A/N: PLEASE READ! I just want to send a massive shout out and thanks to crazejen, who let me use her Criminal!AU idea for this fic. It was her original idea and I loved it. Please check her out! She's an awesome writer and a wonderful person for letting me borrow her idea! Thanks again!

Prologue:

The year is 2234 and the human race is thriving in an entirely new world. Cities have nearly tripled in height and population. Everyone crowding everywhere, lives stacked on top of one another in the mass array of city apartments as hover cars swarm below on the multiple levels of flight decks. Some cities grew up while others grew out, swallowing county after county as they expanded their reaches. The government and various agencies of such have gone through reform after reform, rules and regulations morphing and changing. Though the advancements are not quite as previously predicted (no Star Fleets, or inter-galactic colonies on distant planets), technologies and systems are advancing everyday with new devices and gadgets.

The human race is, surprisingly, relatively the same, still fighting each other, still selfish and giving all at once. Even the clothing style hasn't changed much with the standard being jeans and t-shirts, interrupted occasionally with the growing crowd of cyber-goths, techno-pyros, and geeks. We still separate ourselves and discriminate, only now, it's not just amongst our own species.

In the year 2103, there was extraterrestrial contact. Aliens touched down in Sydney, Australia, leading to world wide panic. After a few false starts, the visitors managed to identify themselves as peaceful, leading to the start of political negotiations between their leaders and the leaders of the five world powers of the time: England, China, Canada, Japan, and, of course, America.

Apparently, the Earth had been watched by outside eyes for quite some time. After years of observation, the other worldly configurations had determined that the human race was ready for exposure to a larger universe. They lent certain knowledge of innovations and technologies to the world in exchange for alliances. They recognized the potential humans possessed to become a great race and a powerful extraterrestrial ally. Soon after the political agreements, came the social integrations of species.

Humans left their home planet to explore these strange, new worlds that had opened their doors to them. Meanwhile, a collection of other planetoid life-forms, now widely dubbed by the public as E.T.s, began to migrate onto Earth. A few were hoping to find Earthly riches or better lives. Most were hoards of volunteers shipped to our planet by their own governments as a part of a political plan of "assimilation." The plan was meant to ease political negotiation between worlds with the predicted social acceptance of the extraterrestrial species. However, their actual acceptance to the planet was not filed with an overabundance of kindness.

There was a massive movement of advancements and inventions in the 2180s, brought on by extraterrestrial influence and knowledge, that began to slow slightly from its initial push. In the wake of this third industrial revolution, also known as the Big Boom, were improvements, new technologies, and a new way of life. Hover cars, hover boards, new methods of growing crops, microscopic computers, intergalactic flight vessels, and a hoard of other innovative technologies to replace outdated ones. All were results of the influx of advancements from our new other wolrdly friends. No one thought of how all these advancements would would affect the crime world, organized or otherwise. So, it came as a surprise to most that a major result of this technological revolution was the new wave of crime that spread throughout the world.

With new technologies came new weapons; new drugs and distribution systems; new artworks, banks, and museums to rob; and new methods of operating the underworld.