Chirani took a second stroll by himself through the flea market he had visited before, trying to find two things; why so many appeared to be a bit trigger-happy with their clientele; and two, for a gift for his girlfriend.

-” Just be cool boy, you know how these merchants are, you dealt with them a lot while being unemployed. Be smooth like…velvet?”, he completed after seeing a veil that could work as a present. Chirani walked around, pretending to be interested in some of the wares but mostly keeping his ear open to the local chatter. As he suspected, the tensions were mild to high, with many sellers barely paying attention to the customers, just nodding or showing them with a slight hand wave.

Reconnaissance was not enough, as it seemed, so he decided to step things up: “Straighten your jacket, fix your cap, dower your eyes, and let your charming smile do all the talking.” With everything prepared, Chiranis approached the first stand that gave him some modicum of glances. “Good enough”, he decided, pumping his chest forward.

The seller had a tiny stand but filled to the brim with small components, like transistors or light bulbs, some new, others looking like they were ripped directly from a larger unit.

-” Ma'am”, he saluted like an old cowboy from a movie he saw recently, tipping his blue cap. The woman just stared at him, confused by what he just did.

-” Were…were you talking to me young man?”, she asked, still bewildered by his weird greeting.

-” Uhm, yes? I’m Chiranis Drums”, he waited for the pin to drop, but no reply. “Part of the group that captured the Playground?...The sniper guy?”

-” There was someone with a sniper?” The woman was more than weirded out now, and she exchanged eye contact with other merchants there, letting them know to be on the lookout in case she needed help. Chiranis, though, noticed that but decided to smile onward.

Totally defeated by the sheer bewilderment on the lady’s face after further explanations, he just presented himself as a member of the local order committee. “ I’m actually here to talk with the people selling around here. Heard you had some trouble with thefts and the like?”

The woman’s eyes brightened for a moment and turned around entirely to speak with him face to face -” Ah, finally. Yeah, we got a lot of things disappearing over the last few months. In my case, it was cables, headlights, buttons…”

-” I see, I see”, he nodded while registering all that she said.” I have to say, that sounds like a lot of hassle. Separately, these things wouldn’t barter you that much, but taken together you could get a box of grain. Maybe two.”

The woman’s eyes lighten up for a second time, giddy at the fact that someone finally saw things her way. “ True, true! That’s what I've been telling everyone, but they keep saying that I’m crazy. That it’s only half a box, at most. Phaw! I know my stuff, I know that I got better merch than half of these oily sellers here.”

-'' Yeah, I hear you”, lied Chirani, who knew from experience that the half measurement was the correct price, but also that betting on a merchant’s pride first would get him more information. “ I remember when I used to trade in the Underlevel, me and my sister would get a ton, in quotes, of seeds and mushrooms for bolts. Everyone needed a certain kind of bolt and we were the only ones who knew how to… subtract it from a lot of sources without causing a fuss.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

-” Oh, a fellow scavenger…Wait a second, blonde hair, were you twins?”, to which Chirani nodded. “ I’ll be damned, I used to buy from your handler. Ah, so you’re the ones about whom he always bragged about having a keen eye and a sharp tongue, huh?”

Chirani was a bit taken aback to find someone from his old “working” ground, but it was a pleasant surprise. He then tried to tell her the story of how they got captured, but before he could whisper it to her, the lady yelled out to everyone in the market to join her. “ Hey, come here and meet this guy. He’s one of the urchins that used to bring us merchandise.”

The man was quickly surrounded by a crowd of merchants and buyers, many of whom shared the same underground and dugouts that he used to call home in his last years in the County. Chirani felt a bit of pride by being recognized by so many of them, and soon after he started to regale them with his memories of being captured, forced to participate in the tournament, and everything that happened during it.

-” That sounded ruff, not going to sugar coat it. Still, to see someone from our neck of the pipes in a leading position is quite something.”, said one of the people in the crowd.

-” Not really in charge per see”, tried Chirani to explain back to them. “ We’re trying not to…”, but before he could explain how the council worked, they bombarded him with questions about their current worries.

-” Ya, ya, sure. So what made you come here? Something about the burglaries?”, asked another a bit exasperated.

-” Kinda. I don’t know if anyone made some complaint-”

The crowd raised their voices the moment they heard him say that. Everyone counted on their fingers how many times they tried to address the issue, and how many times they tried to ask the council for help. “ That clopai, Savan, and some C.T.Ds, the girly one, and Vivar tried to help us out before but…

-” But they also have other things on their plate. Ya, I know. Listen, folks, I would like to apologize for our late response. I’m going to hang around, investigate, and see what I can find, ok? Now, everyone who fell victim to these strings of thefts, please come forward and we’ll talk, ok?”

…

A figure was sleeping soundly on a throne connected to hundreds of cables, with her eyes blinking a yellow light, on and off rhythmically. Angie was consuming her share of energy for the day, slowly gaining the power needed to be burned in a flash soon during another of their countless fights against the County.

A few meters in front of the throne were multiple monitors and two people waiting patiently for a program to finish analyzing something. -” Another failure, huh?”, exclaimed Priya while rubbing her dry eyes. “ Ther, when can we test the next simulation? This power recharge system is still shit.”

The clopy looked at her with a tired, blank face and lifted four fingers. “ Days”, they added plainly.

-” That long? I guess we’re reaching the bottom of the barrel. No sense fretting, though, might as well start working on Syna’s network.” The woman then stretched her back, hard enough to land on it and have an upside-down vision of Angie. “She is alive”, thought Priya, before she would let her insecurities take hold of her mind again. The life extension she gave the miner worked only for a few hours per day, while the rest of the time Angie was in deep slumber, either to conserve her energy or replenish it.

-” This is not enough. I won’t limit you to this condition; I’ll make everything right like I should have done years ago!”

-” Priya”, called out Ther, who was gently trying to kick her out of her stupor. They then kneeled next to her and gently moved some strands of hair from her face. “ We’re not done yet, ok? This time it’s not just our intellect working on it; With the others' help, we’ve risen from a 100% to 125% capacity. “

The former CEO giggled at the dry joke they made; “ Ther, you give us too much credit. We’ve reached at least 135%...And that’s more than enough, right?”

The clopy went silent for a moment, calculating if they should reply realistically or optimistically. Before they could finish, though, an alarm started blaring.

-” It’s a C.T.D attack force!”, yelled out Syna all of a sudden from a monitor. “ Have you woken Angie up?”

Before they could reply, the electric cables connected to the throne disconnected, and Angie's robotic eyes jittered for a second before fixing on a location. She was slowly and noisily lifting herself, with sparks and static electricity flying off from the charging station.

The cyborg then greeted Priya and Doc Ther with a yawn and a smile. “ So, it’s time for me to do my job, huh? Finally, I was getting kinda tired babysitting around.”

-” Hey…I appreciate you doing that for ol’ me”, replied Priya with a smirk, which the cyborg found irritating, but also endearing at the same time. “ I called a lift cube for you. And here, take these charging batteries. Don’t know if you might need them, but who knows?”

-” Oh? You finished adapting them to my body? Thanks for that…Well, I’m off now.” she said, waving at the two.

-” Have fun! And try to be back with all your limbs attached this time, it was a pain for Ther to fix you last time!”, yelled Priya, waving back wildly.

The black cube floated a few meters into the air, and then, after choosing a direction, flew towards it as if it was blown out of a cannon.