I gave myself an hour before looking at the invoice Shedrick sent me. You never know, things never go too smoothly at times. So, to kill time, I roved through the crowded areas, ensuring my tail was still behind me.
The Invoice read as followed:
Transponder Code: C856-B98-E21475
Kourier ID: 5984A25FC523
Billed to: Cypher
Invoice Amount: 7,500.00 Credits.
Package: Metallic Case
“The kid’s charging heavier now,” I said, happy to see he's grown comfortable around me. That’s fine, I mused, “know your worth, kid, know your worth,” I said.
I tapped the payment option at the bottom of the invoice and entered my bank code. I put in the amount to send and awaited the approval tick to resonate at the top of the invoice. Once it did, the transponder code went from dull black, to yellow. Activating it.
The transponder code synced with the GPS within my Xenotis and a white line appeared in the top middle section of my windscreen. “Expand,” I said and the white exploded into a mini-map which left me quite annoyed when it showed me where my package was delivered.
Underwent Market.
The Underwent Market was the black market of Bridge City. Whatever boosted parts you wanted, from cybernetic eyes, lungs, limbs, prosthetics, Underwent. Did you need synthetic blood? Underwent.
It was said that Underwent was owned by a group of megacorporations with a turbulent relationship with the Federation. The funny thing was if you lived in Antillea, you knew that all companies’ small, middle or mega had a turbulent relationship with the Federation.
One thing was known for sure, though, that the administrator of Underwent, was one name to be feared. The Mangol, as the administrator was called, had set the rules in Underwent and if anyone broke them. Merchants…Patrons, anyone...would feel their wrath.
I parked my Xenostis X on the southern section of the market, in one of the three high-rise parking lots, literally, on the thirtieth floor. Parking was always hell in a place like this, but worst of all it smelled like shit.
Fresh excrement was littered on the right side of my car. Probably some prank from a punk. Luckily though, I didn’t step into it. However, the scent of the shit hit me harder than Eclain’s punch.
Funny how that worked out.
The headache I nursed earlier had finally dissipated into slight throbs that swarmed my brain in waves every five seconds. “Not too bad,” I thought, looking out at Underwent Market in the distance.
The sight left me a bit bewildered. There was anger to the design, one which the architect chose to express purposefully, or by accident You never know with such buildings. The design of it may have been different, and The Mangol opted to change it.
The exterior of the twenty-story building was littered with sheets of black glass stapled to the building. At the top, the roof was pretty much-unseen thanks to the serrated glass that made it seem like a broken bottle top.
I stepped on the personal elevator a few meters away from my Xenotis and swiped my creditstrip against the parking toll. The ramp descended slowly. I didn’t realise it at first, but once I reached the street level my nose was bombarded with hundreds of scents ranging from rum, sweat, blood, and possibly spices.
Right in front of the building, the floating sign for Underwent pulsed tentatively.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
WELCOME TO WENTWORLD MALL
The registered name of the building. Underwent is just what we all called it.
The entrance of ‘Wentworld Mall’ had ten different lines with people trying to pry their way through. Each line afforded you a certain level of access within the market. You’d pay for Tier 1 up to Tier 10 with the price increasing by 100 credits per level. To reach Tier 10, which would only gain you access up to the 10th Floor, was 1000 Credits. Not worth it, in my opinion, but, I don’t know what people hunted for, so whatever they paid was up to them. I could’ve taken the VIP entrance at the top of the roof, but I didn’t have that urge to pay 10K for the entrance. That would have given me access to all twenty floors.
The first three floors of Underwent strictly sold food, and I’m not talking about real animals, but cloned meat, the synthetic meat that went off after a few months of refrigeration. They sold fast, so that wasn’t the issue. It just wasn’t the best tasting.
I made my way towards the front of one of the lines. I flashed my best smile, then dangled my creditstrip in a teasing fashion hoping someone would see me. An old lady did, and she called me over. “How much?” I asked, starting the negotiation.
“Three thousand.” She said.
“Hey, You can’t do that here!” someone shouted from behind her.
“Shut it, you little shit, I can do whatever I want!” She howled back.
“You definitely can. Deal!” I answered, not really in the mood to negotiate further.
She returned a smile, not as beautiful as mine, but she held out her wrist and I swiped my wrist against it and tapped in the three thousand.
I slipped into the line and she got out. “That should feed you for a bit,” I mused, to myself.
“Asshole,” Someone said.
“And that’s why you ain’t three thousand credits richer, now shut up and let's be on with it,” I growled.
The old woman looked back and the wrinkles that were cemented onto the etches of her eyes, straightened instantly. She gave another approving nod and slowly stalked herself back home.
As I got closer to the end of the line. I peered into the sky watching as droves of cars entered the VIP Section at the top of the roof. The same two vans that were following me wandered around before finding a park.
“Hmmm…alright,” I said to myself.
I felt the heat from the Sytomatic scan hit me immediately as I paced through the X-Ray machine. It felt like an active microwave about to boil me alive. It was needed, of course, to ensure no weapons were brought into the Underwent Market.
The entrance to Underwent was grander than most Malls within Bridge City. The stairs were a dull grey, and wide, thirty meters by my cybernetic eye’s estimation, which allowed dozens of people to climb up the entrance with me.
I immediately initialised the transponder code, which brought back the white line that led to my package.
Once I made it to the top of the rampart I looked up, beyond the Wonderwent Mall sign, gauging which floor my package was on. I switched my Cybernetic eye to X-Ray mode and counted the floors from the bottom. “Fifteenth floor. Damn it, Shed, who said I wanted to get in Cardio so late?” I said aloud.
I drew a couple of stares from people around me but I shrugged them off and made my way to the Creditswipe machine. I paid the 1500.00 Credit fee, which allowed me access to the fifteenth floor and made my way into the Underwent.
At first, I didn’t like Shedrick’s choice for my pick-up, but after ruminating on it. It was the best place to be. The Lower levels of Underwent were thick with crowds and buzzing with conversations. Cyborgs, Cynocephalus’, Nekomusumes and a few Reptiliacs were seen around the first few shops I laid my eyes on.
In the sky were a few dozen drones floating above us, ensuring and inspecting. No trouble was being had. The Mangol’s eyes were the unofficial name for these drones. They watched the feed themselves, but who truly knew if they did?
Underwent had undergone some changes since I last came here, especially in the lighting area. The once dull chandelier which floated in the middle of the room with a low green and white glow was now beaming blue and red, spraying its beam across the entire room.
The light gave had a water-like effect, that made the ambience of the room form like a splashing waterfall lying beneath the floating chandelier. It was beautiful.
Steelpan troops sat at the side with bass drummers to up the tempo of their songs, rhythmic and quite delightful to the ear. However, when I sat back, the conundrum of music was bashing against my ear and not pleasantly either.
The vigour and gruff nuances of passing voices didn’t help either, but that was what to expect whenever you came to Underwent. A lively market with an amalgamation of lights, noise and scents.
I made my way to the fourth-floor tenants, noticing a stack of circuits, motherboards, and severed prosthetics in one of the stores closest to the escalator I took. Prosthetics wasn’t a good venture overall, the prices were always the same, despite the product either being old, new or a collector's item.
However, in Underwent, you could live quite easily, by just undercutting the “legitimate businesses” out there. The other problem was if you didn’t have a firmware scrubber, to scrub away the previous chassis number of the prosthesis. Then, it could be traced back to you, in theory. But usually though, whoever got caught with the prosthetic would give up their source easily.