MetiCity [https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1163602583076753480/1163604578248446103/MetiCity.png]

“Can’t we wait outside?” I ask, looking over at the glass door that leads to the balcony.

“Why? There’s only one person in front of us,” Migo gestures to a woman sitting a few chairs down. Her eyes are fluttering slightly but never completely open. Leaning back in the chair, she rests her head against the wall behind her. She’s completely gone. Tapped-in.

I stare blankly at Migo as if I didn’t hear him. After an awkward moment of silence, he gives in, shrugging defeatedly.

“...I guess we’ll wait outside then. Zeesh Ren, you’re really a walking stereotype, you know that?” he groans, getting up from his seat.

“Stereotype? What stereotype?” I ask, following his lead.

“The one that says sandscavengers can’t ever stop moving,” he answers.

“The settlement hasn’t moved since you left, and we haven’t been nomadic since the 90s. You’re runnin’ on outdated software, Migo.” I explain.

“Yeah, yeah.” He begrudgingly leads the way outside to the balcony of the repair facility he’s brought us to. Because only his credentials can open the door, it feels sort of like I'm being chaperoned. We probably look like an odd pair, too. I’m still in my dirty mechanic overalls from work; Migo, on the other hand, is wearing MetiCity-6’s latest fashion, equipped with advanced coolant tech and vital monitoring. They’re ‘2120 exclusives’; he loves to remind me every new year. The number seems to keep rising in tandem with his ego.

“You’ve got this glacious view of the city, and you want to sit inside watching that zombie surf?” I say, leaning up against a guardrail that borders the balcony we’re on.

He rolls his eyes.

I peer out over the cityscape and fix my gaze upon the large transparent dome that covers it all. I follow the light shining through as it cloaks everything in a yellowish hue. Buzzing transports fill the sky with movement and life. The ground itself exists in constant motion as the various Mag-Lev lines slice their way through the compact arcology. It’s stunning.

“Every time we get a few floors up, you wanna dangle off some balcony like it’s your first time above ground,” Migo groans.

“But from up here…”

From up here, it’s easy to believe this city is endless. From home, it looks like a waning moon, mirroring its reflection over the open ocean. I shift my gaze to the white shimmering buildings blanketed by earthy green foliage and vegetation. Vines twist their way throughout the entire cityscape, connecting everyone and everything.

“I just think you guys get too busy looking forward to look around,” I say.

“You guys?” Migo has a feigned look of offense.

“You’ve been here half a decade, domehead. You’re a full MetiCitian now,” I stand up on my toes to mess up his dark, slicked-back hair, rubbing my fist into it and twisting at the wrist. He pushes me off and vigorously attempts to make the disheveled look work. He’s obsessed with his hair, which makes messing it up even more satisfying.

“I mean, look at this place. They never dreamed anything like this up in those old movies,” I think back to crashing at his place when my foster home got too heavy. We’d watch 21st-century movies at max volume to mask the sound of the superstorms rumbling through the Outskirtz landscape.

“Yeah. We’re short about one alien invasion, two AI takeovers, a few zombie apocalypses and my personal favorite, a robot rebellion,” Migo says through a smile, counting each on his fingers.

“Yeah, and there’d be nothing here but a vast wasteland of decaying, rusted ruins torn apart by war, famine, and Earth itself. You know, just like home,” I joke back. “They dreamt of the apocalypse, blind to the little green oasis that was just beyond it.”

“That’s because they were stressed, depressed, and oppressed. They wanted to tear it all down. They dreamt of places like the Outskirtz so they could fantasize about running wild and being free. Don’t you feel free, Ren? Don’t you!?” he says, grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me up teasingly. I’m the one pushing him off this time. Migos' personality wasn’t for everyone, and at the moment, I'm everyone.

“I’ve signed nothing. I am free,” I say, not sure if I'm trying to convince him or myself.

“You know Ren, you’re right. And truly, I'm just jealous. All that sand. All that junk. The outlaws with no morals, and you sandscavs with too many. If my parents didn’t force me to live in this wretched place of rules and order, I'd come back. I miss it,” Migo says, dripping with sarcasm.

“You miss the women with no morals,” I correct him.

“Speaking of women, you're going to love this new girl I met, Tovah. She's the cream of the MetiCity crop. You know, you really gotta move out here Scav. I wouldn’t call this a paradise, but it’s definitely the greener of the two sides. Thank the Allspirits,” he says, placing his hands together to imitate prayer. More devoid than devout.

“Thank him,” I gesture to the massive skyscraper positioned behind Migo.

“Who?” he asks, turning his head to face the towering building.

“Go heads up,” I urge him, pointing to my own credentials, which I’ve just activated. He pulls his off his wrist and places it over his ear. Pulling on the edge of the device, a thin piece of translucent flexible glass stretches out across his eyes.

“Oh, shit,” he says, stepping back slightly to get a better view of the large, holographic, statue-like figure in front of him, now visible due to his augmented view. “Thank you, Zelius, sir! Looking very sinister today, sir! Happy Birthday, sir!” He laughs, standing at attention and saluting the floating monument.

The looming figure is an older man with a white beard in a General's uniform, casting his gaze out over the city skyline towards the setting sun. He is The Engineer. Founder of MetiCorp. Zelius Metihand.

“I guess when you up the ante every Engineers week for thirty years, something like this is inevitable. I saw a bunch of these on my way into the city scattered all over the place. I wonder if it’s the same in all the Meticities?” I ponder aloud.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

“Probably. I can’t imagine what they do in the first cities,” Migo says, turning back to me.

“He looks sad to me. Honestly, I feel bad for the guy. Imagine starting a Company that saves humanity from the brink of total destruction, only for that very same Company to betray and kill you. What a tragedy,” I say.

“Is that the conspiracy of the week? I thought he went nuts and tried to blow up MetiCity-1?” Migo questions.

“Who knows.”

The man's life is tantamount to mythology at this point. As I study his face, I notice someone on a FlyBike go screeching past. He’s covered in UnderGround tattoos. I thought he might be an augmented visual until I push my credentials slightly above my eyes to confirm he's actually there. The pale-skinned biker makes a sharp u-turn before speeding past again. He breaks quickly, stopping in front of the section of the hologram showing years of Zelius’ birth and death. I let the credentials slip back over my eyes and can see his avatar begin striking out the year of Zelius’ death. He’s replacing it with the letters U and G, similar to the style of his tattoos. These guys are obsessed zealots. They think Zelius was some kind of God and worship him like one.

"Yo, look! UG’s taggin’ the mural,'' I point out to Migo.

“I can’t believe he’s tapped-in fifty stories up on a FlyBike. Is he nuts? These guys will do anything for some publicity.”

"Here come the controllers!" I shout.

“Good. What did he think was going to happen?" Migo laughs. The Company Control Officers descend upon the tagger, throwing a small disruptor that latches onto and disables his bike. They’re able to easily gain control of him while he’s still tapped-in and tagging online. “Why didn’t they just tap in at home and travel here virtually?” He asks.

“They do it to make a statement, but he’s going to end up a deadcred and get tossed out of here.”

“Yeah, maybe he’ll be your new neighbor,” Migo returns a favor by rubbing my head and messing up my already unkempt hair. His credentials suddenly flash a notification signal. “That’s us. We’re up.”

As we make our way back towards the waiting room, Migo reminds me why we’re here.

“Ok, Ren, just remember, you were a witness to a hit and run.”

“Yeah, I’m sure after you hit the ground, you ran. To me. How do you even crash a FlyBike? It’s all automated.”

Aerial crashes are super rare for everyone here but him. My guess is he was high or drunk and ran into something, then tried to paint over the impact. He’d be nothing but a noso in a nice fit if it wasn’t for me.

“Shhhh,” he hushes me.

"I told you I can fix it and they’ll never know," I whisper.

"It's not like I don't trust you, Ren. I just don't have the record to make that bet."

He’s not worried about the social credit as much as he is about his pilot’s license. These MetiCorp-owned facilities are credit-neutral, so it’s not like he’d have to lose anything on the repair. MetiCorp runs credit-neutral versions of just about every business in the cities. They allow private businesses to fill the cracks, providing various niche products and services. But if you have a MetiCorp vehicle, and you bring it to some third-party repair shop like mine in the Outskirtz, MetiCorp won’t fix it after that. They’ll argue some ‘amateur’ tampering with it voids their service agreement.

The majority of repairs completed in MetiCity are done by machines. Only mechanics like me who work in the Outskirtz really get a sense of what’s going on under the hood. Technology gets replaced more than repaired, so I’ve gotten really good at finding various scraps to reverse-engineer and rebuild. When you grow up with nothing to your name, everything you touch was either once someone else’s or a gift.

One man’s trash is another man’s dinner.

"There’s nothing wrong with used parts,” I say as I follow him back into the repair facility. “Let’s make it quick, it’s freezing in here.”

"You sound like you’re from the Outskirtz,” Migos says, walking up to the front desk to check-in.

“I am?” I say, confused. He ignores me.

Migo is real selective about when he wants to claim being from the Outskirtz. If he wants to fit in, he’s MetiCity-6 born and raised. He wants to intimidate someone? Then he’s fresh out the ‘skirtz. We both know there’s not enough credit in this city to get him to go back to sand and unfiltered sun. He was happy to sign the MetiCorp contract and leave as soon as he could.

He’d never admit it, but at this point, I’d say his ratio is probably ninety percent dome baby to ten percent sandscavenger. He’s probably even forgotten how to dig. And us sandscavs have a saying; ‘you only stop digging when you’ve dug your own grave’.

After ranking, he decided to become a disposal worker. A once-ridiculed career has become an important essential infrastructure role that comes with a ton of responsibility. Along with some personal discretion when it comes to deciding when things are dumped and when things are recycled.

The best kind of a friend for a scavenger.

I look over to see the same woman sitting in the waiting room is still tapped-in, surfing the internet on her credentials. I never like tapping in while in public. I don’t mind going heads up; the augmented overlay gives the green and pristine MetiCity the look of a neon dynasty. But when you tap-in, there’s something slightly off about the way you look. Like your brain was beamed out into space and there’s no one home. A state I’d never be caught in outside the city, especially considering how rare credentials are out there. Only settlers who have em’ are the ones who don’t mind getting paid in social credit, like my boss, Frank.

We're instructed to follow the tech through the door to a garage port where Migo’s FlyBike is waiting. It’s a mess. The bike and the garage. At any given time, my shop could have ten to fifteen violations by MetiCorp standards, but this place has more, and we’re not even regulated. Regardless, there’s no way the tech is going to think this was some hit-and-run accident. The only thing strong enough to do that to a FlyBike is the Earth itself.

Before the tech can speak, Migo tries to convince him he doesn’t know how it happened.

“Are you kidding? Look at this thing," The tech says, lifting one of the flimsy panels and letting it drop, “to be honest, you should thank the AllSpirits you’re alive.”

“I wasn’t even driving it. It was parked! I have a witness,” Migo says, pointing to me.

“Like I’m going to trust the word of some Outskirtz kid with sand for brains?” the tech scuffs.

“It’s true. I think he may have parked a little crooked and…well, it was an accident,” that’s for sure, I think to myself.

“Wait right here. I'm going to get a second opinion,” the tech smiles, walking over to a coworker who is elbow-deep inside the engine of some old cruiser. “Hey boss, check this out, will ya?”

“One second! This damn thing…” he grunts, trying to twist his way through detaching a locked bolt. This is what I’m talking about. These guys replace everything. They rarely have to get their hands dirty.

“Excuse me, sir?” I say, tapping his boss on the shoulder. He jumps and the wrench he was using flies out of his hand into the air, just barely misses Migo’s head.

“Whoa! Kid, are you crazy? I'm working here!” His boss yells.

“Hard, but not smart. There’s a release just behind the air filter,” I say, pointing to the switch he needs to hit. They both exchange confused glances before the boss hits the release. The storage area he was trying to get to clicks and he’s able to pull it out easily.

“Holy shit! Kid, I’ve been working on this for hours.”

“Don’t sweat it,” I say.

“What are you doing here anyway?” his boss asks.

“They said it was a hit-and-run accident,” The tech laughs, pointing to Migo’s wrecked bike.

His boss grimaces at the damage. He looks back over at me and smiles before shrugging.

“If they say it was an accident, I guess it was an accident.”

“But he-” the tech starts.

“Might trip and fall walking around this place? Punch it up, and when you’re done, I want this place cleaned up. Oh, and hand me that wrench. Please?” He says with a smile.

“Yes sir,” the tech grumbles, walking over to grab the wrench. He hands it back before opening his credentials to scan the Flybike and create the repair order. “Give me a day. Enjoy the loaner, asshole," the tech says, punching up the order.

"Bruh, you saved my ass. Drinks on me tonight. Well, ‘drink’ on me tonight,” Migo corrects himself and laughs.

After waiting a few minutes, the garage door opens and the tech comes rumbling in on a FlyBike that looks like it’s being held together with shoestring and bubble gum.

“Nice.” Migo isn’t phased in the least. “Hop on. I’ll take you to the loading docks so you can go home, shower, and change before I come get you. And don’t tell me you don’t have anything else to wear.”

"You think I'm going to a bar? With you? On that?" I ask, pointing to the loaner.

It’s a certified piece of scrap. Older generation and showing its wear. When he starts it back up, it’s loud and vibrates so much I think it’s going to give him a concussion.

"Fine. See you tonight ‘scav." He says, zooming off before I can talk my way out of it.

Outskirtz outside MetiCity [https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1163602583076753480/1163604578583973908/Outskirtz_MetiCity.png]