Waking up to find mom gone among the strangers in the big tent was a bit jarring until my brain woke up and remembered we weren’t at home. Thankfully Mr. Ventilation machine guy had slept somewhere else last night and didn’t click and chuff away while I tried to sleep.

I started to swing my legs out of bed when the pain, which had been waiting at the back of the queue behind brain and me, finally got to be noticed and announced it’s presence by hurting my entire body. Serious next day post-workout pain.

I finished sitting up and grumbled as I stretched my limbs a little so they could remember they had joints in them. Maybe the stockpile had some heat packs or something similar for muscle pain.

Getting up and slipping my boots on I headed out into the crowds outside the tent. As I worked my way through the temporary maze of tents towards the end of the street I wondered if the corpos were going to start packing up soon, it would be nice if people moving back into their homes meant the corp was done cleaning up their mess and going back above ground away from here.

I like having the street be clear of gang shootouts for a while as much as the next person but replacing it with corp grunts leering at people isn’t that much better.

I passed the barricade without incident, walking along out of the rosy glow of my home street into the mixed lights on the surrounding ones. There were more food stalls filling up the area on the other side of the barricade, likely making good money selling food to the people held up in the foot traffic by the barricade narrowing the street.

Walking along I passed by the street the gym was on, I wasn’t heading there yet though. This morning was the stockpile and then to Machand’s place. My flimsy muscles did flinch a bit at the idea of going there this afternoon though.

I got the stockpile store entrance and pushed my way in through the beaded doorway. The stockpile store was just a giant store warehouse where all the scrap items ended up when they couldn’t find another buyer. Likely a load of the stuff I sold to the scrappers eventually ended up here when they couldn’t sell it on to anyone specific.

There was furniture, shelves full of video screens of all sizes, racks of incarnation players of various age and functionality. Further into the store there was a whole large storage shelf unit full of engine parts from old to new, it was weird that I could pick out a lot of them by glance now with Sanctum’s help.

I walked past all the big items near the entrance towards the back where more easily concealable items were kept to cut down on theft. I walked over to the clothing section and grabbed a new white vest that had some sort of tough threading grid pattern sewn into it, then I grabbed a long sleeve shirt from a pile randomly and it seemed I’d ended up with a picture of a cartoon balloon holding a pin with a smile.

Walking further I grabbed a new pleather jacket with big side pockets, it was red and quite sturdy but didn’t have the interior pockets I liked. I grabbed a storage rig from a nearby shelf and held it up to my chest to see if it was too big, seemed close enough with the little buckles closing it in a bit.

Finally, I grabbed a sheath and an old surplus combat knife. Usually I used a plasteel shiv I’d ground down myself but that was either in the apartment or long gone in the clean up so I grabbed a plain steel knife to be getting on with. The combat knife was sturdy and seemed free of any stress marks so it should be good enough to do some damage if need be.

I took my haul in my arms to the counter at the side of the shop. There was a little bit of a queue so I stood there waiting. The guy in front of me had an over-sized chrome arm that looked like it came off an industrial drone but he was using it to carry a plastic bag full of stuffed alien toys.

Wondering about the toys jogged my memory about the gym stuff and I stepped out of the queue to grab a few towels, a water can and a big bag to carry stuff in. I ended up back in the queue before it had moved so it was all good.

The stuffed toy big arm guy paid for his stuffed toys and I was up next. I started piling stuff up in front of me on the counter and the bored looking attendant verified them one at a time, adding them to the readout on the counter using some store app in his cerebral implant display. Staff physically touching things in retail was looked down on generally because of disease and so on.

When everything was accounted for, I pinged the counter IR to connect and accepted the charge for the items and threw it all into the big bag I’d bought. As I was heading out I noted the small turret built into the roof supports tracking my movements as I left only for it to notice some other movement in the store and turn to that instead. Most big shops had cheap nine millimeter turrets like that around the place, they’d only open fire against an actual threat though, they don’t normally fire on shop lifters.

Not down here in the water district anyway, they’d likely cost more in ammo than they’d save in lost goods. Fancy places in the city above probably had flak turrets in the ceiling for when someone looked a little too poor to be in the store.

Heading through the streets with the duffel bag slung close around me I headed towards Machand’s street. The only people who lived in the short little street were there because they paid a lot of money and were acquainted with Marchand. There was nothing on paper to say she owned it or decided who lived there, but everyone knew you didn’t get in there without her say so.

You didn’t even hang around the street for any length of time without knowing Marchand, that’d be a good way to end up zeroed and recycled and not a soul would know what happened to you.

I got to the street eventually from the long straight street that followed the big outflow pipe that hung above the street. Turning into Machand’s street I noted the people leaning over their balconies watching the mostly empty street. They looked at me and I looked at them. They weren’t guards but they’d let everyone on the street know there was a visitor, but I was a known face so it likely wouldn’t come to anything.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

One of the girls near the top floor waved at me after a few seconds of walking, I’d recognize that bright orange hair even from this distance. It was Noe, a friend from when we were tiny.

Her mom was an operator that mostly did sabotage as far as I knew, but she was rarely around. Noe used to run around with me and the other kids but when we got a little older we drifted apart and then her mom moved in to Marchand’s street and that was it. I barely saw Noe anymore.

I kept walking through the street until I got to the right lift and stepped on letting it lift me up quickly to the fifth floor, I stepped off onto the balcony walkway and headed to a little alcove between two hallway gates. There I dropped the duffel bag on the floor and took out my new clothes and quickly changed into them.

Pulling my new pleather jacket on over the storage rig I had around my shoulders and clamped firmly onto the tops of my trousers I did a little bit of a stretch to check the fit of everything. It seemed fine enough.

Picking up my bag again I walked along the balcony running my free hand along the railing. This street was much darker then my home street, only a few lights here and there with the occasional advertisement and even those were more subdued compared to elsewhere.

I looked across to where Noe was leaning over her railing to see she has lit up some sort of cig pen, I couldn’t tell what kind from this far away but it left a huge blue trail floating above her.

Wondering if it would be worth catching up with Noe while I was here in the street I arrived at my fixer’s gate, I’d visit her after this. I pressed the buzzer to be let into the gate and a second later the gate released with a clunk and a hiss.

I pushed through and started walking down the residence corridor, it was quite dark because there was only one working PLED light in the ceiling. The corridor didn’t even have a notice board with it’s bare walls and stark metal doors.

Arriving at the closest of Mrs. Marchand’s doors I pressed the bell button. Instantly the door made a small mechanical sound and swung inwards slightly. I stepped into her den and noted the homely little details of the apartments she’d combined.

Marchand had bought three apartment units and knocked them through to create a long apartment of a winding back and forth maze that didn’t let you see Marchand’s room until you got to the end.

The whole place was dimly lit similar to the hallway but with different colors, lots of yellows and dim blues from the lamps around the different open plan rooms.

The whole place felt a bit un-lived in despite the rich decoration and abundant furniture. There wasn’t any trash or detritus around, no scuffs or scratches on surfaces or the floor with even the little rugs being unmarked.

I walked through carefully, knowing Marchand was already annoyed and not wanting to bother her more by knocking over a spindly table with a ceramic cat on it or something. I did nearly trip on an tiny rug near a big steel wardrobe thing I think is called an armor or something.

Getting to Marchand’s door I was about to knock when I heard her call for me from inside.

“Come in Mal, don’t stand around out in the living room.” Marchand called out. Her voice was even more ancient sounding than old Allie. She literally had a rumble to her voice when she started speaking and even when she spoke it sounded dry and raspy.

Entering the little parlor room I saw Mrs. Marchand sitting in a big sofa chair facing the door with a little actual wooden desk off to her side against the wall. She was staring into thin air with her blind, cataract riddled eyes as usual. She could afford new eyes, I’d always suspected she could see just fine and the whole blind thing was a bait or something.

“Welcome back Mal, it’s been a while since you’ve visited or even checked in you know? Don’t you know how lonely I get when my grandchildren don’t visit?” Marchand said with a small smile.

“You know I’ve been a little busy lately M, I had a run of good scrap finds and my mom’s been doing well so I’ve been taking time with her. I knew you’d get hold of me if you needed me specifically for whatever reason.” I said trying to placate her a little.

“Oh, so you have kept me in your thoughts at least then. Wonderful to hear how much my grandchildren think of me.” Mrs. Marchand said while reaching for a long cig sitting on a stand on the desk, her hand found it perfectly despite her eyes being glued to thin air. “Come now Mal, sit with me for a while and you can tell me what’s happening at your home.”

“The corp attack clean up thing? Apparently Kitsuban corp were running a convoy of industrial stuff, probably new if they were being hush about it, through the city underway and then boom the convoy is attacked or bombed or something and they lose a vehicle down the hole into the maintenance layer underneath.” I said, spinning what I’d been told together.

“That’s mostly what I’ve heard so far too, continue Mal.” She said in her raspy old lady voice, blowing out a long line of smoke once she was done. If you’re voice is that far gone surely you just stop smoking cigs right?

“Well, then some of their industrial slop ended up melting through the fercrete into the residential units on my street. You know the underway follows it from above for that part of it. The stuff went a bit weird as it tumbled about, bunch of gas and smoke as well as the slop and a whole load of people got burned and so on. Kitsuban wanted to clean up all their brand new material or whatever before anyone could test it so they swept in and handled the site.” I said, not mentioning anything about Sanctum or related stuff. I liked and trusted Marchand far enough for regular work, but I wasn’t about to trust her with my personal secrets.

“You seem to have taken quite a bath in the stuff compared to some of the others. The other reports listed some burns and breathing problems but you’re the only person I know of to come away with skin like yours. Is it painful? I have some ointment around here if you’d like?” She said. It was very odd how she shifted into total seriousness only to roll back into old lady mode. Maybe she really was going senile. Or that was just part of her act.

“Well I was in bed when it all happened. I didn’t get out of the stuff quick enough and then I was trying to get to mom instead of out of the danger zone. Then I passed out in the smoke. I wasn’t prepared or careful or reactive enough. I’m used to being safe in my home.” I said reluctantly, mostly because the last part was true.

Marchand took a very long puff on her long cig.

“Well, you’ve done three errands for me now and all of them have been completed as well as they could be. Even with the unforeseen problems with the second one. I was considering handing you two of the same sorts of jobs over the next two weeks working with the same woman, mostly just guiding her to specific points and then returning.” She said, voice growing raspier a she spoke longer.

She paused.

“Instead I think you need a little more of a challenge, call it penance for not reaching out to your dear grandmother for so long. You’ve got a good head on you and it’d be a shame to see it wasted holding a torch and walking through knee high gray water for years.” She said finally.