Anita and Darnes were not laughing; Instead, under the cover of the drunken banter, they were having an argument.

Why?

Anita had been understandably phased tonight. After all the incidents that happened, maybe this was the culmination of it? He had to find out.

Yeung-Sung knew only a handful things about her: That she worked with Darnes optionally, intentionally seeking him out. He was told, but would’ve guessed by the contours of her pale face that she was Russian. And most importantly, she was a devoted member of the Player’s Market, or PM, which seemed to be the colony’s socialist party. Not only that, apparently, they were the biggest faction in the colony, comprised of over a third of the players. What could be a better resource for corrupting Airgead?

It’s a start.

As he drew nearer, he still heard the booth behind him, one-upping each other with their drug stories. Again, the conversation buzzed and bubbled and drew him in, but he shook his head and continued on. Down in his hands, his Airgead account read 50 minims. Yeung-Sung pulled on his lip. I literally cannot afford to keep this up.

Yeung-Sung approached the counter quietly, docking a little way from the two. Anita, facing away from the bar, had obviously noticed him. But Darnes did not, in the middle of pleading, pointing desperately at his bandaged hand.

“Anita, please. You can’t leave.”

Half-hidden behind, the bronze beer taps, Anita held her mouth firm, with her arms out against her sides. “I will not budge,” she said.

Watching them, Yeung-Sung held out a hand, his battered wrists still on display. “Can I get some water, please?”

Anita put away her sass and smiled, walking over to him. “I’m going, Darnes,” she chimed behind her.

“You never go to these things,” Darnes complained, “Why tonight of all nights? I need you here, Ani.”

“No Darnes, it’s…,” she hesitated, bending over the water tap. “It’s different this time. It’s important.”

“There you go, sugar,” she said, handing him Yeung-Sung glass. Then she turned back to her boss and stuck out her palm.

“You’ll be alright. Get one of the boys to help you.”

Darnes groaned.

“Anita!” Yeung-Sung blurted out. “Take me with you.”

She turned slowly back to him. “Excuse me?”

“You’re going to the Player’s Market, right?”

Shock was etched in her face. “I -I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“She’s right,” Darnes cut in, “It’s not. In fact, you should both stay here.”

Yeung-Sung took a swig of the water, glancing at Darnes’s bandaged hand. Then, pushing up his sleeves, he undid the bandages all the way up, unveiling the pocked grey and purple skin on his arms.

“I need to find out more about these factions,” he said, switching looks form Darnes to Anita, “this might be the perfect opportunity. Let me go and if you can, help me get close to them.”

Surprisingly, Anita drew a wicked grin. Darnes scrambled to stop her from nodding her assent.

“Yeung-Sung, you don’t want to get involved with PM. They’re communists, extremists!” He flew up from his chair. “This is absolutely not a good idea.”

“Ahh, Darnes,” Anita said, patting him o the shoulder, “You can stop him about as much as you can stop me.”

It was strange to see the Wick owner shrink beside someone.

Anita unpinned her ponytail with a flourish. “Alright, hon, let’s go then. We’ll have fun, and I’m sure you’ll find out plenty.” She chuckled into a palm.

As Anita headed off to the cloakroom, Yeung-Sung wondered if he hadn’t just made very stupid decision. A thought entered his mind; I hope I can find my way back.

As he followed Anita, the night threw handfuls rain onto Yeung-Sung’s face. While she kept an unrelenting pace with her long legs, he bounded over footpaths, shoving his drunken, damaged body further through country lanes.

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Each time he thought he had caught up to her, Anita rounded a corner. He kept wanting to ask her about PM, but she always left him out of breath. And so their journey was mostly quiet, except for the constant simmer of rain dinging along the smooth shapes of the colony’s buildings.

There were twists and turns hidden from the central forked path of the colony’s centre, which Yeung-Sung just wanted to take his time with, but never got a chance. Always just out of reach, just visible enough, Anita never waiting for him, except when she stopped for a few moments before a turn. She never checked on him, only paused long enough for him to limp up close, but not enough to look back and map the path, not enough time for chit-chat. It was too dark and she was too fast; Again Yeung-Sung lost his chance.

The irritable pace was made worse by the fact that him and Anita weren’t the only ones stalking the streets. Small but distinct groups of coloners emerged from the deep like judgemental spectres, keeping to themselves. Even in the depths of night, Anita’s red-blue outfit spelled out her allegiance to passers-by. One couldn’t help but stare -and also, made her easier to follow. But even the biggest groups never stared for long.

Yeung-Sung was curious how the Player’s Market had achieved such notoriety. The Wick regulars all disapproved of the faction’s strong communist message, yet Yeung-Sung found himself wondering if he might’ve been safer with a group like them on the night before. Sighing, Yeung-Sung rubbed his wrists, brushing the dust off his memories, and pressed on.

He tracked Anita down a tight, curved road, one meant for cars. One of those that only hinted at a sidewalk. Looming on his right was the dented shadow of a larger building. Either it was demolished or only partly constructed. It distracted him so much that he almost missed Anita slipping through a tiny gap in the plaster wall around it.

Looking both ways, Yeung-Sung hesitated before entering the grounds. He noticed, ominously, that the rain had stopped. As if it was scared.

I hope I don’t find Jordan in here, too. Laughing to himself, he ducked inside.

The entrance to PM wasn’t much besides a walkway towards a run-down hole in the cement. Only a pair of scraggy birches decorated it, surly guards still dripping from the downpour. Yeung-Sung searched for any signs of life as he stepped over well-trodden weeds in the cracks of the pavement, narrowing his sight to see a distant bar of fluorescent lighting.

I’d better go in. Anita’s ahead of me by a full minute now.

Lowering his hood, he was shaking the wet out from his clothes when he felt his phone vibrate. There were several messages from a character he recognised as Woo-Yi -her screenname a reference to one of her songs- but past that was an admin notification which he opened.

[You have been invited to be a ‘guest’ in at the clan Player’s Market]

[ACCEPT] [DENY]

A blunt realisation struck him and he knew where he was.

This is an abandoned mall. He shook his head, accepting the request and headed down the hallway into the faction’s hideout. Immediately, the sounds of people in panic hovered faintly through the air.

Despite that, as Yeung-Sung crouched through the tight entrance gave way to a cavernous plaza, filled to the jagged edges of the half-built walls with PM’s signature colours. He stood at the tip of a walkway that led to a two-way elevator, each stair painted likewise, in alternating red and blue. No one noticed him. Dozens of similarly dressed coloners walked between the alcoves on the second and third levels, glued to their phones.

That wasn’t where the rampaging commotion was coming from, though. Yeung-Sung squinted through the hazed glass banisters on the first floor. There must have been hundreds of heads bobbing up and down in that hall. Feeling overwhelmingly warm and sweaty, he pulled off his hoodie and wondered how a group like that would react to a trespasser.

But they invited me, right? I have nothing to fear.

He read through the message again.

[AUTOMATED MESSAGE]

“Unless it was automated, I guess,” he said. Searching for any side paths, he spotted a sign for the bathrooms and quickly retreated towards it. He fell backwards on the door once he entered the men’s and then upon hearing a clack, realised he stood on white tiles. The walls were also tiled, smeared in parts by a Mediterranean blue.

“Hello?” he called out, the reverb of the room curling the tail of his words like a wave about to crash. Gripping his sweat-drenched hoodie -however useful it may have been- he snuck past the ten stalls of the bathroom. They were remarkably sanitary, compared to the entrance and thankfully, unoccupied. Even the main area seemed far better constructed than the outside led him to believe.

Anita had explained before that PM was always searching for new members. Maybe this was what some of them were assigned to do; To make their headquarters presentable. Even if all of them were simple labourers and not extremists, it did little to make the vibrating mass in the distance feel less intimidating.

Where the hell did she go? Does she expect to waltz in the middle of all this and chat up some friends? Yeung-Sung leaned an arm against the door as he thought on how to breach the faction when he felt something -Soft. Cotton?

He spun. Swinging off a peg was a clothes hanger bearing a single full-red tee and blue chinos looped over underneath. Yeung-Sung cringed at it, sweeping the stall once more before he changed into them.

This is far too convenient. Anita…she expected me to follow her tonight?

As always, there was far too much going on within the colony, and he knew too little. He did know that, one way or another, this was a trap.

Dropping off his old clothes, he stepped back into the main plaza of the Player’s Market. He pulled at his shirt, frowning, trying to cover as much of his bruises as possible. She couldn’t have gotten me a long-sleeve? Or actually, couldn’t she have just DMed me where to go, or what to expect? He decided that he just had to keep his arms turned in against his sides, hands in his pockets. As he focused, looking up, the full force of the industrial blocks of light made him feel sick. The sounds of the crowded continued, a demanding chant becoming more prominent. There was a reason Anita was called, and it must have been important. If only he had a way to locate her.

“Hello there,” said a voice, slinking up beside Yeung-Sung.