As the world's multinational corporations grew, their profits began to rival those of small countries. Soon they owned small countries and corporate influence was felt at the highest level of world government. Smaller corporations were swallowed up like plankton in the wake of three behemoth mega-corporations, one U.S.-based, one Europe-based and one based in the Far East. These became the only effective world government, unelected, undemocratic, but controlling the lives of the people through commerce.

Then the European corporation perfected the CHIP. Inserted in the neck, the CHIP stimulated the brain stem to alter your every perception of the outside world. Better than any drug, the CHIP gave hope to millions by numbing their senses to the misery and squalor around them. One CHIP would convince users that the sun shone and the birds sang even as they walked through the constant acid rain drizzle. Another that they were glamorous or handsome - they'd look in the mirror and see a different face - while the rest of the world would see them as they really were.

The CHIP was a technological revolution and sold countless units with the slogan "Why change your world when you can change your mind". It also left the user open to auto-suggestion and gave the corporations the perfect tool for manipulating the populace.

Like any new and potent drug, control of the CHIP meant control of the people. Soon the corporations were at war among themselves, desperate to monopolize CHIP manufacture. But the corporations' thirst for power left them open to infiltration.

With money earned through pirating CHIP technology, crime Syndicates bribed and murdered their way into corporation boardrooms. It wasn't long before the Syndicates became the controlling force all over the globe, with a finger in the pie of every transaction, criminal or otherwise, worldwide.

And in the crime Syndicates of tomorrow those in control don't need uzis for back up. Teams of custom-built cyborg agents hunt down rivals and traitors, and spread the influence of the Syndicates across the globe.