"Hey George...how long has it been?"

George, "I don't know, we've been working so hard though.  Actually, I have a question, since we're starting to actually make credits for once.  What should we do in the future?"

"Future?  That's funny, look, I don't know, we're just trying to make ends meat, ...wait, what about the wreckage zones?"

George, "wreckage zones? You mean the ship graveyards?"

"Yeah, the earth federation went on a rampage just a few decades ago, there's so many ships all over the planet that our government can't keep up. They've lost so much trying to reclaim what they could, that the eastern side of Valerian is roiled in war."

George, "but, how will we get ownership of a wreckage zone?"

"We need money, a lot of it, and then we can work on salvaging what we can. There's a lot of reports of people making money, and getting rich like that."

George, "ok, I'm with you, but I'm a bit scared of how you always have such information. Don't do anything bad ok, we're not trying to be criminals."

"George, it's important for us to survive, I'm sorry, but I'll do everything for the both of us to make it out of this dying world."

George, "dammit...fine, just don't tell me what you do ok. Also, why is this world dying?"

"The worlds dying, because the earth federation used some type of radioactive bomb against our planet.  Though luckily were far away enough from the impact zone, so were able to survive for now.  The valerian government even built machines that are powerful enough to keep the ash clouds at bay, though if you get a mile close to it, you'll start to feel sick, well, unless you have special gear on.  Regardless of that, we still use specialized machinery to maintain those areas, but our people cannot hold on for another millennia.  Just in case you don't understand, because of the destruction, a giant cloud of ash is going to cover the planet.  This means that the temperature will decrease every day, while also forcing us to wear space suits just to survive."

George, "ugh, that's too much information, I'm afraid of where you get that info.  Though I am surprised you do, since no one is able to get info these days, since the government started censoring everything."

"...anyways, it's almost time for you to work, be careful ok.  Also, remember, if anyone attacks you, and you shoot them, shoot them in the head again to make sure."

George. "Alright, not like anyone will want to rob us, I mean, we live in the park for Pete's sake."

"Haha, true, but you know there's worse things out there, ah, you almost forgot your gun."

George, "my bad, thanks again, I'll bring some leftovers from the restaurant ok."

"All right, be careful George."

As George finally left, I began to ready myself as well, I've overheard someone snitching early this morning.  They had ratted on the family to the dogs, and I managed to get it recorded, and better yet, the family still doesn't know it.  I'll go to John, he has connections, and will get me a good deal for selling them the info.

I quickly grab my gun, and head into the side crawl tunnel to get out.  As I finally exit, I look around, and I spot a person searching opposite of my area.  I quickly lower my body, and creep up on a bush, and wait.

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As the person searches the area, he turns around, and heads toward me.  I overhear him mumbling something about a rat, and I freeze.  A vulture has traced one of the devices I hid in the alleyways, I quickly point my weapon, and pull the trigger.

I never really keep my weapon on safe, since I'm too afraid of being caught unguarded, and as his heads pierced by my bullet, I point my gun into the nearby alleyway, and shoot.

I hear a low grunt, and I hear someone crumple unto the floor as I roll to the side.  The bush is immediately torn apart from bullet fire.  I point my weapon, and start shooting randomly into the direction it's coming from, until I see someone fall unto the ground.

I press the mag release, and quickly load my second magazine in, not caring about the remaining ammo on the previous one. I keep low, and listen for more sounds, and start firing ahead. Once I run out, I quickly load another, and wait.

It's quiet, I wait a few minutes longer, and slowly get up.  I point my gun at each of their heads, and fire to make sure they're dead.  I scavenge their bodies, and I find a handheld signal tracker on their person.  After I'm through searching, I look through the items, I've found ammo, a 9mm sub machine gun, some Fac bars (fish, algae, compound bars), and their communicators.

I also found their wallets, but they had nothing of value, nor did I have access to a hacked terminal to retrieve their credits.

I put them in my cargo pockets, and strap the submachine gun on the ready incase of enemies.  I drag their bodies to the end of the alleyway, and dump them into the dumpster, they'll be picked up by the waste disposal unit later, it's automated so I don't have to worry about someone asking questions.

Especially since this is commonplace in Valerian, at least I tell myself this, over, and over to calm myself.  I can't go killing everyone in the area, just cause they might be spying on me.

I head back, and watch for half an hour, to make sure no ones coming, and once I'm done, I'll leave. When the half hour passes, I reload my spent mags, and head off to see John.

Just incase, I set my device to record, so I'll have something to go through later, incase any new information pops up.

It's midday now, and I've had to go through many detours, before John guided me to his base. Once I got there, he did a quick biometric scan, before I got access into his area.

I quickly take out the tracker, and ask him to take care of the piece of shit selling trackers in my area. John, standing there, with his wrinkly eyes; tells me, that he wants the wallets of the vultures I killed. He'll even give me 20% of the credits, while making sure the seller disappears.

I smile, "hey john, I've gotten info for the family, I am sure they'd be very interested in it."

John looks at me, and smiles, "you really have been listening in to every alley haven't you."

I look at him, "bah, it's actually very simple to do that, just keep things in macro form before you check individually on the recordings."

John laughs, "well, I guess you want to talk to a representative huh." John turns around, and takes out his communicator, while I wait in the back.