The area immediately around the Link ship and station was a jumble of shoulder height concrete barriers and high razor wire topped fence, patrolling Shepherds moving around in small groups or standing in pairs watching the crowd. The spot had been a plaza and park before first contact came roaring out of the sky to invite us to their virtual economy.

I purposefully walked down the massive stairway of the station and into one of the corridors created by the concrete barriers. The one closest to the fenced off commercial lane had more soldiers posted every few hundred yards, there to discourage hijacking attempts this close to the Link. I passed trucks, wagons, cars, and any vehicle large enough to carry a decent amount of cargo waiting in line for one of the loading bays at the Station. I followed along the outside of the lane, walking quickly and with purpose, doing my best to look like a hard target with little of value to take. It wasn't entirely a bluff, or too difficult really.

I’m not a small guy, I stand a hair over 6 foot 1 and earn my living by breaking and hauling rocks around. Plus I’d done some jail time shortly after the Links landed, and had learned a few things. I did a year of hard labor for taking a bribe at my first job in the Faction Capital, and decided I kind of enjoyed it. The hard labor, that is. There's something meditative about hard work, and it had the added effect of keeping me strong and in shape.

I’d only been mugged a couple of times, pretty early into my contract, and only once lost anything significant. I still hated thinking about it, I grimaced and shook the thought from my head. Now was not the time for reflection on my weakest moments. Pushing my line of thinking back to confident thoughts, I trudged along and passed a set of soldiers posted in a small tower built into the walls and fences along the road.

One of them directed a device at me from the top of the tower, some kind of scanner. I smiled under my mask and waved to the guy, who quickly lost interest in me. I was happy for their presence. Unlike many of the people living this close to the Link, I had a job, an apartment, and a guaranteed spot in a booth. I was playing their game, trying to build up humanity's presence in the Ranking. In return I got a tax break for working with one of the Ambassador species, Rosso, and the general hatred and jealousy of the desperate masses who all wanted a spot in one of the very limited Link booths. The least they could do was cover me for a little bit on my way home.

After passing another couple sets of watch towers, I finally turned off onto one of the smaller side streets. The first few buildings were new, tall towers with armored store fronts on the ground floor and what I assumed were offices above. I’d never been in the newer construction that followed the arterial trade road.

I continued on, away from the sparse foot traffic around the road and further down the dark side street. There was a sharp contrasting line that I crossed, from shiny new towering buildings along the route, to the pre-Link construction that had existed before they eminent domained the whole corridor. Consisting of the wide road, a number of rail lines, and even a runway that sat on top of a massive warehouse they had constructed with new imported techniques.The Government had started building the massive trade route in the first few weeks after the ships had vertically landed and made their invitation to Linked.

The riskiest part of my walk home was coming up, and I felt anxiety building up for a possible confrontation. I took a lot of precautions, and even alternated my routes home, but I knew there were organized gangs that targeted people who had contracts. Spotters watching people coming out would call back to their outlaw friends to let them know who looked worth robbing. Plus the Purists, who wanted to destroy the Links entirely, and all sorts of simply hungry and desperate people who would seize any chance at a full stomach.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

I took a turn and walked up the steps to one of the run down apartment buildings. Not my apartment building, but one I had the door security code for. I could cut through the interior hallway and onto my street, my smaller even more rundown apartment building was just a few doors down from there. I tried not to take this route very often, but since I had the bag of food on me today I decided it was exactly the type of run that I saved this route for.

I punched in the 6 digit code to the door and stepped through into a small airlock entryway. After giving the second door the same code, I made it into the ground floor lobby. Hustling across and through yet another doorway into the interior hallway, I sighed a breath of relief when I saw the clear hall ahead of me. I kept my pace, all but running passed a dozen doors on each side of the corridor. I slowed as I approached the exit door to the lobby on this side of the building. I could hear voices ahead of me on the other side of the cheap hollow wooden door.

“Ay girl, you on fourth? When you gonna let me take you out?” A loud male voice called out, somewhat muffled on the other side. There was a more distant response that I couldn't make out, and a chorus of “Oooh” from a number of voices. I heard the first voice respond, but too quiet to hear this time.

My heart hammered in my ears, but I cracked the door open and tried to get a look at what was happening in the lobby. Peeking through, I could see a group of five or six guys sitting on the staircase, they were all turned and looking away from me up the staircase. One of them was standing at the upper landing, holding on to the hand rail and talking presumably to some girl upstairs. I really didn’t want to be on the streets any later than I had to be, and it would take me a half an hour to circle around to a different route. I weighed the risks, my building was not far, if I could make it through the lobby and outside I could probably outrun them. I pulled back slightly and checked my mobile, seeing if Rin or Tev had responded yet. Thankfully a new message notification was waiting for me.

Rin: Yeah, watch out. Street is hot, purists firebombed the neighbors a few doors down. Sec all over

That was both good and bad news. While it was worrying that the Purists were bombing residential buildings in the city again, it was useful for tonight because the street would be flooded with shepherds. Seeing the guys on the stairs were distracted and having some intel on the street outside. I clenched my jaw and pushed the door open, keeping my eyes forward as I walked straight through the lobby.

I hit the bar to open the first door of the airlock, just as one of the guys turned and noticed me, standing and yelling after me, “ Hey! What's the rush man, you got a smoke?”

I didn't even turn to look at them as I continued through the airlock, slamming into the outer door and bursting out onto my block. I glanced up and down the street, immediately jogging across the sidewalk and roadway. A motor vehicle might drive down these streets a couple of times a month anymore, and there were piles of trash and abandoned cars scattered around. A number of the mostly brick buildings were hollowed out by fire, and a few doors down from mine I could see a still-smoldering building to add to the list.

The Shepherds, the Council's quick reaction force with a seriously ironic name, had a few of their big armored flying drop-ships parked flanking the building, and the whole street was soaked with stinking river water.

I glanced behind me and noticed the opportunists inside had not followed me onto the street and continued over towards my building, rubbernecking to watch what was happening down the street. It seemed like it was pretty quiet down there now, I could see the soldiers had a handful of people cuffed and pressed face first against one of the vehicles, and were talking to a few other people I sort of recognized from the area.

Making it to my building, a converted concrete construction commercial building that had been divided into apartments, I glanced up and waved at the tiny hidden camera we had installed to our tiny courtyards gate and heard the locking mechanism unlatch. I ducked through and pulled the gate shut behind me and blew out a big sigh, dropping the tension of the journey home at the gate. There was a small entirely concrete courtyard between the gate and our front door, not even big enough to park a small car in. I crossed it, passing Rins motorcycle that he had cobbled together from scrap, and unlocked the steel door before walking through.