Fuzzy, Kenji, Sasha and Puppy - Saturday, July 28th, 2074 - Morning - Seattle Metroplex
The school week went by fast. Twice a day, Fuzzy attended a safety course taught by Mother Bear, who drilled magical safety into their heads. In the last class, Fuzzy had seen trideo presentations of people who'd cast spells incorrectly. They'd suffered what was called drain, which was how magic took a toll on the body if cast a particularly powerful spell, a spell was cast correctly or if you were unlucky, both.
On the non-lethal end, headaches, migraines, fatigue or even passing out was possible. Most people got over this kind of drain in an hour or two and a little drain was often expected even for casual usage of spells. Though on the lethal end, which came from casting spells above their level or losing control, blood had a way of leaking from the ears, eyes and mouth, if they didn't die altogether. Short of death, this kind of drain took days or even weeks to recover from as damage caused by magic couldn't be healed by magic.
To Fuzzy, the means and ways of dying were new, but this was still a safety class. The snap of a bowstring for example take off a few layers of skin, which is why she had extra padding on her hunting leathers where an arm guard would be. A steel trap could maim her if improperly recovered or set. And the business end of a spear or a knife was always unsafe. Unlike many of the students in her class, she'd learned some of these lessons the hard way or in some cases, seen those injuries on others who'd been careless while she'd lived with Rat Man and the other children he took care of.
It wasn't all learning though. In fact, Fuzzy had quite a lot of free time to explore the island, have realmeals with Sasha, play with Puppy, sleep in her very own cabin on her very own bed and generally acclimate herself to the rhythms of life in a new place. She'd even spent time with Mother Bear after class to go over all the spells that she could learn and which she should learn first. Everything that she'd learned about spells in that short time reaffirmed her choice. The heal spell would keep her at peak condition and to her, it was hands down the most useful spell that she wished that she could have had while growing up. Other spells like invisibility, while useful, could wait.
It was Saturday morning now and that meant that students could leave the island for the weekend and of course, everyone did. The entire boat was filled with chattering students who were no longer in their green and blue school uniforms and instead wore a seeming endless variety of clothing. Either they were wore something extremely fashionable, they wore well cut but ordinary clothing with brand names that no one but the ultra rich had ever heard of, or it was a blend of both.
Fuzzy wore her now cleaned patchwork hunting leathers, which were no longer black, but a dark brown after being cleaned. Nearby students occasionally pointed and laughed, but others stared and briefly chatted about her before going back to their own business.
At Kenji's insistence, Fuzzy and Kenji didn't sit together on the school boat as he was going to take her out today. At Fuzzy's insistence she took Puppy as she felt guilty for leaving him alone during her classes. Neither had a leash, but she was not the first nor the last awakened on Blake Island to work with animals. A collar and leash with a radio frequency ID tag (RFID) was produced by Julian to keep track of him in case he got lost. When this was explained to Fuzzy and how to track him via augmented reality, even if he disappeared out of sight. And this pleased her to no end after she'd been taught how to find him with the app as well.
She asked for her weapons, but her spear wasn't exactly legal to walk around with in Seattle without something called a "permit" and Kenji told her that her bow, while legal, would attract too much attention as well. Against her better judgement she listened to Kenji. So she took her her knives. At the moment, her best blade was primarily a skinning knife. It had a keen edge but it was fragile and barely a backup weapon. Her normal hunting knife had been well loved but it was old and it had been repaired a dozen times already, which was why Kenji's offer had been so enticing. A good knife in the barrens would take her half a month's kills to get her hands on.
She sat next to Sasha instead for the boat ride, who wore clothing that looked normal: Bluejeans, a black tank top and a pair of black sandals. It was too loud to talk due to the roar of the engine as freshmen were generally relegated to the back of the school boat. However, since Puppy had been overfed during breakfast and had been sleeping up until the moment, Sasha pulled out a small, chrome plated device about the size of a pack of gum. When she turned it on, the roar of the engine dulled significantly, as if it were far away. But within the little bubble of relative silence, the two girls could talk.
"Did you use a spell to quiet things down?" asked Fuzzy.
Sasha rolled her eyes, smiled at her and absently waved the white noise generator.
"No, I used a white noise generator," she said, "Why learn a silence spell when you can have one of these? Almost no one uses silence spells anymore."
Puppy, who'd woken up due to the engine, was still sleepy due to being full of half a breakfast burrito. A small one, but still. So after some stroking to calm him down, he fell right back asleep within minutes now that the sounds of the engine were dulled. Fuzzy even let Puppy lay in Sasha’s lap, though Fuzzy kept tight hold of his leash.
Fuzzy had seen the tops of the buildings of the metroplex before from Puyallup, but she was a barrens child through and through. She'd been born there, lived there and fully expected to die there one day without ever having left. Yet here she was and there those big buildings were. They seemed to grow larger the boat drew closer to the metroplex. Even at the docks the skyline was huge. The old Renraku arcology, now called the ACHE, loomed largest. It was two-hundred stories of black architecture and it shaped like a flat topped pyramid. It was also somehow seemed wider than it was tall and it was hard for her to grasp the sheer enormity of it.
Apparently Fuzzy had been staring for a while as it was minutes later when she heard Sasha's explosive sigh.
"Just look at all of that security," said Sasha, "What a zoo."
Fuzzy had no idea what a zoo was but as the school boat docked and Fuzzy looked over the edge, there were hundreds of professionally dressed looking people in dark clothing waiting on the docks along with numerous vehicles. These were mostly black sedans or armored limos ready whisk the students away. There were even what looked like two knights in silvery looking armor which Fuzzy pointed out.
"Who are they?" asked Fuzzy.
Sasha rolled her eyes, though this time in annoyance.
"They're for the elves from Tir Tairngire," she said, dismissively, "When the old United States broke apart, they took over Oregon like fifty years ago and now they pretend that they're nobility. They don't like humans much since Tir is elven supremacist. I got sneered at a lot behind my back a lot by them."
"So they're racists?" asked Fuzzy.
"Not to your face," said Sasha, "At least not these ones. But yeah, basically. There were two seniors last year that graduated. I guess that Tir sent some new nobility."
Fuzzy watched as two elegantly dressed elves, bedecked in silvery, flowing garb, descended the gangplank down to the docks. The young man had a slight build, pale skin and long, red hair and projected a cold air of authority. The young woman was actually just a little taller than him and more athletic looking, dusky skinned and with dark hair that was as long as his. She seemed to be chattering excitedly, which damaged the air of authority that the young man was trying to project. The two knights smoothly bowed low before them. Then just as smoothly, they fell into step, one in front of the duo, one behind, along with a normal security team made up entirely of elves in black suits that fanned out around them. They were ushered into a sleek, silvery car and a few of the other students, all of them elves, entered into the car too.
Fuzzy and Sasha stepped off the boat together. Sasha seemed to know where she was going, but she hesitated, turned around and then awkwardly smiled and waved at Fuzzy even though they'd been together for the entire half an hour long ride and Sasha didn't turn to leave just yet. And Fuzzy, now with a sleepy Puppy held in one arm so he wouldn't get stepped on, waved back because she didn't know what to do.
"I need to meet my security team," she said, "It's always a nightmare the first weekend. Maybe I'll see you around?"
"Sure," said Fuzzy.
A few more seconds passed. It wasn't silent because of the throng of students, the waves and of course, the sounds of the metroplex, but it was silent between them at least.
"Oh, hey," added Sasha, "Umm...Want to maybe hang out later? I could um...Show you around the Ares Arcology. If you're interested in something other than devil rats then we could go to the executive hunting grounds."
"Sounds good," said Fuzzy, "We'll have fun."
"Great!" exclaimed Sasha, cheerily, "Here's my comm code."
Sasha pulled out her commlink from her pocket, the modern equivalent of a smartphone, and made a flicking motion with two finger over it and towards Fuzzy. Since Fuzzy was wearing her AR goggles, she got a pop-up notice on her screen. She couldn't read it obviously but she managed to fumble through adding it to her contacts as Mother Bear had showed her a thing or two about how commlinks worked. Actually accessing her contacts and calling Sasha was a problem for another day, but at least she had it.
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Sasha looked delighted, waved goodbye at Fuzzy, walked away and turned to look at her one last time before disappearing into the crowd.
"Oh man," said Kenji.
The taller elf stood next to her as students eagerly funneled their way past them. Kenji was in his street clothes. He wore long black pants that hugged his frame, a black shirt with long sleeves and some sort of criss-cross mesh that looked oddly honeycombed. Looking closely, she saw a single stylized yellow bee hiding among one of them who had a cartoonish smile, hidden among all the black.
"What?" asked Fuzzy.
Kenji smiled knowingly and he wasn't sharing.
"What?" asked Fuzzy, a little louder.
"Got a full day today," said Kenji, who ignored the question, "You brought your dog though?
Fuzzy stroked Puppy, who still dozed despite the noise of the crowd.
"Yeah. Is that a problem?"
Kenji only shrugged.
"If you like it, I love it," said Kenji, with a small shake of his head, "Found out some stuff about Sasha since you've been spending so much time around her. Figured we might chat a bit while we wait."
"Why are we waiting?" asked Fuzzy.
Kenji lifted his hand and waved it at the crowd.
"Because almost everyone has a security detail but us," said Kenji, "We'd stand out if we just walked off into the 'plex. There is one student, a troll, the only troll on the island in fact, named Marco. I heard he just walks out into the city by himself most days. But he's the only one who does that."
"So?"
"So his family is one of the wealthiest and most connected families on the planet," said Kenji, "And he just saunters into the city like he's not worth millions of nuyen if he gets kidnapped."
"Huh," said Fuzzy, "I've seen him around."
Kenji squinted at her a bit.
"He's nine feet tall and four-hundred pounds. It'd be weird if you didn't see him around."
As if on cue, the island's only troll student stepped off the boat. The gangplank seemed to scream under his weight but it held. Fuzzy didn't get a good look at him, only his back. He had on a blue, button down, black slacks and black dress shoes. All of his clothing was troll sized, which was to say, enormous. But what drew Fuzzy's attention was his horns, which all trolls had. He didn't disappear into the crowd. In fact, he was so large and imposing a figure that it parted around him as he walked.
"So about those deets on Sasha," prompted Kenji.
Fuzzy felt a little bad about asking about her friend, but she was curious. So she reluctantly nodded.
"I think I'd rather just learn it from her," said Fuzzy.
Kenji pursed his lips in thought and AR contacts lit up while they watched the assembled students continue to depart with their security teams.
"Probably not the best idea," he said.
"Maybe."
"Definitely. Some of these corp kids are all right, but they come with serious baggage. It's a hazard not to know."
"I'm sure."
Kenji puffed out his cheeks and then nodded.
"Okay," he said, with a slow shake of his head, "Your funeral. Let's talk about you then. What's your deal? I've heard a lot of rumors, but no one really seems to know anything about you other than you do badass solo hunts and knock down guys in one punch."
Fuzzy smirked a little.
"How am I supposed to trust you if you just tried to talk about Sasha to me?" asked Fuzzy, "What's to say you wouldn't talk about me?"
Kenji jerked his head to the side in a way that said, "Follow me". They moved away from vicinity of the school boat to a section of the pier that wasn't particularly crowded.
"I won't out you because that'll out me," said Kenji, "I just want to know what I'm working with. Got a good feeling about you, but that's it. It's just a feeling."
Fuzzy thought about not telling him anything but she did need friends and allies. Still, she didn't want to just volunteer information and figured it'd be best that Kenji ask.
"How about I ask you something, you ask me something and we talk until everyone clears out?" asked Kenji.
Fuzzy nodded reluctantly.
"Where you from?" asked Kenji.
Fuzzy arched an eyebrow. Though she wasn't in a gang, she knew how gang members talked. "Where you from" was a way of asking which gang you were in, though to an ordinary person, they'd take it as asking simply where someone was from. So what he was actually asking was two questions and testing her reaction to the less obvious question. He seemed to have sensed the fact that she realized this too.
"I'm from Puyallup," she said, "And I'm not in a gang."
Kenji grinned, but didn't otherwise acknowledge that he'd asked two questions.
"What part?" he asked, "The Strip?"
Though Fuzzy had never been there, The Strip was on the most northern edge of the Puyallup barrens where the ash fell the lightest as it was right on the border of Tacoma, which itself was south of Seattle proper where they were now. After all, the metroplex wasn't just a city. It was a city made up of cities. The strip was where some of the poorest people who still worked in the metroplex proper tended to live.
"No, I'm from east Puyallup," said Fuzzy.
Kenji furrowed his brow.
"What's out there?" he asked.
Fuzzy shrugged.
"Not a whole lot," said Fuzzy, "Ash drifts, mostly. There used to be Carbonado out to the east a few years ago. It was a mining town, but they got overrun by the Chulos, who are an ork Latino gang. There's the Petrowski farm to the northwest. Good people. I swap meat for food with them sometimes. There's a swap meet that meets every once and a while out to the west. And otherwise there's really a whole lot of nothing. Old buildings, old roads, a little nature in the cracks and the ash. Not much else."
Fuzzy didn't really want to talk about where she'd lived exactly while growing up. Rat Man's place, which had been affectionately called "The Club", was an old, fixed up country club on what had once been a golf course. It was where she and the other kids he'd taken in had lived and worked until they were old enough to make room. What protected the place was that it was on land that was basically worthless, it was on top of a hill which made getting to them something of a slog and it was remote enough for most people not to bother with it.
"So...What," said Kenji, slowly, "You're just hunting shit out in the ash? Post-apocalpytic style?"
"I don't really know what that last part means, but sure," she said, "But yeah, I hunt out in the ash drifts."
"How can anything live out there?" he asked.
Fuzzy shrugged.
"Mostly people don't," she said, "There's maybe two hundred people or so that live out there. Probably less. The occasional ghoul pack roams in, but mostly it's just ash and what used to be a city underneath."
"Bleak."
"Yeah. Your turn. Where you from?"
Kenji grinned and lifted his chin at the enormous, black megastructure that is the ACHE.
"That right there," he said, "Twentieth floor, D block. I'm only technically in a gang. Affiliated, but a member, not active."
Fuzzy furrowed her brow at Kenji and felt her distrust rise. Sensing this, Kenji already had his hands up and an explanation ready.
"Everyone is at least affiliated if you live there long enough," he said, "No avoiding it."
"Why?"
"It's more about whose territory you're in," said Kenji, "You pay your protection money or do work or both. If you don't, you're out on your ass in the corridors. If you don't starve to death first, you suck smoke at the end of the month when they light all the trash on fire."
"Do a lot of people live there?" she asked.
"I get another question after this," he said.
Fuzzy glowered at him, but nodded.
"Yeah, lots," said Kenji, "The police toss in all of the homeless people who don't won't sign up as an indenture with a corp or go to the barrens. No one likes them out on the streets, yeah? Official number from the metro government is ninety-thou. Actual number is a hun-fiddy-thou. The extras are mostly SINless, you know? And we only get food for ninety-thou."
Fuzzy's eyes widened in shock.
"Wait, you get that much food?" asked Fuzzy.
"All of that food and not nearly enough."
"What do you do for it?"
Kenji snorted.
"Starve, mostly," he said, bitterly, "Feast and famine, boom and bust. We get food on the third and the eighteenth of every month. Government buys it from Aztechnology. It runs out, people get angry, they start fighting, then they get too hungry to fight. Today's the twenty-eighth, so the fighting is basically over. People are just huddled down. Either they got food or they don't. And if you got food, you got some sort of hustle to buy it."
Fuzzy had starved before. Winters mostly or when the ash was so dense that game was scarce. Scarcer, really, it was always scarce. But they had feast times too. The Petrowskis were good neighbors, though they lived several miles away. No one starved to death.
The crowd was finally starting to clear out.
"You can't just...Make food?" she asked.
"I mean, some people do," said Kenji, "Gangs mostly. Food is power. It's how they put on for their block. You know, show off. Some people tried a big farm a few years back. Indoor farming, you know, like how Aztechnology does it. Then the government just delivered less food and cut the power to that block. The farms fell apart. They like keeping us dependent."
Fuzzy had this horrible feeling in her stomach.
"So people just starve?" she asked.
Kenji shrugged and looked away.
"Most people die from the smoke," said Kenji, "The center is a big, open pit that everyone tosses their garbage into. Trash gets burned at the end of the month. All of that trash suffocates anyone in the corridors. Sometimes the police toss people in on garbage day. No chance. Unlucky."
They were both quiet for a while and they watched the last of the crowd leave. The dockworkers, who hadn't been allowed on the docks while the wealthy were here, came back with their robotic drones and got back to work. Only then did Kenji move and so Fuzzy walked beside him as they aimed themselves towards the city proper.
"Sounds horrible," said Fuzzy, belatedly.
"You get used to it. The ACHE is about that boom and bust," he said, snapping his fingers after the words boom and bust, "You know, cycles. You're not likely to get shot or stabbed like out in the Redmond barrens. I mean, on the wrong time of the month, the wrong block, sure. But the ACHE kills you by wearing you down. At least at this time of the month. It's chill now. Sad and chill."
They approached a road at the end of the dock. Next to that road was a sidewalk that was just covered in a mass of metahumanity. Fuzzy thought that all of the students and teachers on the island had been a lot of people. Then she thought that everyone on the dock had been a lot of people. And of course, Kenji had talked about how many people were in the ACHE, but that had just been numbers that hadn't made sense in her head. But this single sidewalk alone had more people on it than she'd ever seen in her entire life. Not just all at once, but total. And now she saw them all at once.
Fuzzy stopped, clutched Puppy a little closer and felt suddenly nervous. Part of her didn't want to go into the city- Wanted to get back on the boat and go back to the island or go back to Puyallup. The sheer mass of people, of metahumanity, was intimidating. And Fuzzy was about to see the parts of the metroplex where most of the people actually lived for the very first time.
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