Further on the southwest end of Villa Morrón, Tasìa walked a mere two and a half miles away from the downtown.

She pressed against an irregularly thick lapacho tree that stood beside a walkway in a quiet residential neighborhood.

The tree hid her from a group of kids throwing roosters at each other. She had passed the gimpy looking group of boys half a block down.

The contenders she glanced at as she shuffled by were nastily scratched up. They were counting down for the next round of their duel.

Angry roosters swayed in the grip of the boy's hands. Squawking their beaks like mouthy pugilists.

Apparently, the kids were too stupid to organize a proper cockfight, nor a betting tourney, like previous generations of kids their age would have done.

She took out the pistol scope from her fanny-pack. Tasìa hid it on the inside of her forearm, and she glanced around at the surrounding houses before she fixed on her target.

A good thing she did. She heard the gentle sway of a swing before her eyes adjusted well enough to see who set on it.

A couple held one another as they watched her.

She gave them an embarrassed smile. Her face flushed red.

"What are you doing there, little chica?" The man of the pair asked.

There was something familiar in the tone of his voice.

"I thought I had the privacy to take a piss."

The woman laughed. She leaned into her man with her arms wrapped around his shoulders.

"Don't let us stop you," she suggested as if she would not mind having a little show.

The man blew marijuana smoke through his lips.

The movement of a porch swing in the shadows, the sound of lovers softly nuzzling on each other's necks, the scent of sweet leaf. These were all singular factors she would miss once in ten thousand days, but she failed to take notice of all of them.

How had she missed those signs? A growing detachment was one of the signs of encroaching Manifest insanity.

"I'll be on my way," she said.

The man grinned through his whiskered lips as he pointed with a ceramic pipe at the screen door of his house.

"Go straight all the way down the hall and then take a right. You can't miss it."

She realized something; if the bathroom possessed a window, it would provide her an overview of the storage facility.

"Thank you. I've really got to go."

Her fortune was serendipitous. The bathroom window provided excellent cover to surveille the storage facility.

Even without the scope, she could see the rows of storage units lit up in eerie red light. With the window open, the sound of bass notes like those that would grind out of an organ wailed up to her from below.

At least twenty people mingled between the rows. Several of the overhead coiling doors to the storage units were open.

Blacklights, streamers, flashing lights, strobe lights, and people dancing.

Perhaps, it was exactly what the Canadians told Annebél. They wanted her there simply for the sexual entertainment she could provide.

Tasìa's instincts told her that it was too simple an explanation to account for what was going on.

She fixed the scope on the facility below. Along the side closest to her, the rails and fence links had been bent apart and pulled down.

The original owners obviously had abandoned the property. Now, it appeared to be the home of Canadian poverty tourists. The abandoned lot made their celebratory aspirations possible.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Tasìa studied the center court from which the rows of storage units spoked out from. That seemed to be the focal point of activity down below.

Something caught the attention of an unhealthy looking trio of emaciated bald men. Their heads jerked to watch an approaching vehicle on the curvy road leading into the storage facility.

The three men ran to one of the units in a far corner away from the activities. They shut the overhead door behind them.

It was a long, powder blue Cadillac that showed up. It circled the center court before stopping.

The car was one of the replicas of classic designs that was a trademark of Cuban expertise. It even had gunrunner platforms attached to the sides.

Four women, dressed like streetwalkers, filed out of the back seat of the vehicle with a display of sexy bravado from each in turn for a mountain of a man that greeted them.

That is very odd.

"Hey, buddy," Tasìa said to the man on the swing. "Thank you. I thought my bladder was about to split. I didn't catch your name?"

One of his hands casually cusped the side of the woman's neck; she seemed to have fallen asleep beside him.

"Roberto. I'm just a simple Roberto."

Tasìa offered her hand to shake.

"I'm most elaborately, Avellana."

He chortled. "Ha. I see that you have a sense of humor, Avellana. I've always thought that name to be too pretty to be as uncommon as it is."

"I know what you mean. I did not run into another Avellana until I was ten."

"Care for a drag?"

Roberto offered his pipe.

With raised eyebrows, she smiled.

"Sure," Tasìa affirmed as she took the pipe.

She wanted a little information from him; it was best to be perceived as friendly and engaged.

Tasìa avoided the substance in prison; you never knew whose anus may have been packing it to get it inside the compound.

Otherwise, she enjoyed reefer, casually.

"You seem alright, Avellana. Do I know you from somewhere?"

"I used to live here a few years ago. Things have changed."

Roberto stretched his arms across the back of the swing; he squinted as if to improve his vision so he could see her better.

"I thought your face looked quite a bit familiar. I've seen you around."

She now placed him.

"I used to hang at the Daga Chicas late night scene. Friend of Isabella's."

In a slow, soft whisper, he said, "Yeah. I shot pool with you a number of times. You know, when my girlfriend drags me there 'cause she's feeling a certain way?"

Tasìa glanced at the woman. She wore her hair much longer now, but Tasìa recognized her. Terry, one of Isabella's lovers.

"Well, shit, Roberto. We are practically family then, so would it be okay if I asked you a few questions?"

Tasìa peered up and down the street to make sure no one was close by.

"I came back here because I have got that certain dissociative feeling you get if you need an inoculation. To be delicate about it, I can't go get one. There's a warrant.

"So, I come back here, and I find out that the Hijos Lux, who were weird as all shit to begin with, are now much weirder and much, much shittier.

"Worse than that, they no longer deal."

Roberto nodded along with her as she laid out her situation. He dragged a hit before giving his assessment.

"That, right there, is a big bag of suck. The Salvage has spies, and now so does the Hijos Lux. It is just too risky to deal in the magical substance that will go unnamed."

He pondered for a second, then glanced up to her with a contrite smile.

"I'll tell you how I helped out one of my friends. He was a bail jumper.

"He showed no signs of the Manifestation like you are doing now, but being a fastidious hypochondriac asshole, he figured that he had about a year before he needed to re-up his inoculation.

So, I placed a subdermal patch beneath my skin. Within a month, the incision scar appeared to be nothing more than what it was before I operated on it - a spot on my shoulder where I received my first three inoculations."

Tasìa was suddenly excited and near breathless.

"So, you were able to extract the serum from the sponge?"

"Exactly."

"Pretty damn clever, Roberto."

"If you decide to go that route, then let me know. I'm sure I'll bump into you over at the Daga Chicas."

Even though the idea piqued her interest, Tasìa decided she did not have the patience nor time for that kind of hustle. Even still Tasìa was glad she had run into Roberto.

He had the makings to be a most useful ally.

Roberto stood up.

"If you'll excuse me, Avellana, I think I need to take a piss, as well."

"Hey, Roberto. I heard some music blaring from outside of your bathroom window. I saw that it was coming from that old storage facility. They have a party taking place. Is that a safe crowd down there?"

Though the facility could not be seen from the porch, he glanced in the direction.

"Terry snooped on them a few weeks back. She says we should stay away. A bunch of North Americans. Poverty tourists. She thinks that ghouls are hiding amongst them."

"Ghouls?"

"You know what I mean. Fucking cannibals get those weird diseases from eating our livers."

Roberto took a long drag from his pipe before he continued.

"Pisses me off just to think I'm somebody's idea of a delicacy."

Oh, shit.

The emaciated bald men who hid from the occupants of the Cadillac had a familiar physique about them. She saw in her mind's eye the guards on the brownstone rooftop.

Tasìa nodded.

"Organ harvesters here too?"

Roberto started opening the screen door.

"Why else would poverty tourists be here living in the Quadra instead of, say, El Salvador?"

"Damn," was all she could mutter.

He clasped her shoulder with a familiar gentleness.

"I'm glad you're back, Avellana. But, you're right, things have changed here. Stay away from those creeps."

He disappeared into the house.

She considered the four streetwalkers who had walked into their trap.

She had no real desire to play the hero; Tasìa thought she was not even particularly good in that role. Her sense of self interest, instinct for self-preservation, and lack of endurance to a righteous cause were just too strong to ever really be one.

But in present circumstances what choice did she have? The familiar tingling throbbed ever so slightly down her spine.