Noonday light in New York filtered through gauze curtains swaying in the breeze, shining into a somewhat narrow but not crowded living room. This was an ordinary two-story house in Queens, with a small yard. It could not be called a villa compared with those in the Affluent Area, but it barely met the threshold for a middle-class home.
The car's turn signal blinked. Ben Parker, sitting in the driver's seat, already had a streak of white at his temples. This middle-aged man was neither tall nor strong. He always liked to wear plaid shirts beneath jackets, or work uniforms in various colors, with a small tool bag hanging from his waist so he could immediately begin emergency repairs whenever something happened.
In New York, electrical engineering was not a path to great wealth, but it was still respectable and paid fairly well—enough to support a family. Though money was occasionally tight, most residents in this neighborhood lived the same way.
They were not poor, certainly not poor enough to be unable to afford food. When they were young, they had caught the tail end of the United States' Golden Age, when a blue-collar worker could support an entire family. Ben Parker had been one of them.
When he was young, he left home early to study electrical engineering. Before he was twenty, he was already working independently and earning a rather good salary. He married smoothly, and both sides of the family contributed a small sum as startup money for the newlyweds. They bought a house and a car, as well as some financial products for long-term returns.
But those days did not last long. As the United States' economy declined and its ability to exploit the world grew weaker, the Golden Age ended. Blue-collar workers no longer enjoyed