is an expensive, yet highly potent and addictive drug. An epidemic is in the making, one that could make the crack epidemic of the 1980's and the meth epidemic of the 2000's look like a mere blip on the radar.

 

Few people know about the Poseidon Corporation's direct involvement. Those that do are on their payroll or in their pockets in some form or another. The Board of Directors used their bottomless funds to create a lie.

 

Their claim was that shipments of HADES ready to be disposed of were accidentally leaked by a careless and corrupt employee, allowing it to be distributed among criminals. They claimed that the Poseidon Corporation was not making anymore quantities of the drug and that the problem would end once the traffickers ran out of the initial supply.

 

What a bunch of crap that was. And yet the common people ate it up like ice cream. The cops, politicians, and judges were either oblivious to the facts, or were already in Poseidon's pockets.

 

This would cause one of the biggest changes to Liberty City that nobody had ever seen. Everyone would be affected by it. And nothing would ever be the same....

 

 

BACKGROUND INFO

 

Things to note when you read this are...

 

Darko Brevic, Playboy X, Dimitri Rascalov, Jimmy Pegorino, Kate McReary, and Ray Bulgarin are all dead.

 

Francis and Derrick McReary are both alive, but Derrick is in rehab, and Francis resigned his post in the LCPD when rumors of incriminating evidence against him were circulating, He left town in late 2009, but not before using his legal connections to call in favors and pull strings to reduce Gerry McReary's twenty-year sentence to a three-year sentence with the possibility of parole.

 

Patrick McReary is living in Vice City.

 

Niko Bellic is living in the Midwest with Roman, Mallorie, and their daughter Katie. He is living a peaceful life, protected by the NSA thanks to his work for United Liberty Paper, and is now pursuing the American Dream. He is working on citizenship and is contemplating a college education.

 

Johnny Klebitz has left town and was last seen somewhere in Japan, possibly there because of Congressman Stubbs.

 

Luis Lopez still works for Anthony Prince, and is manager of Maisonette 9.

 

The LC chapter of the Lost MC and the Pegorino Crime Family are both defunct.

 

Phil Bell is now consigliere to Giovanni Ancelotti. This has led to much ire from the other four families due to Phil's Irish ancestry. However, Roy Zito has relunctantly approved of it.

 

Gerry McReary has been released from prison on parole. He is living in Alderney, and has cut off ties to the Irish Mob, mainly because of the police and FIB monitoring him constantly. His first cousins: William, James, and Trisha McReary have come over to Liberty City from Ireland as per the arrangements of Francis McReary and Gordon Sargent. This occured just weeks before Francis fled town. It is rumored that William McReary may be heading up the Irish Mob, with James and Gordon as his right-hand men and his sister Trisha playing a minor advisory role.

 

Elizabeta Torres is serving several life sentences in a Supermax Federal Prison located somewhere in rural Alaska.

 

Several radio stations have been bought out by the Poseidon Corporation and have switched formats.

 

Radio Broker is now Black Mountain Radio, a radio station with a Classic Country and Bluegrass Format.

 

The Beat 102.7 is now Shamrock FM, a radio station with a Traditional Celtic Format.

 

Liberty City Hardcore is now Pure Gold FM, a radio station with an Oldies and Classic Hits format, playing only music from 1950-1979.

 

Electro Choc is now Rising Sun 92.1, a radio station playing J-Pop and J-Rock, as well as anime soundtracks.

 

Fusion FM is now Double Clef FM, a Classical and Opera Format, drawing mainly from Italian composers, but there have been German composers such as Mozart and Wagner included in their roster. (Had to have the GTA III reference)

 

Vladivostok FM has returned to the European music format, and Ruslana has been reinstated as DJ.

 

 

Now onto the story...

[Osric]

Chapter I: In The Beginning...

 

Giovanni "Johnny" Taliaferro

 

Ancelotti Crime Family

 

Liberty City, the City That Never Sleeps. The business center of America and one of the largest cities on Earth. A real melting pot of peoples and cultures.

 

Alderney County, the Trash Dump of New Jersey. A place where Liberty City dumps its garbage.

 

Yeah, I have the misfortune of living in Alderney. To make things worse, I'm a pathetic loner with some crappy job in a freakin' grocery store where they don't pay you what you're worth, but just enough to make you come back for more. In short, things sucked around here.

 

I mean, it could be worse. I could've been living in Hove Beach, where those Ruskie assholes would shoot you for the blue jeans you were wearing. But still, I was just some dorky clerk working at some loser store, for a boss who was a real jackass. Each day was the same, I'd goof around behind some freakin' counter, ringing up sales, going home, eating a TV dinner, watching some anime(Princess Robot Bubblegum and Fullmetal Alchemist are my faves), and going back to sleep before beginning the same crap over and over again.

 

It was just another day at Zeno's Fruit Market. Everything was quiet, except for the annoying elevator music played over the loudspeakers scattered throughout the story. I was just standing behind the counter, waiting for a customer to come by and buy something. I was so freakin' bored, that even ringing up a sale would entertain me.

 

Standing at the counter, I heard the ringing of the door. And what do you know, my buddy Lita came in. Lita and I were old friends from high school, and we've been close ever since. Well, as close as a guy could get with a gal without going out together.

 

Lita Soluna was a fairly attractive woman. She had short, boyish black hair, hazel eyes, relatively fair skin, and decent curves. But her best trait was her personality. She was a strong woman, not too femmy, but not so butch you'd think she was a lesbian. Her sense of humor was wonderful, and she was kinda geeky like me. She got me into anime, and was one of the few girls I knew who would play the role-playing games with me such as my all-time favorite RPG Vampire: The Masquerade. But we weren't the loser geeks in high school, y'know, the 30-year old virgins living in their mother's basement. We had lives, but we were into the nerdy hobbies like anime, comics, and RPG's.

 

Lita said to me "Yo, Johnny, how ya' doin'? Has Vinnie been treating ya right?"

 

I replied "Hell no, he's an asshole, same as usual. How's things for you?"

 

"Fine. Hey, Johnny, do you know where Vinnie is? I gotta talk with him about something. It's kinda important, ya know."

 

"Sure, Lita. He's in his office, back behind the shelves for the citrus fruits."

 

With a smile, Lita replied "Thanks, Johnny. See ya later!"

 

And in a flash, she darted off to the backroom. I felt glad that she stopped to see me, but I still felt like crap. So, I just sat around and did my nine-to-five thing.

 

A few hours later, around closing time, Lita came back, this time, with the fat jerk Vincent Zeno, my boss.

 

As Lita left the store, Vincent shouted in his deep, boorish voice "Yo, Johnny! Get your ass down here! Gotta talk with you."

 

I gulped. How did I screw up this time? Slowly, I walked down to his office, shaking from fear and anxiousness.

 

Then I entered his office. It was a dingy, ugly room. The walls were concrete and gray, cigarette smoke was everywhere, thrashing my lungs and throat as I breathed in the carcinogenic fumes, and the only light was a dim ceiling lamp hanging over his desk.

 

In a stutter, I asked "W-wh-what's w-wrong, Mr. Zeno?"

 

"Nothing kid, relax. Ya ain't in no trouble. Just need a favor from ya to do after closing. Just bring something to my buddy Rocco. He lives down in Algonquin, near Little Italy. Take this to him, he'll be at Pelosi's Bakery."

 

He handed me a black handbag.

 

"It's polished sapphires from Europe. Bring 'em to Rocco, and he'll give you some cash for ya troubles. But remember, avoid the fuzz if you see them. Ya get pinched with these stones, I don't freakin' know ya. So keep ya mouth shut and don't draw too much attention to yourself. And if you steal any of them, it'll be the end of ya! Capiche?"

 

More nervous than before, I asked..."How can I get to Algonquin? I don't have a car, I just walk to work."

 

"Don't worry, kid. Borrow mine, just bring it back in one piece."

 

I walked out of the store with the handbag and the keys to Vincent's car, with a trembling pain in the pit of my stomach.

 

I started up the car, tuning the radio to Black Mountain Radio, the classic country station that opened up in Broker last year. Wasn't too popular in Liberty City, but it was good enough for me. Plus it got rid of that god-awful Radio Broker. Driving steadily down the bridge to Liberty City, I had to keep myself calm as I headed to Pelosi Bakery, carrying illegal jewelry, and with Johnny Cash being the only thing keeping me from wetting myself.

 

What had I gotten myself into?

Edited January 14, 2011 by Osric

[Arty 7]

pretty good dude

[Osric]

Wow, finally some feedback. I will try and return to this, as I had lost interest for a while, but I can cook up some ideas.

[Mokrie Dela]

Wow, finally some feedback. I will try and return to this, as I had lost interest for a while, but I can cook up some ideas.

The trick is to give the readers something small, but appealing. An action scene, a big question, a very strong scene-setting. Personally, i'm not feeling that so far - nothing has grabbed me and refused to let me go.

 

That is not to say that this isn't good, so don't take that as a negative. The Poseidon company reminds me of Ultor from Saints Row and i'm interested to see what relevance they're going to have in the story.

 

The first person perspective is an interesting move, it generally makes the story feel more personal.

 

The only thing i will say that i don't think works is the "background" you gave, the load of text explaining things. This would be better explained throughout the story. Like someone will say, "since Peggerino died and his gang fell apart..." or on TV/Radio they could mention Francis McReary - it can be hard for the reader to sit through a lot of text before the story actually starts, and can help raise some question that will be answered later "What happened to Niko?" they'd ask, then in the story it'd be revealed.

 

Still though, it's not bad, and i hope you stick with it

 

[Osric]

I will do my best to stick with it.