Located deep within the outskirts of the Yamamoto District, Sector Three shimmered vividly with golden lights in its derelict alleyways. The lonely sound of singular droplets draining from a broken pipe on puddles echoed throughout the entire alley. Vagrants, like the many bindlestiffs in the Outlands, saturated the place with their nauseous stench and deadmen odor. Moments like these never existed in the slums. In the slums, everyone had, at the least, a partial roof over their heads, they had a non-stop supply of water, and they lived their lives with no regrets, they even worked hard to establish slight maintenance to their lives. The homeless, on the other side, they were freeloaders to put it simply, they did not care for a stable place to call home, they lived their miserable lives day by day, having no hopes for the future. But they had “work”, as any beachcomber would say, they “worked” in the day in their prestigious act of beggars, and by night, they would be snorting or smoking that dirt cheap downer pack — that likely came from the half-assed production of the chinless wonders’ side businesses — and tripping off into their fantasies.

One beggar, as they sat near a puddle, biting their nails off, were eyeing the mysterious police figures patrolling through the alley, who were just preceded by another man who seemed like an angry disc jockey with his overly-messy hair, or likely a yakuza coming to do some “business” in these bearings.

At least that was what the current APS Agents seemed like in the beggar’s eyes.

They all paced through with leaden steps, phasers were strapped to their grips like their lives depended on it. Having been used to many situations such as this, Yashiro led the team with ease and swept everything facing him at Mach speed — deeming Hal’s scanning drone as useless. Seraphina held her phaser close to her chest (completely breaking the police approach rule), as she could feel the beating pressure of her panic-stricken heart against her hands. Hal’s drone drifted from side to side like a wandering child, but it was just because of boredom, not excitement, he was simply messing with the movement control as he rested in his comfortable office. The only pressure or fear Hal felt was the fear of losing his drone — those things with that many options weren’t easy to come by (legally), let alone create.

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‘Where’s the other guy?’ Seraphina asked.

‘Ichiban?!’ Hal spoke his mind nervously, ‘Why do you want to know about him? It’s a good thing he’s not here.’

‘You’re always scared of him, aren’t you?’ Yashiro chuckled.

'N-No, I’m not!’

Hal was always scared of Ichiban, he was glad that Ichiban’s current whereabouts were unknown to all of them, including Yashiro. Hal knew that Yashiro would be sprinting head first if he had known where Ichiban was. A few minutes before, he was only a few feet ahead of them, but if it weren’t for Hal’s childish interruption, they could have caught up to him.

Ichiban was addicted to playing the temperamental role, it was the only role or act he was good at it ever since childhood. But even that being stated as a “good act” was self-claimed. If he had wanted to act like a hard-boiled detective agent or something, he would have taken inspiration from classic detective novels, instead of outright mimicking the behaviors of yakuza and cut-throats — he was too fractious, Yashiro would often tell him. It wasn’t his fault though, he never wanted to be like that, he was sick of it. His behavior was just the natural result from the nature of the habitat he grew up in. He had no family to start with when he was born, but he wasn’t quite the street kid everyone would know about. Those New Haven avant-garde orphanage houses didn’t bother with him because they simply didn’t exist back when he was a child, he was stuck with switching from superannuated so-called “orphanages” to another. It wasn’t until he had made a name for himself for being ruffian on the streets that he was finally fostered by the police, more exactly the FPASB. They saw him fit for being an operative despite his crimes and behaviors. They gave him shelter and a place to call home, as he slowly regained his original sense of self again, but that thuggish attitude would still remain as a fragment of his painful past. The APS would then come in to play as they recruited him, promising to slowly rehabilitate him with his new work, but none of that happened up to this point — whether they would still uphold their promise or not was up to them for they had finally gotten him in their grip.

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