It was effortless to gauge a person’s affluence in the city by a single glance. The least fortunate were decaying bodies, shuffling along with their flesh deteriorating and sickness clear in their expressions. How had they entered Tone? How had they remained so long when they couldn’t have afforded the privilege of breathing clean air for long? They seemed to coagulate in alleys away from the patrol lines of Chem Corp guards and flying security bots. When Jabari came up from the sewage pipe, those zombie like citizens, beggars, suddenly had energy enough to swarm him with faint space to escape.

The boy had to swat hands with a wrench just to run away. Even then, the alley struggled to birth him free from the bleeding hands of men and women too grotesque to speak long words. Though he tried. Having come from outside, the boy had seen dead bodies before. The sight of death didn’t scare him as much as decay surely did, though. Never had Jabari witnessed so many on the verge of an ungodly rot in such a compact space. He tried to reason with them, but the swarming image of disease was a difficult thing to stomach while avoiding panic.

“Sorry.”

“Let go.”

“Wish I could help but...”

Past the eye of the alley, onto the sidewalk, then the street, those poor dying souls followed Jabari out into the open until he finally did what scared him most.

His heart was already racing before the thought crossed his mind, so when he pulled out his gun, everything became a blur of motion. It wasn’t his intention to fire, but the swarm of hands had picked his pockets and snatched whatever they could pluck from his tool belt. Some of the mob had dispersed, but several bodies held him up in the middle of a street where civil eyes were present.

The boy, with shaking hands, aimed the weapon as best he could to threaten the sickly people away. He didn’t wish to hurt anyone, especially those who were already in pain, but they saw the small tool and ignored it. Lacking any confidence he might have had before entering Tone, Jabari shot the gun.

The blast was powerful, nearly kicking back the disoriented boy’s hands enough to strike his face. Immediately, he had the space he needed. The walking corpses left him.

Jabari, in shock, couldn’t move. Though, his heart pounded with adrenaline.

No one took notice of him, despite the spectacle he had created. Not even the dead body that lay at Jabari’s feet, bleeding out from a scorching wound through the eye, was enough to gather a care from citizens who had seen it all. Whether he had been familiar with death before that day or not, he had never been responsible for it. The boy had always assumed he’d have to get his hands dirty some day, but he imagined it in a hundred different ways. Fighting Chem Corp. Protecting Zero’s lab. Saving a girl. He never thought he’d take a life so suddenly just to save himself.

The long honk of a horn forced the inventor’s assistant to return his mind to his body. He had held up traffic long enough to have several cars prepared to drive through him.

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With shaken resolve, Jabari hurriedly returned his weapon to his pocket and went back to the sidewalk. But he didn’t get much further than that.

There were always bots flying or walking around the city, most of which were built for function over design. No one would confuse one of them for an actual person, since they rarely had more than two limbs or an emotive face. Out of nowhere, a couple of security bots flew down to speak with Jabari. To the boy’s surprise, they cared not for the unregistered weapon. They cared not for the dead body in the street. The only questions the bots cared to ask were, “Are you hurt?” And “Would you like to press charges?”

Of course, Jabari, to avoid drawing attention to himself beyond what he already had, said that he was fine and went on his way before Chem Corp guards showed up.

In daylight, on Tone City streets, there were middling class individuals, easy to spot by their exposed metal parts and worn-out clothes fit for the scrap. The inventor’s assistant had never seen so many unique builds. Some favored natural shapes and anatomy, but others appeared to have modifications meant for specific tasks. There were hulking metallic monstrosities and sleek agile things, and though they were a minority, they were ordinary. Jabari might have fixated on the custom nature of so many of the mods he had seen, but his mind hadn’t parted from the first use of his gun.

Numerous individuals, who had likely spent a fortune on their new bodies and synthetic skin, were attractive and scantily clad. Still, women who walked with fine curves and smooth flesh weren’t enough to get the boy to relax. Had it been any other day, Jabari might have struggled to hide his fascination. At that troubling hour, however, his eyes overlooked the abundance of eye candy that strolled past him at every corner. He couldn't process what he’d done.

The wealthiest and rarest individuals in the city were those who wore expensive synthetic skin and covered it in clothes just as costly. No one, regardless of class, appeared older than 30, but the wealthy could afford to hide their age behind remodels.

It didn’t take long for Jabari to realize nobody paid attention to the poorest community. Death permeated back alleys, deterring people from venturing into them out of disgust or fear. The naïve boy made assumptions at every step, hoping to navigate to the Roulette Lounge before finding himself making a mistake that could cost him his life.

Thankfully, Jabari’s natural skin and his lack of layers gave him the appearance of someone with moderate assets. Those who didn’t know his backstory could only guess that his decision to walk shirtless was to show off what must have been expensive synthetic replacements. Without so much as a single metallic plate on his abdomen or arms, the inventor’s assistant could have masqueraded as a common city dweller. Sadly, those who could smell the stench of sewage on him wouldn’t pay much attention to his looks.

None of that would matter if Jabari couldn’t find the Roulette Lounge. Novin had told him to follow the music, but Jabari wasn’t one for riddles. Tone, compared to the vast wasteland of metal scrap and polluted waters outside, was a tiny thing. Regardless, the city was massive. And with it spanning miles high above green clouds and just as deep down into the earth, getting lost was easy.

Hopelessness might have taken the boy had he not eventually stopped long enough to hear the music in question. Upon raising his gaze, Jabari observed several billboards that had withstood weathering and rusting, yet were still functional. On them were ads that played soft soulful music across the city. At the end of each song, the billboards projected directions to the lounge.

Had he not been distracted by the warm welcome of the alley, he might have noticed the straightforward instructions sooner. Despite everything, Jabari was still focused on his mission, and thankfully, wasn’t far. Processing, learning wouldn’t be easy while on the job, but Zero’s boy did his best.