The building that housed the guard station was quintessential Shanties. Meaning, it was tall, had thick pipes plugged into it like feeding tubes, and it was completely impossible to tell where it ended and its neighbouring buildings began. The lowest floors of the neighbouring buildings all sported shops selling all kinds of odds and ends: metal scraps, bags of flour, cooking utensils, and stolen enmatech.

This part of the Shanties was about as densely packed as it got. Every building rolled into the next, an amalgamation of steel and decay. Garish, crystallight signs climbed skyward to give vague indication of what could be found roughly where.

Stella was sure they were useful to the residents who toiled the dark, tight streets every day, but for a visitor like her, they were meaningless. Every sign had been placed where a spare spot could be found between the tangle of clotheslines and overhead walking bridges. Furthermore, not a single one of them said in big glowing letters, “Guard Station.” The only reason she even knew the guard station was behind an unassuming, rusted steel door was because the map on her phone insisted that this was the right address.

She smelled her breath before entering. The last thing she needed was to accidentally inform the guards that she’d been drinking all night. She already had two thumping headaches in the form of her clients literally destroying a portion of the city; she didn’t need to get fined for being drunk and disorderly. Unhappy with the test results, she took out two pieces of chewing gum. She spent a few minutes tucked to the side of the cramped street vigorously munching on her gum.

Residents passed her by, dragging scraps of steel, hurling carts of whatever cheap goods they produced in their tightly packed factories, and always eyeing her suspiciously. She was the outsider, after all. Sure, she’d thrown her hood over her cat ear headband to stand out less, but everyone here lived so stacked together that they would have recognised each other from smell alone. Sighing, she straightened her back and entered the guard station.

The door was unlocked. It opened into a waiting area. The place was cramped. Stella could have taken two whole steps and walked from one side to the other. The tiles were cracked. Three chairs lined one wall, taking up whatever space was available. There was no cooling so the room was hot and dank.

A desk stood at the end of it that was covered by protective glass barrier. As Stella walked towards it, the barrier shimmered—a circuit, Stella assumed, rather than an afto. Unlike the tools that dungeoneers bound, circuits could be used by anyone without binding so long as they were supplied with oxon, by battery or pipes. It made sense that it wasn’t just a plain barrier, of course: if someone was going to try to attack a guard station, they’d use aftos. The best defense against an afto was another afto, and the next best thing was a circuit.

Behind the desk sat an unassuming man. He wasn’t dressed like a guard—he was missing the blue and green checkered pattern that every guard wore to identify themselves. It made sense, given they were in prime Cartel territory. However, Stella could tell he was a guard by his general demeanour, confident yet cautious. He watched Stella with hawk eyes as she approached.

“Er, apparently one of my clients got arrested and is being held here,” Stella spoke through a gap in the barrier. “I’m a fence.”

The guard acknowledged her by turning towards and typing on a terminal. Its screen was bulky enough to nearly cover his face.

“Name and AAN?” he said in a monotone.

“Stella Fa—er,” she cut off. “My AAN is 31399789-K.”

The guard stared upwards at her. “What’s your family name?”

Stella shook her head. “Why does that matter? You’ve got my AAN. I should be in the system.”

The guard pursed his lips. “It’s routine. I need you to provide your details.”

“What routine?” Stella scoffed. “How is any of this routine? You have a guard station in the Shanties. Alright, it’s on the edge of it, but this is still Cartel territory. How are you guys surviving with an attitude like that?”

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“That’s because it’s my division.”

Stella spun to see a giant of a man emerge from a barred side door. She recognised his face immediately—it was unforgettable. Scar across the nose, left side of his face drooping, and looking like he needed a good night’s sleep three decades ago.

“I’m Commander Hawthorn, head of the Organised Crime Division,” he said. “Are you Stella?”

There was no need for Hawthorn to introduce himself. He was one of the most recognised faces in Anypaxia, and that was before he retired to the head of the defective Organised Crime Division.

“Er, yeah,” she said in a frustrated tone. “Do you want to explain this client business? I only have two clients, you know, and they’re both grupps in my kitchen!” Stella knew she shouldn’t have been so rude, but impulse control was difficult under the effects of her headache and the condition known as being Stella. The alcohol, of course, had nothing to do with it, she convinced herself.

“If you follow me upstairs, you’ll see for yourself,” Hawthorn answered.

Stella folded her arms. “What’s there to see? This is all a setup. I get enough crap from DARA; I don’t need some former S-class thinking he can order the world around around just because the city might come begging for his help every once in a while.” Internally, she was screaming at herself to shut up and not anger the man that could kill her dead with a wayward stare.

Hawthorn levelled a gaze at her. If he was angry, there was no way to tell through his stony expression. “If it will get you to listen, then yes, I’m abusing my position as a former S-class and Commander of the Organised Crime Division to order you about. So, unless you want to be personally arrested by someone who has seen the lowest known floor of the dungeon, follow me.”

Stella went to open her trap again, but some measure of self-control kicked in and she snapped it shut. There really was nothing she could say at that point. Commander Hawthorn had not only made his case, he’d undersold it.

The last three Descensions, events where dungeoneers breached through to the next lowest floor of the dungeon, had all been realised under Hawthorn’s leadership. The lowest cleared floor of the dungeon was now fifty-three, and the last time that floor had ever been reached was the day Hawthorn had clawed his way down there. Retired or not, he was ridiculously strong, and therefore would get his way no matter what Stella said.

Hawthorn nodded in approval then walked back through the door he’d come from, not bothering to wait for her. Clearly, he expected Stella to obey, and that rankled her severely. Teeth gritted, she stomped after Hawthorn. She noted on her way through that the guard behind the desk hadn’t finished taking her details, and neither did he press the issue.

They ascended a winding staircase. Tiny apartments that jutted out from it had been retrofitted into prison cells. Most of the cells were empty, which made Stella wonder why Hawthorn didn’t just take her imaginary client and place him on a lower level. That way, her legs wouldn’t have to burn so much.

They finally arrived at the top floor. Hawthorn, despite a slight limp in one leg, seemed perfectly fine after the climb, whereas Stella was left huffing and wheezing. Hawthorn stopped before a cell door and waited as Stella caught her breath. She marched slowly towards the cell.

When she peaked inside the tiny cell, she saw a brown lump on the sliver of floor that provided access to the bunk beds. It took her a moment to sort through her headache-and-not-alcohol-induced haze to realise that it was not a lump, but a man, kneeling and with his head pressed to the floor. He was so perfectly still that, if not for the subtle rise and fall of his bare and scarred back, her eyes would have just passed right over him.

“Did you bring my damned aftos from the hoshing pit, you nicotine-chugging grupp,” the kneeling man growled, his voice deep and croaky. “It’s going to take me all day to unbind them without touching them.”

“Your fence is here,” Hawthorn said to him.

With an exasperated sigh, the man raised and lowered his head a few more times, then stood with a loud groan. He approached the cell bars, stuck his manacled hands through, and stared at Stella.

His skin was dark, his medium length black hair was matted to his forehead from sweat, and he had a short, thick beard. His arms were so thick that Stella wouldn’t have been able to wrap both her hands around them. He looked ready to bite off someone’s head at a moment’s notice.

Solid bangles tightly clasped his wrists and ankles, too tight to come off. Whatever material they were made of seemed metallic, but the odd way it diffused light off it surface, as though a river of water ran beneath them, indicated that these were enma forged, aftos of some kind. If not for the darker-than-void, thick enma-blocking manacles that bound his wrists just above the bangles, he probably could have used them to break free.

Stella took a step back and pointed at the man. “Um, no,” she said. “This is not happening.”

“This is your client, right?” Hawthorn asked her.

“Absolutely not!” Stella snapped. “I gave Ortho the boot three months back because he kept getting into fights with his party—”

Hawthorn placed a heavy hand on her shoulder and leaned in close. He spoke low and firm, “This is your client. Right?”

Stella tried to reel back so that Hawthorn wouldn’t smell the alcohol on her breath. The man was huge, however, and in the confined staircase that left Stella with nowhere to go. She glanced at Ortho and whispered, “He won’t be once I’m through with him.”