Fuzzy, Kenji and Puppy - Saturday, July 28th, 2074 - Morning - The ACHE's Red Market

Upon reaching this level on the escalator turned stairs, Fuzzy watched the split between tourists, who almost all wore clear masks like she did and the locals. The tourists looked differing kinds of well to do, which meant not starving or terrified. The ACHE locals as she was growing to think of them continued to ascend. A few of the locals looked decently fed and clothed, though scared or resigned. Most though looked emaciated and bedraggled, wearing scraps of the flats, the disposable clothing. They all went up to the fifth and final floor.

"Poor fuckers," said Kenji.

"What's up there?" she asked.

"Show you after," he said, "Gun show first. Gotta get those bullets for my cousin. Plus I figured you might want some new hunting supplies. This is a good place to get them cheap."

Fuzzy ear's perked up at the mention of the words "hunting supplies" and "cheap". So with a final look towards the resigned and terrified masses, she followed Kenji towards what he called the "gun show".

The "gun show" was active with storefronts large and small as well as hundreds of tables full of weapons. Customers and dealers bought, sold, bartered and swapped the kinds of thing that went bang bang, though it wasn't all bang bang as there were melee weapons and weapon accessories.

As they walked, Fuzzy spied an entire table laden with pistols of all sorts at the front near the stairs. There were revolvers, semi-automatics, machine pistols, sliverguns that fired the spiked flechette rounds and even single or dual shot derringers that were barely bigger than one of her fingers.

On the other side were numerous knives which was a staple of gun shows. From switch blades, to butterfly knives, to survival knives like the one Kenji had promised her, to wicked looking short swords, to curved kukris, to monofilament knives that had a brittle edge that would cut through basically anything and of course, the dumb, ornamental garbage that was not suited for combat, only for those with no taste.

"Hey, keep up," called Kenji.

Fuzzy saw him a dozen steps away and it seemed that she'd stopped to look at the knives. She hurried towards him, careful to make sure she didn't bump against anyone, especially with Puppy still in her pocket. She gave him a quick pet to make sure he was okay and he gave her hand a few licks in return.

"Can't help but look?" he asked, with a little grin.

"Wanted to check it out," she said.

"You a knife girl, then?"

"You need a knife to hunt."

"True."

Kenji nodded and wended his way past even more people. Fuzzy followed more closely this time though she kept looking around.

"Ever been to something like this?" he asked.

They passed by a stall selling fully automatic rifles which seemed particularly popular.

"Kind of," she said, "The swap meet down in Puyallup has a few people who sell weapons. I'd buy materials for arrows when I couldn't scrounge for them and swap for kills."

"Make a lot of nuyen down there from hunting?" he asked.

Fuzzy shook her head even though he wasn't looking at her, realized this and then answered.

"No one uses nuyen that deep in Puyallup," said Fuzzy, "We mostly swap stuff."

Kenji stopped in front of a dealer that had boxes and boxes of forty and sixty millimeter grenades meant for grenade launchers. Unlike other stalls, there was neither a crowd around it nor were there even other tables nearby.

"What'd you do for money?" asked Kenji, "Like...How does that work?"

Fuzzy shrugged.

"Everyone knows everyone," she said, "Or knows someone who knows them. And I don't know about money, but small stuff was pretty handy for evening out a trade. Bullets are a favorite, arrows, gas mask cartridges, sealed food, potable water, bandages, that helps settle the balance. But most people don't really bother doing that."

"What, you take it on faith?" joked Kenji.

"Well, yeah," said Fuzzy, "Everyone knows everyone. If they know you're a cheat, you won't do business for long. Also the next time you're out of supplies or your home gets buried in ash or if you get harassed by gangers or ghouls, you want your neighbors to come and help you."

Then she wavered a bit.

"I'm actually from the furthest out east that isn't part of a gang," she said, "So I was still getting to know people at the swap meet before I got recruited by the school."

"So what, everyone just helps each other and gets along?" asked Kenji, incredulously.

"Neighbors help each other," she said, "We don't always get along, but we do help. Everyone knows everyone...Except for the gangers. Some people deal with them, but I didn't. Sometimes people would come to the swap meet who weren't locals, but you don't take them on faith. They don't need you, so they might cheat you, so I never talked to them. It's complicated. You know, like this place."

She waved her hand around.

"It's like the opposite," she said, "Too many people don't know each other. I'm guessing everyone cheats everyone."

"Not everyone," said Kenji, "But someone who won't cheat you is pretty rare. Most of the time if you want to do biz, they fuck you over for a while and then you fuck them over for a while and then you come to an understanding."

Fuzzy frowned in disapproval.

"I don't like that," she said.

"It is what it is."

"Interested in some high explosives?" asked a gruff looking orc.

Fuzzy turned her head to the merchant and noticed that he not only had two full cybernetic arms, but his head had been chromed out as well. And though she didn't really know anything about explosives, missing entire limbs and his face didn't speak well about someone who sold explosives.

"Not right now," said Kenji, smoothly, "But we'll let you know."

He hustled Fuzzy away from the table full of high explosives, though before she left, she saw a box full of frag grenades which made her move just a tiny bit faster.

"They let you take grenades out of the ACHE?" asked Fuzzy.

"Got many of them out in Puyallup?"

"I mean, the gangs do," she answered, "But usually only if there's some big score that they want or if they're in a full war."

"Lot like here," said Kenji, "A frag is like turning on a blender if you dump it in a corridor. But yeah, they let you take it out if you know who to pay off. And if you don't, you pay the right dealer and they do it for you for a price. The walls only keep people in if you don't have a SIN and enough nuyen. Creds are king though. Got enough of them and you can waltz out with an arsenal for a pretty small bribe. Lone Star, one of the two flavors of corporate cops, runs the walls and the pay is shit for the very few cops who keep everyone in. Taking bribes is how they make ends meet. The more illegal your merchandise is, the more you pay to the cops to look the other way."

"Huh," said Fuzzy, "Isn't that a problem?"

"Well yeah. Technically there's government oversight," he said, using air quotes for government oversight, "Since the cops in Seattle are corporate, not government. If a cop gets too greedy, you maybe make a play for some "oversight". Maybe you get them into a bidding war. Maybe you have to pay both extra. Fucking middlemen, always with their hands out."

"What's a middleman?"

Kenji barked out a single laugh.

"Anyone in between me and the client who has their hands out and doesn't add any value to me doing biz," he said, "Corp cops and government in this case, but Seattle is bursting with middlemen. Easier to have your hand out for someone else to pay you instead of work."

"So why pay them?" asked Fuzzy, "If they don't do anything for you?"

"Oh they hate it when you don't pay them," he said, "Don't pay the cops or the government and you get caught? Good luck doing biz again. Might end up in prison too for smuggling illegal contraband."

"But they get paid by smugglers," said Fuzzy.

"Middlemen don't add any value to a deal, but they sure can subtract," said Kenji.

Fuzzy blinked once and then understood.

"Oh, they're thieves," she said, "Why didn't you say so?"

"I mean," said Kenji, in an oddly defensive tone, "Not all middlemen are thieves. Some do provide a legitimate service. That said, yeah, mostly thieves."

Kenji finally found the store that he was looking for, which was an actual store and not just a set of tables. Fuzzy couldn't read the sign though but there were crudely drawn bullets on each side of the words on the sign. The store itself also seemed to be jam packed with bullets in boxes.

From behind a counter, a dwarf stood on a raised platform so he could see eye to eye with his customers. He gave Kenji a nod. The dwarf looked older, light skinned, with simple jeans and a red t-shirt with the anarchist "A" on it with a black concealed carry vest on top which did not fully conceal the heavy, semi-automatic pistol on his hip. He had full sleeve tattoos which ranged from art that looked like it'd been done in someone's garage to pretty okay.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"Hey stranger," said the dwarf, "What're you buyin'?"

"Here for Clever," said Kenji, "Picking up his APDS rounds."

The dwarf whistled low and nodded.

"What's APDS?" asked Fuzzy.

The dwarf looked at her, sizing her up.

"Who's the tourist, Kenji?" he asked.

"She's a friend from high school," he said, deadpan.

The dwarf only shrugged.

"Fine, don't tell me then," he said, "APDS is armor piercing discarding sabot. Tungsten cores that are meant for anti-armor combat."

When Fuzzy didn't understand, Kenji supplied his own answer.

"They're bullets that blow holes through steel plates," said Kenji, "Or through people if you've got too much money and you want to show off."

"Oh," said Fuzzy.

"The SLAP rounds are cheaper," said the dwarf, "i keep telling him."

"Yeah," said Kenji, obviously annoyed, "But the light armor piercing won't take down a drone and Clever did that one time."

"Was that the steel lynx?" asked the dwarf, "He really do that shit?"

Kenji nodded begrudgingly.

"That fucking busted ass mini spider tank that those insane gangers fixed up a year ago?" asked Kenji.

"Yeah, that one."

"Yeah, he did that. Get a couple of drinks in him and he'll start in on it. The drone gets bigger and less busted every time he tells it. Nastier weapon mounted on it too each time too. Get him drunk enough and he'll claim it was firing lasers. It actually was impressive but I'm not going to tell him that. He's got a big-ass head about it."

The dwarf smiled and pushed two boxes of bullets towards Kenji, who took them in hand. Then he turned towards Fuzzy.

"Interest you in anything?" he asked, "You got the look of a huntress about you."

"I am one," she said.

"Bullets are good too," he said, "If you take some literature with you, you get a free bullet."

The dwarf hooked his thumb towards a number of old looking books and beat up looking computer chips. Kenji groaned aloud.

"Wouldn't be a gun show without someone pushing political lit on us," griped Kenji.

"Can I pick any bullet?" asked Fuzzy.

The dwarf smiled and waved expansively to his store.

"A small sacrifice for spreading the truth," he said, "Since you're with Kenji, you pick whatever bullet you want."

"Fuuuuck," groaned Kenji, "Don't do this shit."

The dwarf leaned forward on the counter that separated himself and Kenji.

"Thought you'd treat your plug better than this," he teased, "Just words."

Fuzzy stopped paying attention to them while they bickered with one another. Meanwhile, she perused the bullets, of which there were many and she only knew a little about bullets. There was the gun that Rat Man used on very rare occasions and those bullets were huge so she decided to look for those. She couldn't find it in the store until she came back and looked behind the dwarf. There, above him, was a single example round next to an enormous box of bullets.

"That one," she said, and pointed.

The dwarf looked up at the round as did Kenji, and then they both looked at her.

"The fuck do you need a fifty cal round for?" asked Kenji, "You got some kind of elephant infestation or something? Or are you some sort of anime protag on their way to slay god?"

"Rat Man uses the gun that uses those to scare off ghouls and gangers," said Fuzzy.

"Ehhhh..." said the dwarf, "That's like three nuyen though. Wholesale."

"Hey, you want to pimp your lit, you get that bullet down here to shake its ass," snarked Kenji.

The dwarf grumbled and offered Fuzzy the .50 BMG round, which was longer than her hand. And with it, he slid a computer chip meant to slot into a commlink with a handwritten label on it that Fuzzy obviously couldn't read.

"Cool," said Fuzzy, "Thanks."

"Come back and tell me about it sometime," said the dwarf, "Another bullet if you come back and tell me about it."

They made their way back out into the main gun show.

"Mind if I see that chip?" asked Kenji.

"It's mine," said Fuzzy.

"Yeah, I guess it is," said Kenji, somewhat exasperated, "Look, gun and bullets and knives and shit will kill people. But gun show lit does too in its way. Anarchist lit isn't nearly as bad as the human supremacists that fester at the back of this place with their old flags from dead countries, but any of the lit they push on you at a gun show is like...A problem."

Fuzzy tapped the fifty caliber bullet against her chin as she sensed a bargain.

"Pay me," she said.

Kenji grumbled just like the dwarf had.

"Get you some arrows, okay?" he asked.

Fuzzy stubbornly folded her arms.

"How many?"

After some quick negotiation and a trip to a hunting supply table, Fuzzy walked away from the gun show with one fifty caliber round, six flu-flu arrows, which were used for hunting small birds in flight, six broadhead arrows meant for hunting deer and minus the collected works of Peter Kropotkin.

"Fifth level I guess," said Kenji.

"Isn't your cousin waiting on those bullets?" asked Fuzzy.

Kenji checked over the edge and then shook his head.

"He's still getting his arms worked on," said Kenji, "Come on. Gotta show you something."

Fuzzy knew she was odd as she and Kenji were far better dressed than anyone going up. And she wore a respirator, which no one else did. They ascended the broken escalator among the better fed but terrified new denizens of the ACHE along with those who looked like they'd been here a while, who were starving and desperate. The person in front of them, Fuzzy had no idea if they were a man or a woman, had to crawl upstairs on hands and knees and they were holding up the line until others just stepped over and sometimes on them on their way up.

"Got fifteen slots left for Ares Macrotechnology!" shouted a well dressed human with a datapad in hand, "We're looking for janitors. Five year contract! Food and lodging provided!"

The shouting man stood on a raised platform in an otherwise bare looking level. Multiple hundreds of desperate looking people stood out in the crowd before them. Many people raised their hands but only fifteen were picked and they were picked fast. Soon enough, yet another person got onto the raised platform, this one an elven man in a shabby looking suit.

"Evo needs three class B drone operators!" exclaimed the man, through his mask.

Again, hundreds of people desperately raised their hands.

"With prior experience!" shouted the man, "We're not looking to hardwire new skills into you! We need crane operators for one of the Yamatsu naval yards. Three year long contract! Food and lodging provided!"

Almost everyone put their hands down and it grew eerily silent as the desperate looked on. One person had their hand up and they were quickly approached by the elf in the shabby suit.

"What is this?" asked Fuzzy.

"Told you there were ways out of the ACHE," said Kenji, "You can try to earn you way out, which is basically impossible unless you got a crew so you don't get robbed. You can die and there's a lot of ways to do that. You can have someone buy you out, but most people here don't have people out there who can do that or you wouldn't be in here in the first place. Or you can become a wage slave, which is what they do here."

"What's a wage slave?" asked Fuzzy.

Kenji shrugged one shoulder, looking absolutely disgusted with this place.

"It's when you're so horribly poor and in debt that the corps can do anything to you," said Kenji, "Except here, they don't even pay for these "contracts". You work off your time with them in years before they start paying you. They don't even bother to pay a wage here. It's all indentured servitude. Slavery with extra steps. Either way it's the same shit with the megacorps. If you get in with the corps, you're never getting out, pay or not, because you go into debt while you're working."

"That's awful," said Fuzzy, "Why is this allowed?"

"Corps be corpin," said Kenji, "Kind of why the ACHE exists. Shit is bad enough here that working sixteen hours a day seven days a week for years while you sleep in a pod and eat bullshit from a tube is an upgrade. People do actually got choices in the ACHE. They're just bad ones. These fuckers actually used to be way worse. They didn't even pretend that you could get out. Lifetime contracts, even for elves who live a long fucking time."

Kenji made hard eyes at the current "recruiter".

"Way bad a few years ago. Corporate negotiators, armed goon squads for "protection", armed security drones, the works," he continued, "And then people figured they didn't like that so much. It's the Red Market, so you can't steal, but uh...Some of them were real acting out of pocket, you know? Doing some extreme sadist shit because no one is stopping them. One corporate negotiator started branding people for fun because apparently just chipping them like animals wasn't enough. Then one day, someone gets a hot brand in the eye and it gets shoved too far back. Branded guy dies bad enough that a riot kicks off and a lot of people die, but no one steals anything. Everyone and everything just gets left there. And the market doesn't like the corps so no one does anything."

"Fuck."

"Yeah," said Kenji, "But what it means is no more goon squads abusing people, no more security drones shocking or shooting people, no more corp negotiators, no more no shit lifetime slavery contracts. It's all ACHE locals now working for the corps for shorter term contracts. This shit is trash but it's better than it was."

"I guess that makes sense," said Fuzzy, "In Puyallup we wouldn't tolerate any of this though."

"I mean, it's good that you can," he said, "But we can't get rid of these fuckers. This is about as good as it gets."

Kenji pulled a commlink that looked like it had been nice at one time, but the screen was scratched up and it had a dent or two.

"What are you doing?" asked Fuzzy.

"Turning my commlink on," said Kenji, "Let them know I'm awakened. Stand back. I'm gonna get mobbed like starving seagulls found the very last french fry."

"Why?" asked Fuzzy.

"Gonna see if anyone tries anything," said Kenji.

Fuzzy took a few steps back and Kenji tapped at his commlink. In seconds, half a dozen subcontracted corporate negotiators descended on Kenji with another dozen on the way. Just like he said, they began to mob him. Some waved their data pads in front of his face but no one that she saw touched him, though it was hard to see anything as they converged.

"You're awakened? Four, no two weeks contract for Lone Star! We'll treat you..."

"Any security experience?! Horizon Group wants..."

"Wuxing Incorporated will pay a five-thousand nuyen bonus if you sign right..."

Kenji roughly shoved one aside. Not enough to hurt and the one he shoved hadn't been the target. It seemed that Kenji only wanted to make room. The elf in the shabby clothing looking for crane operators was attempting to shove Kenji's thumb onto a data pad against his will.

Kenji didn't seem to like this as he threw a badly telegraphed overhand right- A haymaker, which the shabbily dressed elf dodged with ease. Apparently he had experience with being attacked. However, this had just been a feint as Kenji hit him with his left, a quick strike that snapped out with the back of Kenji's fist to the bridge of the elf's nose. The elf screamed in pain as he held his nose with both hands, dropping his guard. Kenji took a moment to grab the data pad from his hands, shove him onto his back and throw it down at him with all of his might before giving him a few solid kicks to the ribs.

"I said no!" shouted Kenji, "You know what it is! You don't touch people up here!"

Then he turned off his commlink and calmly walked back to Fuzzy while the denizens of the ACHE looked on. A few cheered but most stayed silent. The other negotiators did not look happy, but they didn't approach him after the beating that Kenji doled out.

"What was that for?" asked Fuzzy, "Did you just want to kick someone's ass or something?"

Kenji only shrugged.

"I was going to try and show you how bad the corps want awakened," said Kenji, "So I guess I showed that off. Corps want awakened folk like us real bad and once they got you, they will never, ever let go no matter what they say. But some fucker touched me and tried to make me sign with a thumbprint against my will. Corps and their contracts, man. Touching gets you yelled at or maybe hit, but trying to force a thumbprint sig contract? I'm no one's wage slave. Anything goes on that asshole for that."

Kenji gave him another kick and leaned down to speak to the groaning man.

"You're done here," said Kenji, coldly, "It's on sight if me or anyone else I know catches you here."

Fuzzy pursed her lips and shrugged, figuring that the man had earned a beating even even if Kenji had baited him. The ACHE had customs and the man had broken one of them. The enthusiasm to recruit Kenji into the corporate life had cooled significantly after that and so they proceeded back down the broken escalator while the corporate "recruiter" subcontractors began to bid for wage slaves once more like nothing had happened.

"All right," she said, "I notice you didn't answer my question though."

Kenji didn't bother to hide his smirk.

"Yeah, I didn't," he said, "There's always one or two who touches you and you gotta let the new chums know what it is. You know, not to let them touch you like they own you. But that thumbprint sig he tried to get? Oh, he got off real easy because I'm cool and you're here. I was just showing you...You know, we go to a corp school. They'll come at you different since it's all the high up shit, but don't get caught up in their bullshit. They'll eat you alive."

"Said the french fry," snarked Fuzzy.

Kenji made a farting noise with his mouth and waved his hand dismissively.

"That was never my real SIN," said Kenji, "Think I'm crazy? Shit. There was no risk of me going wage slave. But you got to kick someone's ass sometimes or they think they can do anything to you."

Fuzzy pursed her lips in thought.

"Less branding that way," said Fuzzy.

"Oh yeah," said Kenji, "Beating someone's ass if they need their ass beat keeps shit civil around here."

---

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