"Welcome to Prairie Chicken!"
Samael hears as he enters Prairie Chicken, a fast food chain that serves sub-par chicken tenders and fries as their only menu options. After a long night of driving into Neo Vegas, this is his first stop after making it back to the city. Although Samael isn't fond of the smell of fried chicken, it beat the smell of piss and gasoline that permeates through the ground floor level of the city.
Samael makes his way to the order kiosk furthest from the entrance and orders a 2-piece tender meal with a side of fries. After following the directions on the screen, the kiosk prompts him to pay. Samael places his hand on the biometric scanner to the left of the kiosk. After a brief moment, his order is confirmed. "Thank you! Enjoy your meal!" the kiosk chimes, followed by an unremarkable jingle. After receiving his receipt, Samael haphazardly turns to go sit down. Not expecting to see any other customers in the building so early in the morning, he is surprised to have bumped into a woman standing behind him. After bumping into her, he falls to the ground and lands on his rear. The woman is unfazed. Samael looks up and sees a human being much taller than him. She has dark olive skin and long black hair. She wears a pair of baggy cargo pants and an equally baggy crop top. Her ears are adorned with many beautiful piercings as well as one additional gold hoop on her right nostril.
"My apologies. Are you okay?" she says as she squat down to look at him. Her bright eyes looks Samael over with curiosity.
"I'd be better if I wasn't on my ass," Samael curtly replies. The tall woman is unfazed by Samael's rude behavior. "Well aren't you a bag of fucking sunshine," she says in a mocking manner before forcing out a few short chuckles. The woman reaches her hand out to assist Samael, but he refuses her offer. While getting himself up, a jingle is heard, notifying the patrons of the store that an order is ready for pickup. Without a word, Samael brushes past the woman. He grabs his order from the pickup station and heads out the door. As he leaves, he can hear her say, "You should head to a doctor, maybe they can do something about your shitty attitude!" Samael ignores her and leaves the establishment.
Once outside, Samael reaches into the bag and pulls out a small card with a barcode printed on it. After looking it over, he walks behind the store and heads inside a set of double doors with the sign, employees only, plastered on the front. Once inside, Samael walks to the far side of the small room and down a set of stairs housed inside. After making his way down, he reaches the bottom leading to a dimly lit hallway of pipes and grime. Shuffling his way down the corridor, Samael comes to what looks like the end of the hallway. He stands in front of what appears to be a blank wall with a small scuff near the center. As he has done hundreds of times before, Samael inserts the card he received from the shop upstairs into the scuff in the wall.
A low hum begins to emanate from the wall in front of him. Small indentions are now rippling through the wall as it cascades open from the middle out. The new entrance reveals a much deeper tunnel system with a high speed light trolley running through it. Samael walks to the left side of the trolley and is met with a biometric ocular scanner. He lifts his hand and digs out his left eye. Pulling it from the socket, Samael places it in the circular cutout of the scanner. The machine emits a faint red light as it verifies the identify of the eye placed inside. "Thank you! Enjoy your meal!" a familiar voice speaks from the machine, followed by a familiar, yet still unremarkable, jingle. Samael retrieves his eye from the machine as the doors to the trolley open wide. The inside of the trolley is large enough for four grown adults to sit in comfortably. There are two benches on opposing sides of the trolley. Samael sits down, facing the far end of the tunnel system. The trolley doors close and the machine begins its silent departure into the void.
For the first time in roughly 24 hours, Samael has a moment to relax. Having been down this tunnel numerous times before, he knew he has about a 20 minute time frame to take a small nap. He pulls his hood over the front of his face and closes his eyes. He drifts off to a state of unconsciousness. Samael begins to dream. The same dream he always dreams. The sound of whistling. A large flash of light. Massive flowers of immeasurable size, blooming in the sky. A deep rumbling in the Earth below. Finally, darkness.
Samael slowly opens his eyes as the trolley slows down before finally coming to a stop. For the third time today, he hears an unremarkable jingle, but this time, no thank you is given. "Rude bastards," Samael thinks to himself. He lifts himself from his seat and pulls his hood off. The doors to his left open and he exits the trolley. The trolley doors close behind him and the vehicle makes its way back down the tunnel. A sense of dread fills Samael as he sees a flight of stairs in front of him. He walks to the first step and looks up. A dizzying amount of stairs enter his view, seemingly endless in distance. A deep sigh leaves Samael's lips as he begins his ascent.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
10 flights... 20 flights... 30 flights...
Samael continued climbing the never ending expanse of steps. "Should I just turn around?" Samael thinks, questioning whether to give up or not. He questions if his destination is really worth it, but remembers that he has no way of calling the trolley back and that his only exit is at the top of the staircase. He stops at the landing of the 34th flight and pulls out a cigarette and lighter out of his coat pocket. Samael sticks the cigarette in his mouth and gives it a light. He takes a deep drag of the cancer causing stick in his mouth. A small feeling of relief and lightheadedness enters his body. He exhales and a murky white cloud of smoke falls from his mouth. He repeats the process a handful of times before tossing the butt of his now depleted cigarette on to the ground, giving it a stomp. Samael continues his trek up the concrete mountain.
After climbing a total of 63 flights of stairs, Samael reaches a narrow white door. He stops in front of the small door and buckles over, gasping for air. Beads of sweat are pouring from the tips of his hair and from nearly every pore on his small body. Samael hates the feeling of sweat, almost as much as he hates being outside in general. He becomes hyper conscious of the sweat rolling down his body, streams of salty skin soup falling to the floor. He grits his teeth and violently shakes his body to try to dry himself. Samael, seemingly content with his dryness level, opens the door and steps inside.
He is greeted by a large white room. Large windows to his left and right allow long rays of sunlight to fill the sparse area. A lone desk is stationed at the opposite end of the room. Behind the desk sits a rather small, elderly man. In front of the desk is a small metal stool, likely where guests would sit when visiting. On top of the desk is a black marble name plate that reads, Alastair Frost, in large gold letters. Samael walks his way up to the desk and sits on the stool. Alastair, after finally noticing another person in the room with him, closes the laptop he is working on and faces Samael.
"Why, look who we have here. It is very good to see you again, Samael. I trust that you have completed your task in a satisfactory manner?" Alastair asks Samael while looking at him over the top of his thick rimmed glasses. Alastair speaks slowly and in a heavy accent not often heard in this part of the world. He reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a small handkerchief. He begins patting his forehead with the small piece of striped cloth. Samael watches the elderly man clean the sweat off his brow. "I did the work, can you just hurry up and pay me?" Samael responds, clearly annoyed at having to interact with Alastair. "Well, it will take some time before we can confirm the status of your work. As you know, we have to send someone to the scene to verify that the work was done properly. We also have to send a team to retrieve the product in time. There are many steps that need to be completed before you receive any compensation," Alastair states, continuing the wiping of his head.
"What I can do is tell you of the next job," upon hearing these words, Samael lets out a sigh. Having just finished one job, Samael was expecting some small amount of free time before being sent out into the field again.
Alastair begins again, "This next job will be a bit of a departure from the previous work you have been assigned in the past. First, we will be assigning you a partner. This is a task of utmost importance, so we need you to work with another to guarantee there isn't a single flaw. Second, you will not be working at the ground level. Instead, we will be sending you to the upper floors of Neo Vegas. It will be important that you understand the etiquette and customs of those who live in the clouds. There can be no mistakes made for this job. I take it that you understand what I am saying?"
This is a first for Samael. He had only ever worked with the undesirables of the wastelands. Murderers, snitches, thieves, the kinds of people you wouldn't really want to associate yourself with. He had never even interacted with aristocracy before.
"If it means I can take a shower everyday, I'm more than happy to do your dirty work, you old bastard."
Alastair ignores Samael's childish comment and hands him a small computer chip. "Here are the details of your next assignment. Be sure to dispose of it after uploading it to your neural link." Samael takes the chip and stands up. He doesn't say another word to Alastair, just nods and begins walking towards a door positioned behind the old man. "Be careful Samael, this job will be many times more dangerous than anything you have faced previously," Alastair says, turning his chair to face the departing Samael. Samael replies with a short chuckle. Samael couldn't believe that the old man sounded genuinely worried about him. "I'll be fine old man, just don't die before I come to collect my paycheck."
Samael exits through the door and enters into a small elevator lobby. He presses a button labeled, topside. The elevator begins its slow ascent to the upper levels of the city.