For this Thorny Thursday. I’ve decided to share this story pitch for a sci-fi/cyberpunk story about a man trying to reclaim his wife from a student loan shark (so it also doubles up as a Sci-Friday entry woo! Maybe at some point I might write a proper story (which would most likely be a short story) but for now enjoy this summary (and a cover I made in Canva):

• Story takes place on Planet Usuria, where people can take student loans only by placing a collateral. Also, the planet is ruled by a megacorporation.

• John, an aspiring engineer, put his wife Jane as collateral for his student loans.

• But after John graduated, he couldn’t find a job. With John not being able to pay his loans, Space Goldman Sachs took Jane away to prostitution. Sad music.

• John was pissed off, so he seek out Jim, his homeless older brother, for help. John had always looked at Jim with contempt because he was an art major and couldn’t pay off his student loans, and lost his house as a result.

• John groveled to his brother. There was a fight but eventually the two brothers made up.

• John learned that Jim had made connections with a student terrorist group and had learned advanced computer hacking.

• The terrorists plan to attack the headquarters of Space Goldman Sachs. John told Jim that he didn’t want to be terrorists. Jim concurred, and told John that his real plan was to sneak into a secret data terminal in the HQ that held everything that Space Goldman Sachs knew about and delete all the student loan records.

• And so, the attack began. Except that the whole thing was a trap because the terrorist group had been infiltrated by Space FBI.

• The terrorists were massacred, but John and Jim were able to get to the terminal and deleted all the student loan records. But while looking through the records, Jim learned about the trap. Meanwhile, John found out that Jane was in the building, servicing as a comfort woman.

• John decided to go rescue her, despite Jim’s warnings.

• Action sequence where John went through the chaos, fighting people who tried to stop him. At some point, he took a gun from a dead student terrorist.

• Eventually, John reached the room where Jane was. And he found his wife in bed with another man. That man turned out to be the CEO of Space Goldman Sachs.

• John shot the CEO dead. Then he had a talk with Jane. Jane apologized for her infidelity. John apologized for selling her to slavery.

• John and Jane tried to make their getaway but it seemed impossible with guards everywhere. But the lights went off, which was Jim’s doing. And the three made their exit from the HQ.

• Then we cut to a news broadcast of the scandal of Space Goldman Sachs murdering students thanks to Jim uploading the footage to the Internet. The new CEO declared that all the student loans are forgiven and the seized collaterals returned because all the records are deleted so it was as if the loans had never existed in the first place.

• The End.

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Valued clients of Space Goldman Sachs The Thornies and Sci-Fridayans (not a comprehensive list):