The trip out to Block M, Stack 17, Level 12, Pod 7 was relatively simple.

Save for a few bumps into early morning errand-runners, and a close call with a pair of guards too busy discussing holoball scores than looking out; it had taken a while, but I’d made it.

When compared against my far more eventful subterranean journey within the maintenance tunnels, the trip had been a leisurely stroll. I'd made my way away from the Goons and their baying shouts, taking great care to avoid being followed before ending up here: In front of the residence of one Robin P. Franklin. Co-worker and Shift Supervisor for Section Four-D, Shift Three.

“Somebody better have died, or I swear..." Rob stated as he glared out at me from the Outer Lock's screen. Roughened by exposure to the elements, and possessing all the hallmarks of a bear being woken early from hibernation; The expression was anything but welcoming.

It had already been a long night with little sign I'd reach an end which didn't involve a bad result. In hindsight? Rob's less than warm reception made me wish I'd thought more about what to say before I'd hit the call button. He looked as tired as I felt.

I lowered my hood and stepped into the light, allowing the Outer Lock's optical pick-up to frame my face.

"Someone did." I said. Flatly. "Hey to you too, Rob."

The scowl disappeared and was replaced by a look of shocked recognition. His bushy eyebrows shot upward, practically disappearing into the Chestnut colored hair which matched his burly beard.

"Owen. What?!" He bleated out.

He force coughed once into his closed fist, and managed to choke off whatever he was about to accidentally say next.

He turned back to glare at me, eyebrows scrunching together like a pair of hairy caterpillars as he regained his composure. His voice practically growled as the speaker rumbled with his discontentment at being surprised.

"If you're HERE. Who's covering my shift?!" he demanded.

His scowl returned two-fold as he attempted to cover his initial reaction by lowering his tone and morphing before my eyes from "Poked-Woke-Bear Rob", to "Boss Rob"; My least favorite.

Laced with an undercurrent of barely contained irritation, bridled rage, and unspoken annoyance: "Boss Rob" was the voice he used when he unceasingly chewed out whomever dared bother him with ridiculous requests and lazy excuses.

Like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar; I clammed up. A familiar feeling of having done something wrong washed over me as he glared.

I felt my face redden as I suddenly felt nervous. It became obvious to me I wasn't exactly sure how much weight a few supposed favors would amount to in Rob's eyes. The double cover I'd been in the middle of working before I'd been dismissed and summarily fired was to be one of them, but...No. I was desperate.

“Uh,” I eeked out and winced, realizing how suspicious the next part might sound as I mentally fumbled for a way to present my case.

Rob's eyes pierced through the screen at me as he squinted. An uneasy feeling grew in the pit of my stomach as I continued to stumble. The suspicion came through in waves as his brown eyes probed the screen's borders for more information, like an Owl hunting for a scrabbling Rat on a forest floor.

“Yeah. Little bit of a problem with that. Any way we could talk about this inside? It's, uh...freezing out here," was all I could say.

I was suddenly not quite so sure coming to Rob's was the best idea I'd ever had.

Rob opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted as clicking noises began to issue from the feed. He blinked rapidly, looking as if he'd gotten something stuck in his eye and couldn't get it clear. Like a spinning globe, the right orb of his eye spun within its socket. It would've been alarming, except, I knew Rob. Rob's finicky implant, his right one, was acting up again.

Turning his body to hide his face from the feed, he covered the eye with a hand as he colorfully swore, away from the screen's pick-up and with much aggravation.

I grinned as an inner part of me relaxed. As silly as it sounded, I no longer felt as unsure about coming. Rob was Rob. The familiar event broke what tension I'd been holding as he attempted to percussively 'fix' his malfunctioning optic with his right palm. It was a comfortingly familiar action reminding me Rob was a guy just like me, doing what he could with what he had.

Having finally whacked the implant into suitable function, he glowered. "You didn't answer my question," He said.

His face was an angry red to match the expression of annoyance he often gave when his eye gave out in front of someone. He was still upset, whether at me or the optic, I wasn't sure, but I pretended nothing had happened. If you ever worked with Rob, it was an occurrence you eventually got used to; At least now he was no longer acting as "Boss Rob"; I no longer felt so awkward.

“Wait," Rob suddenly said, an expression of shock passing over his face. His brain had finally caught on to what I'd initialy said.

"You said someone died?! Who?” His tone had shifted back to the Rob I knew best. A Rob I was more familiar with.

“Know the new guy?” I asked him.

“Ah MAN, not Alan!” He said, genuine pain on his face as he spoke.

I shook my head, “No, no. The other new guy.”

“The one with the leg?”

“The other, other new guy.”

“The one with the arm?”

“No, man. Karl.” I said, looking up at the sky in annoyance. It was actually kind of interesting how many new people we've had come in recently. Huh.

“Ah yeah." Rob said with a notable sense of relief, "The lazy one."

He paused for a few seconds, a neutral sort of expression on his face as he realized maybe he should say something else. "That sucks."

My eyebrows rose a fraction, but dropped back down just as quickly. I was still managing to hold off my own feelings about the entire ordeal, having witnessed it first hand, but...yeah. Sure it was morbid, but I mean...you know, if you want people to feel bad for you dying on the job, don’t constantly make other people work harder at their job in order to cover for your issues when you didn't work to change, I guess.

“How?” Rob asked after a few more beats.

“Heavy Loader,” I said. I tried to focus on something other than my thoughts as I said it. The clouds were getting pretty thick on the horizon.

“Was he high, or something?”

“Very likely.”

“And they fired you?” Rob asked. He seemed genuinely confused.

“Yep.”

“Why you?” He asked.

“I’m still not really clear on that one.”

"You didn't...throw him in the path of..."

"No, Man!" I nearly shouted, looking around to make sure nobody had heard. Still clear.

"Okay." He said, thinking. “What’s Pandora think about all this?”

“Don’t know. She left.” I glumly said.

“Left where? For work?” He asked.

“Left me.”

“Left you?! Left you where?!” His right eyedbrow cocked into the air in question, and curiosity.

“Broke up with me, I think.”

“You think? You don’t know?”

“Uh...the writing was pretty clear.”

“Huh.” There was a pause as he absorbed what I was telling him. “So. Who’s covering my shift?” He finally asked again.

It was my turn to glare. “That’s seriously what you care about right now?!” I exclaimed. He wasn't phased in the least.

“Well...I guess? This is a lot to take in at once,” He said.

“They hit me with a Writ for Corporate Asset Seizure, Rob.”

"WHAT?!" He yelled, "Go. Now. Don't come back here, or so help me..."

The camera clicked off immediately, leaving me staring at a reflection of myself. He had hung up.

“Rob!” I hissed, futilely at the blank screen. I tried three more times to call, each manually rejected by Rob, before deciding I'd need to shift to another plan.

Ah, so he wants to play that way does he? Fine.

I began mashing my finger on the top right of the screen in a rapid pattern. A tap code meant to activate the interior comms from the outside. Cool factoid: it’s the same override Security uses on the rare occasion an occupant refuses to respond to a call, and they need to force a message through.

It also lets you listen in on...Um...actually it's probably one of those things I won’t say how I learned. Let’s just say it works for moments like these when someone decides to play possum despite your need to talk to them. Hence, the use.

“Let me in, Rob,” I said quietly as the feed reactivated, “We can talk when I’m not standing here freezing on your damn doorstep. They’ll just as easily spot me if I’m standing out here yelling into the panel as walking around. I just need to cash in a favor, and I’ll be out of your hair in no time. Deal?”

Sounding like he’d abandoned whatever he'd been doing, and was now coming back toward the Inner Door, Rob's voice hit my ears and flowed right into my veins like ice.

“You can’t be here, Owen,” he said. His tone, normally jokey and light, was near unrecognizable now. All traces of "Familiar Rob" somehow gone. In its place was now a much quieter and, frankly, kind of scary sounding Rob. Stern and serious as a tombstone, the new Rob's voice made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end. It almost made me stop holding the line open, and I would have...had I been in any sort of position where I could just walk away.

I couldn't. I was too desperate.

“Look, Man. I don’t know what you’re in, or what you’re pulling here, but I’m sure security would be happy to beat it out of me if they catch me out here.”

I heard him breathing, steady and strong. An answer still didn’t come as I tried to put on a brave front despite the growing sense of panic welling back inside.

It was cold. I was hungry. The storm was still coming.

Truthfully? My plans ended the moment I'd made it out of the tunnels and unexpectedly lost the Goon squad much faster than I'd ever anticipated. I was here because I didn't have any other options, any other plans, or even other sources to ask for help.

I was alone.

Putting my head closer to the input, I was suddenly overcome with an urge to do something daring.

“Rob.” I said sharply. “You owe me. Don’t forget that."

I paused, taking a deep breath before speaking clearly and surely, bullrushing ahead before I had time to stop myself from saying the next part, "Don’t make me do something dumb.”

There was dead air as the last word practically rang inside my skull. As far as words go they weren't the harshes, nor the most impactive, but I held my breath, having taken my last, reckless shot into the darkness.

I was ready to give up when the beep of the cycle key caused the Inner Door to open as the lock began to cycle. A trill of hope blossomed within my chest as the screen notified me there was a countdown in progress.

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That seemed to do it!

I disengaged the line, lifting the finger to let the interface go dark again, and stepped back to wait as I stared at the quickly approaching clouds as they creeped steadily toward me.

The screen ticked down until four minutes became zero, and the outer door opened.

Rob glanced side to side quickly around us as we came face to face with each other. I looked at him quizzically as he held a grey towel which seemed to cover...something, straight toward my belly; Low and mostly out of view.

New sensations joined the hunger pangs already bouncing around as I realized: He had a weapon. Probably a knife, or stun stick of some sort.

“Uh...” I said, raising my hands up immediately, eyes widening. The textbook image of “dumbfounded” if you decided to look it up. These kind of new experiences were becoming way more common than I ever would’ve wanted them to be, truth be told. Maybe I had laid it on just a little too thick with that last line.

"Put your hands down,” he hissed at me.

I snapped my hands to my side. The sharp twacking sound of the suit hitting itself made me wince as he leaned forward, voice flat. “Price, you’ve got twenty seconds to explain to me why you think trying to threaten me was in any way, shape, or form a good idea.” His cold stare sent a shiver down my spine, a chill entirely unrelated to the temperature surrounding us.

I sputtered for a second before finally being able to speak, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Rob! Slow down a sec. I only came here to cash in some of the favors you said you owed me. Nothing else!”

He narrowed his eyes and took a step out from the lock. He was very careful to hover out of reach in case I decided to do anything stupid.

I didn't.

“You weren’t followed?” He asked. Despite being my height, Rob seemed a lot larger than I remembered him being as he leaned to either side, getting a better view along both walkways as he kept the towel pointed at my stomach.

Satisfied a Goon Squad wasn’t just waiting down the wings, he returned, and I strained to listen, no longer hearing the groups which had gone Northward. I wasn’t sure if it meant the runner had gotten caught, or had somehow managed to squirt out of their grasp, but of either groups,

I heard nothing. In the distance, the thundered continued to rumble as the storm got closer.

I began to babble, the threat of a weapon making me queasy as I tried to answer as quickly as I could. “I mean, they had a goon squad that was ready to rip my suit and bag off, but McCreed had them let me go. He ordered this greasy Rat-Faced guy...”

I stopped talking as Rob interrupted me.

“Golrich!” he spat out. Venomously and suddenly. “If that idiot is out with the goon squad, then McCreed finally decided to make a move. Hmm.”

I continued to stayed quiet. Seemed like the right kind of move right now, with Rob acting so, uh, un-Rob-like at the moment. “Did you see anything else on the way here?” he asked, gun still not wavering.

“Yeah, there was someone Security had to chase. Not sure what it was all about, but kind of helped me stay out of sight and mind, I guess.”

Interestingly enough, the news seemed to calm him down some.

The frown he now wore was a far cry from the tombstone-serious stare from earlier. I might have gulped. I felt my Adams Apple bob comically as a driblet of sweat rolled down my cheek.

I fought the urge to give a nervous smile as my scalp began to itch. He continued to stare.

Nodding once, more to himself than to me, he made up his mind, deciding to step back into the lock and wave me in once with his other, non-towel-pointed-at-my-vital-organs hand.

“In,” He said sternly. His voice had lost the spine tingling attribute, but was still a bit terse.

“We need to get out of sight. Now.”

I quickly jumped, deciding getting on his bad side might not be the greatest idea. He cycled the system closed once I cleared the threshold and spoke to me again.

“Must be why the pick-up never came. Had to be Golrich," he said. I didn’t respond, not wanting to say something dumb, and risk an adverse reaction. We stayed there, silently, for the remaining couple of minutes it took the system to process.

With a hiss, the Inner door began equalizing pressure into the lock. The sensation of warm, dry air against my face and neck was almost too much pleasure to bear. I had to fight an indescribable urge to moan aloud as a long sigh managed to escape, and the homely smells of Rob’s Pod, sandalwood and machine oil, tickled my nose. I was starkly aware of how badly I must've smelled.

I tried not to...stink. A much harder act than it sounds as I resorted to just not moving much in hopes of not making the situation worse. Rob turned to me.

“You said McCreed is involved?” he asked, seemly not affected by the smell as I nodded vigorously. Blissfully happy to be somewhere for a few minutes without risk of discovery, cold, beatings, Crawler stabbing, or other manners of possible death. I was more than happy to answer any questions he had for me.

“Directly?” He asked next.

“Yep,” I said.

“Means he told you he needed something done, didn’t he?”

I eyed him warily, “How did you know?”

He didn’t answer as the inner door opened, and I was given my first look into Rob's living area. I'd been by to speak to Rob before, but had never really seen the inside. What surprised me the most; It was nearly identical to my own former living arrangement. After it had been stripped.

It didn't look like Rob minded it much. For all I knew, it was a key part of the Bachelor life. The ironic part though? At least he still had the hooks.

I mused as Rob leaned against his grey kitchen counter, casually placing the towel wrapped object onto a cutting board with an ominous thunk. Brownish liquid in a small white cup, splashed over to pool around a half eaten protein puck on a plate next to it.

“You were actually going to shoot me?!” I exclaimed, eyes widening. I stared at the high caliber barrel now poking out from under the towel. The bold "S" and "K" logo marked it as a SchwertKaufe Corporation product. I wasn't familiar enough with firearms to be sure what kind. Something probably great at making holes in soft targets. By the size of the barrel? BIG holes.

I tore my attention back to Rob who, rather than immediately answer, leaned back with a weary sigh.

The cup of Caf rocked again, spilling more of its contents. Stupid as it sounded, I was also finding it hard not to look longingly at the protein puck right next to it. Even taking into account the half-moon bite taken right out of the side, and the likely cold puddle of brown liquid it was sitting in? It looked like a Seven Course Meal with all the fixings; Utensils optional.

“Thing is, Owen,” Rob said quietly. His eyes purposefully didn't meet mine as he spoke. I had to swallow the pool of saliva I'd built up as I turned my attention back to him.

“I do owe you for taking all those shifts when I asked you to. Thanks for that, by the way.” he said.

“Uh...you’re welcome?” I said awkwardly in reply. It was still pretty clear he hadn’t exactly answered my question. The change of voice outside had been alarming, but the growing sense I was stumbling into something I wasn’t entirely prepared to deal with was beginning to take up most of my, already straining, head space.

“Can I see the notice?” He asked, holding out a hand.

I nodded, pulling the Filiscript notice out of my bag and handing it to him.

His bad eye seemed to malfunction again, clicking and rattling a little in random directions as if it had a mind of its own. However, Instead of doing the usual swear-and-rub routine, something he often blamed on cheaping out on the implant when he bought it, he casually tapped the eye three times with his free hand in a practiced motion.

The eye immediately snapped forward, making little to no noise as it focused and adjusted smoothly. As he began reading, I watched the eye do something I’d never seen it do since I’d known him. Actually work. It was now functioning like an expensive tech piece rather than the malfunctioning bargain bin cast-away he always joked it to be.

“Damn,” he said suddenly.

He looked up, his gaze piercing as it locked me in; Surprisingly, like a normal, organic eye. One to challenge the near perfect orbs I'd seen on McCreed while we had stood near the railing.

Just how much about Rob did I not actually understand? Had he been putting on a show the whole time I’d known him? I let out a whoosh of a sigh.

I still felt awkward, especially with the growing sense I didn’t truly know the man standing before me.

“Yep.” I said, lips pressing firmly together.

“So they took everything?” He asked.

“Everything Dora didn’t snag.”

“What’d she take?” He asked, one eyebrow raised.

“The real question is what didn’t she take.” I chuckled. It was the mirthless sounding kind. “I was still investigating when the lock notice buzzed in. She even took the hooks by the door, Rob. The HOOKS. Those are bolted in, man.”

He tapped the notice with one finger, “How do you know it was her and the Goons didn’t just get there earlier?”

“Because the Goons would’ve likely scooped up the few Cortex rig parts she’d left out. They wouldn’t have skipped them.”

“Parts?” He asked.

“Mostly just random bits. Transducers, a couple of storage modules, and maybe an inhibitor and regulator. She probably didn’t realize they weren’t just junk. The Goons? They would’ve taken them. Everything was in plain view on the worktable. They'd fetch a few easy scrit if you know who to ask, or where to sell.”

“Vultures.”

“Exactly.”

I reached into a pocket to fish out the holocard. “And she left me this note," I said, holding it up between two fingers. "Much more obvious.”

He frowned. Taking the holocard in one hand to read the message scrawled on the back, he flipped it over and scowled at the name emblazoned on the front.

“I never did like her.” He said simply, eyes still on the card. He was practically boring holes as he continued to stare at it.

I shrugged.

“This,” He said, tapping the card with his forefinger one handed before crossing his arms, “Also can’t just be a coincidence.”

“Huh? Not a coincidence how?”

"Fillington." He said. “He’s one of McCreed’s guys.”

“McCreed has guys?”

Rob looked at me as if I was being dumb, and I likely was. Especially now I thought about Rat-Face and the Goons. They'd responded to a simple hand signal like trained hounds.

“Course he’s got guys, Owen. He’s a Player. An Exec player. They all have teams of people. People they use to keep their fingers in things. Usually other People.”

“Uh...”

“I don’t mean literal fingers in things, you dolt. You don’t think they just do their jobs and that’s it, do you?”

“I mean well...”

“No, Price. Everyone, and I mean everyone,” He paused, interrupting himself for a second as if thinking, “Okay, everyone but you, and especially any Spire-Corpo who's in contact with us lowly pleebs on the ground, are always working something. Some angle, some con, some...Game. THE Game. Anything to get ahead of where they are so they can get to where they think they want to be.”

He said “The Game” like it was a Proper Noun. One of the big ones you capitalize: Names, Places, Objects of Import the whole shebang, and it sounded more like the ole Rob I knew; The one who was full of funny stories, dumb jokes, and off-wall random conspiracy theories which made it hard to take seriously when we were working. It made for great entertainment in the wee hours of the morning, but also made him sound more than a little cuckoo, if you catch my meaning.

“Okay,” I said, causing him to squint at me, trying to determine if I was messing with him or not.

For the record, I was not. This whole...whatever this was? News to me.

At this point, I’m pretty sure I was so overloaded with new experiences, shocks and whiplashes. I’d fully rolled around to, “Willing to accept anything to make sense out of everything going on.” territory.

True open mindedness is accepting you know nothing about what you thought you knew everything about...or something like that.

Rob shook his head, deciding to just continue regardless of what I was thinking. “The short of it, Owen. Fillington is a tool. A tool used by McCreed for a number of things. Fillington works under Golrich. Golrich is under McCreed. McCreed is under someone else, but really doesn’t want or like to be. Anything McCreed says, Golrich makes happen and by extension, Fillington and others like him too. McCreed rewards them with promises of greater cuts of greater futures.”

“Mmm...Sounds like a classic con my dad used to tell me about. Something about Pyramids, Triangles and...Cleaning products?” I thought about it for a second, but Rob just looked at me, confusion plain on his face.

I probably shouldn’t have interrupted him.

Tired. Oops. “Ignore that. I’m following you so far, continue,” I said.

Rob shook his head at me in annoyance, “Anyway. Fillington is a known womanizer, and bit of an asshat to boot. Ego the size of The Spires,” He said, “But very effective in a lot of dealings. Primarily because he, like many others under McCreed’s wing, have a few gray-line implants installed. Implants you don’t just get anywhere, or get installed by just anyone. Pheromone Exhibitors to be exact. Lots of favoritism from McCreed, but that’s because Fillington's good at what he does, with few moralistic quandaries on how he does it.”

“Wait,” I said, perking up.

A sliver of hope blossomed within my chest. “Does that mean Dora could’ve been..."

Rob shook his head, “No, Owen. The exhibitors don’t magically make people do things against their will, or even put ideas into their heads not already there. They just...” He paused. His eyes searched the sealing as if seeking out exactly what to say. "They make the people in range feel like the person with the Implant seems more...interesting, more...friendly, I guess I should say. In their perception? It’s a little harder to explain, and much more complex. It’s sort of like an urge to trust someone more than you probably would have otherwise. A sense of charisma."

There was a hint of sadness in his eyes as he looked at me now. I was certain the defeat was clear on my face as he continued.

"It makes you view the traits you already viewed as favorable as more desirable than they'd be otherwise. If she decided to leave you for him. It meant she was always going to if she thought the juice was worth the squeeze, bud. The implants just gave her more of a nudge.” I felt my shoulders slump even lower, feeling crestfallen.

Again.

He paused this time, a flash of pain passing over his expression before he managed to get it under control. “You can’t change the nature of the betrayal simply because the grass looked greener than it really was. The person wanting that other grass still has to take the step out. They’re fully to blame, regardless of what they might say about why they did it. I have some first-hand experience here. Let’s just leave it at that, okay?”

I nodded, not looking at him as I sorted my own feelings out and he let me.

For the briefest of seconds I'd had hope. Hoped maybe she’d been tricked into what she’d done and we could try to blame some outside source for our problems. Hoped at least one of the horrible events of the past few hours was all just a mistake, and though I’d been fired, maybe we could try to weather this thing together.

However. Deep down? I knew. Really knew she’d never truly been happy with me, or us. I’d just been too focused on where we were going and completely missed where we'd been. The ultimate goal of becoming a TxCorp Citizen had felt like it was only an arm's reach away...before the seizure. Like the cloths and silks adorning our former Pod, the utilitarian gray walls being masked were the real truth. The hangings had managed to give an illusion of brightness as I let myself be lulled, but, once torn away the bleakness of our surroundings were laid bare. I'd finally realized where I stood.

I sighed. And with that sigh went some of the heavy weight I’d been dragging around with me.

It was obvious now, how desperately she'd tried to hide; First from herself, then from me as she sought companionship elsewhere. Despite what we'd built together, she'd viewed everything as "her's" and hadn't given a second thought to where I'd be.

Once I'd been stripped of everything and left with nothing, With no more options for going back, to any of it; I was left with only one direction: Forward.

It was a jagged pill to swallow, but one which I ingested because it needed to be done. Events which I couldn’t control might have gotten me to where I stumbled, but it was now time to sort all my energy toward the real task: Where to go from here.

Kind of liberating, really.

Rob, still leaning against his counter, had been watching me this entire time. His eyes worked keenly; Tracking my face, and body language as he observed. He'd been silently giving me time to sort through my own internal conflicts before choosing to speak.

I was here. Still breathing. Still moving, and prepared to move on.Wherever that might be.

I appreciated it, and him, as I gave a shakey smile.

He nodded. Having come to a decision as he pushed off the counter. “Now,” He said with a smirk and I detected a hint of approval as he said the next line.

“About those favors.”