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The street lights in this part of city were dim, a perpetual “money saving” tactic that left almost the entire district in near-blackness from dusk until dawn. For humans, it was miserable – a source of paranoia and fear – but humans weren't the only ones living in substrict PL-50913.

Jin walked close to the buildings, almost hugging the walls. His dark jacket and pants gave him as much casual camouflage as could be expected on a budget, but he still needed every inch of darkness he could get. From across the empty street, with dim, flickering lights, it was definitely possible to escape notice... unless they were specifically looking for a victim.

The group of young men on the other side of the road certainly weren't trying to hide, which is how Jin had seen them from so far away. Light glinted off their silver chains and slick black jackets; not streetlight, either, but the green, blue, and purple neon of their own clothes glow-wire patterns.

It looked downright embarrassing to Jin, but that was “fashion” in the Heartlands now. Sparkles, glowing lights, and extravagant trinkets – the look of the future.

Just slip past and keep going.

He was almost parallel with them, now, but there was one more streetlight he had to walk under. If they weren't paying attention, if they weren't watching for just--

“Hey, you! Hold up a second.”

Jin winced, hunching slightly to brace for some unseen attack. There was no way he could have missed the obnoxiously loud call, but he didn't react. I've got headphones or a clip or something. Leave me alone.

Footsteps, splashing against the damp road. Jin bolted.

He made it five streetlights before a hand caught the back of his jacket, the sudden change in pace making his worn shoes slip. He let himself fall, lunged into it, and the guy behind him oofed in surprise as he was yanked to the ground, too. Jin yanked himself out of the weakened grasp with a roll, got his feet back under him, and--

Too late. The rest of the guys had caught up, loosely blocking his way, and though at first they all just looked annoyed, Jin could see the progression of shock, then anger, in each of their faces as they finally got a look at his face.

“Vamp.”

Jin grimaced, instinctively cleaning the fangs hidden behind tightly-closed lips with his tongue. It didn't matter if they were visible or not, if they were bloody or not – his red eyes were all the evidence humans needed to draw their conclusions.

“Looking pretty healthy for a filthy blood-sucker,” one of the young men spat, more to his buddies then to Jin. “Who have you been chewing on today? I want to take them your fangs as a present.”

Jin resisted the urge to punch the human in the teeth and instead shrugged his jacket off his right shoulder. The shirt sleeve beneath had been partially cut out, revealing the glowing lines inserted between the layers of his pale skin.

"I'm sponsored, moron," he snapped, turning slightly to make sure the identifying code was clearly visible. "So back off unless you want trouble with Imptuus."

Two of the five humans seemed taken aback, but the others weren't impressed.

"You're suppose to have those displayed at all times," sneered one of these. "Who'd make trouble over a vampire stupid enough not to display his ownership code when walking around suspiciously at night?"

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Then, to Jin's surprise, one of the younger men spoke up in what could have been interpreted as his defense. "Guys, my dad owns a share in Imptuus. They do use vampires in the necromancy department."

"They should keep their vampires under control, then!" snapped the big leader. "It's only to be expected blood-suckers are going to get hurt if they wander around where they shouldn't be."

"I'm making a delivery," Jin said, a truthful statement in the right context. Three, if not four, of the gang still looked ready to attack despite his sponsorship.

"Let's just leave him and get a drink somewhere cleaner," the semi-reasonable one suggested, shooting Jin a glare. "I don't want to get in deep for ruining some Imptuus project. They're big enough they might make trouble over a vampire just for the public attention.”

Jin saw a chance and took it. The humans were debating, and the harder it would be to catch him and leave him for dead, the better the chances that they would take their buddy's advice. He ducked between two of them and dashed into the nearest alley, his shoes slapping loudly on the wet concrete.

He didn't stop running for two blocks, then ducked into a dark corner and listened. The same drizzle that had made his footsteps so easy to track also made it easy to hear pursuers, and it seemed laziness had won out over blind hatred. Or, Jin hoped so. If these guys were sneaking around the streets trying to find him again, they were way past being bullies and were heading straight toward actual psycho.

The run-in had put him a little off track, but he knew these streets like the inside of his eyelids. His destination wasn't far.

~~

Wright Alley was as miserable and industrious as ever when Jin finally came back. Abandoned dumpsters that hadn't been used in decades were lined up on their sides, their lids now doors to cramped compartments. The vampires who couldn't get dumpsters had built cardboard fortresses, or lean-tos made out of discarded metal sheets, and there was even an old dysfunctional van at the very end of the derelict, dead-end alley, home to the Marcel vampire clan. Jin could see the three little kids now, or at least their fingers, as they drew sparingly on one of the dirty windows.

The makeshift homes were mostly empty, for despite the number of vampires who lived here in shifts, most were away at this hour, seeking work or food. They weren't blood-suckers, whatever the humans said. The Wright Alley vampires had a stubborn code of no-victims, and everyone in the alley either found work and legitimately earned food, or starved. Members who went feral were kicked out by the rest of the alley, no excuses and no second-chances. It was an unspoken deal with the local law for letting them to stay in peace.

Jin wasn't looking for the Marcel kids, though, or the few day-workers passed out in abandoned sleeping spots. His contact never left the alley.

K'won sat beneath his little lean-to of cardboard boxes and an old sheet, carving patterns into broken pieces of concrete. The paralytic vampire hadn't been able to find work for a decade, but he watched the youngest vampires when their parents were gone trying to scrap up a meal and he had a great imagination for story-telling, so no one in Wright Alley begrudged him his few feet of land.

"Hey, K'won," called Jin as he approached, and the other vampire cracked a crooked but genuine smile.

"Hi, Jin. It's been a while since your last visit... is everything going fine at the big company? You and your brother really busy?"

"Sorta, but the main problem was that Aven has been breathing down my neck and wouldn't let me get away," Jin replied with a hint of irritation, plopping down on the cold pavement next to the cripple. He dug a plastic water bottle, full of cycled blood, out of his pocket. "Still, today I did get away, so here's dinner."

If their noble ancestors had been alive today, they would have been horrified at the notion of a vampire drinking blood drained from dead people destined to become zombies. As it was, K'won handled the bottle like it was made out of gold.

"This is a lot," he breathed, then gave Jin a shrewd look. "Have you been shorting yourself to fill this for me and the kids?"

"Nope, though I may have been shorting Aven," joked Jin, but then his smile faded and his tone turned bitter. "He doesn't drink his blood anyway, he's been taking the injection stuff Alternanites is promoting. Apparently the bosses want to see if it's a viable alternative for actual blood, and he's always so very eager to please the big bosses."

"I don't blame him," K'won said a little sadly, setting the bottle aside for now. "If I had a sponsor, I'd do anything I could to please them. too."

Jin snorted. "I wish you did. I wish you could have one of his sponsors; he's certain got enough of them. Imptuus alone could pull the entire alley out of the dark, as easy as they like."

"You were very lucky," K'won admitted. "Just don't take it for granted. I really do appreciate you coming down here to visit us so often, but doesn't Imptuus have work for you to do? You said you worked under the dragon mage - isn't that an important job? None of us here would want you to risk being disowned when you've finally escaped vampire fate."

"But I haven't," Jin retorted, and his already dark-red eyes brightened into angry scarlet. "Aven has, but I haven't. He can live in this nice little fantasy where everything is peachy and everyone likes him and there's no thirst, but he never comes out. He's let himself forget what it was like for everyone else." He picked up a pebble and flicked it across the broken concrete ground. "I kinda hate him for that, K'won. You and everyone else, barely scrapping by out here... and he's back there concerned about his interview with yet another stinking sponsor, and where they can find room on his arms to put the code."

K'won leaned back against the wall, troubled. “Have you talked to him about it?"

"Of course I have!" Jin exclaimed. "All the time. But he says that if someone wanted to sponsor you guys, then they would, and he doesn't have the right to ask them to if they don't, or even suggest it, or..." He huffed, frustrated. "He won't lift a finger, because what happens to you guys doesn't matter to him! He's an obsequious traitor, and doesn't care what happens to his own people."