Chapter 2

Arriving at the orphanage, a two stories tall, gray and run down building with a roof that was slowly collapsing in on itself due to rotting wood, the two friends entered through the broken door frame of the front entrance and made their way towards the community room.

Arriving at the fairly large room, barren except of a single couch and a few chairs, James gently helped Dante into the couch before taking a seat across from him.

James gave him a concerned look and asked, "Are you going to be okay?".

"Yea, I'll be fine. It will probably take a few weeks for me to completely heal though."

With a huff and a very irritated look James then said, "Fine. I'll help out again on your next job."

Mildly surprised, Dante asked, "Why? You hate what I do. If you're worried about what will happen with my leg then don't. It's not the first time I've done a job injured."

"I was serious about us needing the money, and with both of us there we would get a larger cut of the profit. And yes, I am worried that your leg will get in the way, so I'll be there if something happens."

Leaning back, Dante took a minute to think about James' offer.

"Then should I sign up for a bigger job this time? We might as well get enough money together to pay for the repairs all at once. With both of us working together, we shouldn't have to be worried about getting caught."

With a snort, James asked in amusement, "Like that one time you fell through the roof and interrupted that couple during their 'bed activities'? Or the time you tripped on a loose floorboard and fell down the stairs, waking the whole house?”

“Come on! We were just getting started back then, it’s not my fault that I was clumsy at that age.”

Laughing, James stood up, “I need to go to work now if I still want to get my pay for today. You need to go and get in touch with Jared about a new deal.”

“I’ll go visit him later, after I’ve had something to eat first. He doesn’t like to be disturbed in the morning anyways.” Dante told James as he also got up and limped of to the kitchen, his stomach growling loud enough to make James look at him with a smirk plastered on his face.

While James got his stuff together for his job at the factory, Dante went to the kitchen to get himself one of the packaged meal rations that people in the two lower sectors were accustomed to eating. As he was preparing his meal, opening the individual plastic wrappings and heating up some water, James suddenly popped his head into the kitchen ready for work and with a serious look on his face.

“We need to talk about something after the we finish this next job. I wanted to tell you tonight but I think it would be better to wait until you have enough time to flip out without risking getting put into jail.”

“Why? Whats going on!? Hey!!” Dante yelled at James, as the latter practically fled the house.

Taken aback by his friends ominous words, Dante took his time to eat his extremely bland food while considering what kind of dire news James wanted to talk to him about. Whatever it was, James was obviously …afraid... of talking to him about it. It was disturbing that there was something that James was actually afraid of talking to him about.

With a nervous sigh, Dante put the matter temporarily behind him as he got up and hobbled over to the trash chute and discarded the leftover wrappings of his preservable breakfast.

As he closed the panel in the wall that covered the chute entrance, an odd question entered is mind. Where did the trash actually go? It was odd that he never considered what happens after the trash was thrown away, but with all his other worries he never even thought to ask that question, nor does anyone talk about it.

With his mind filled with a mild curiosity over such a seemingly unimportant matter, he slowly went around getting himself cleaned up and ready to meet with Jared, the man who delegates the various ‘tasks’ that people like Dante do.

Finishing up, Dante slowly made his way out of the house and headed down to the outermost ring of the lower sector, a place where even the watch dogs had to be careful, known as the slum area, because of how people who, for some reason or the other, couldn’t work anymore gathered there, committing crimes such as prostitution, theft and even the rare murder in order to survive.

As he headed out with the sun at its peak, because he wasn’t exactly eager to get to his destination, Dante took his time walking down the trash littered streets of his district’s slum area. Occasionally he would greet a familiar face of someone he grew up or worked with, as he was well known among the residents of the area, like most orphans that at one point in time end up down there looking for a job.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Despite the slow tempo he was traveling at, it didn’t take long for him to arrive at a small office building with all the windows and even the front door completely boarded up. To a random passerby, it looked like an abandoned shop that should have been torn down a long time ago.

As things were though, this was a well know place for anyone with criminal activity, as a hub for various ‘deals’, often referred to as simply the Shop. Most of its activities are held in its basement that had access to the sewer system that is branched out like a maze through the whole district. There are even rumors that say that there are hidden passageways that lead to other districts.

In the past, Dante had hoped to use the sewer system to somehow sneak out of the city, going so far as to spend days mapping out the place. He never found a way out though, finding that any passage out of the district is blocked with thick bars of what appeared to be steel, because you know, Dante didn’t know jack shit about metal types.

It was also because of his expertise with the vast maze and its numerous exits that he was eventually hired by Jared, the boss of the Shop, to help his employes to navigate them to their target destination, a vastly more important job then what the average kid at the age of eight would normally get if they went to Jared to get a job.

Spending most of his youth leading group of thieves and the one or the other hit man through the sewers, led to Dante picking up quite a few particular skills that had helped him make a name for himself in the underground community as a reliable business partner and an expert thief himself, using the money he earned to both fund his hopes to leave the city, buying information and such, and to support the other children that lived in the orphanage but couldn’t work for themselves yet.

Most of the jobs he accepted consisted of stealing things of importance, related to the inhabitants of the top sector of the district. The things he stole were mostly used either to blackmail someone in a higher government position or to remove evidence of some type of crime, but didn’t want to be caught destroying evidence.

The best paying deals were handled directly by Jared, as his role in the Shop was special. High paying clients that wanted their identities completely secure, would only speak to Jared, as the risk of him being implicated in any investigation was non-existent, due to the fact that he never went on any job himself and had a working relationship with people in the watch dogs that drove any inquiries about him away. He made his money by taking a part of the rewards of these deals and also through what the Shop earned by ensuring that all deals made in its walls are done with a certain amount of ‘trust’. Any ‘employe’ of the Shop that betrays a customers trust, often become a target to the Shop’s hit men.

Fortunately, Dante never broke the rules of the Shop, nor did he ever get on Jared’s bad side and even had a good relationship with Jared. That very relationship with Jared is what lets Dante get high paying jobs quite easily and is also the reason he has a key to the upper floors of the Shop which lets him enter directly from the backdoor up on the street level.

Dante went into an alleyway next to the shop, pulled his key out from his pocket and opened the heavy metal door that was slightly hidden towards the back of the Shop. With a squealing groan the door swung open to reveal a stone staircase leading downward into the dark. Without hesitation, Dante stepped into the unlit passageway with a well practiced and confident gait, letting the door close behind him, closing off his last source of light.

After maybe a few dozen steps, he reached the bottom of the staircase and as if he could still see in the utter darkness, he reached out and grabbed the handle of another door. After unlock this one with the same key as before, Dante pulled it open and entered a blank white and relatively short hallway, that was thankfully well lit and ended with a thick, polished wooden door. Inside the hallway were two gray chairs sitting side by side against the wall on the far side of the hallway, where the wooden door was.

Dante closed the door behind him, relocked the door and put away the key. He then proceeded over to the wooden door, gently knocked on it, then sat down in one of the chairs and waited for Jared’s secretary to inform him of his visitor.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t even fifteen seconds until a very tall and muscular man opened the door to greet Dante. Normally Dante would need to wait at least around a half an hour.

After confirming Dante’s identity and a quick search for any weapons the bodyguard stood aside and said, “The Boss will see you now. He seems to have a special job ready for you.”

“Great. Just in time too. I’ll see you later Jack.” With a relieved smile Dante replied to the bodyguard. It was surprising that there was a job already reserved for him as it was usually a first come, first served thing for the jobs that Jared handed out.

Walking past a few offices, the one or the other storage room and also an entrance to a large community room where people gather to exchange job offers and other things, Dante finally arrived at Jared’s office.

Gently knocking once again on another door, Dante waited for a moment before a pleasant voice was heard from inside the room.

“Come on in.”

Sitting behind a wooden desk in the well lit room was a man who unlike his voice, didn’t look pleasant at all, with an overwhelming body mass, oily hair, small beady eyes and rotting yellow teeth.

His desk, covered with all kinds of snacks and candies that are usually only sold at a very expensive price to the inhabitants of the upper sector, his walls painted with all kinds of colors and even the small box on his desk that was gently and quietly playing soft sounds, all spoke of Jared’s immense wealth and influence as these thing were all considered rare and expensive commodities only available to the higher classes of society.

“Dante my boy! Just in time! About an hour ago, I had a very interesting customer here that you absolutely need to meet. You see when she introduced herself, and more importantly who she works for, I immediately thought of you and how you are always asking about things from the outside. I was about to send someone to go fetch you and offer you to take on the job that she commissioned so that you can build a relationship with her organization.”

As usual, Jared fired away with an enthusiasm that completely overwhelmed Dante, making it hard for Dante to voice the questions that were slowly building up in his head by this unusual situation.

“The job she is giving us is going to be extra exciting this time around and even if you don’t get any connections from it, we’ll both be cashing in an enormous profit. I’ll have you lead the team this time so you can show off a bit and have a better chance to get more jobs from them. Oh and you need to come in again tonight to get the details directly from her so that you can properly plan out who you want to bring and what you’ll be needing for the job. I’ll let you choose the team yourself. Oh this is soo exciting!”

Using the slight pause in Jared’s barrage of speech, Dante hurriedly threw in a few questions before Jared could continue.

“The client wants to meet me directly? What kind of job is it? Does it matter who I pick for the team or are there restrictions? What does she have to do with me wanting to leave the city?”

Jared stopped for a moment to listen as a huge grin was plastered on his face before he said,

“Yes she wants to make sure that the person I send does the job perfectly on the first try, so she will need to meet you. Consider it a kind of test tonight. It’s a simple in and out theft and you can take anyone with you as long as the job gets done, just remember that the less people you bring, the more profit you’ll make. As for what she has to do with your little obsession, you’ll just have to wait and see.”

Although Jared has always enjoyed his work, this was the first time Dante has ever seen Jared so, well, mischievous and almost playful. It seems like the reward for this mission will be quite substantial.

“Great! You will be taking the job I assume? Of course you will! I’ve already told the client all about you, so you have to take the job, okay? So listen, I need to get a few things ready and take care of some other clients, so you can go and do whatever you need to do. Be back here right before the curfew and don’t you dare be late, alright Dante. We both need this job so make sure you’re well behaved tonight. Go on leave me to my work boy, and don’t let yourself get caught in such an embarrassing way by the watch dogs, like you did last night again. It’s bad for your reputation.”

Used to Jared’s odd nature, Dante just shrugged and then silently left, not minding the abruptness of his dismissal, although he was slightly embarrassed that Jared already knew about his mishap last night even though he had already anticipated that Jared would hear of it. Without more information on the job that Jared had pretty much forced on him, Dante had nothing that he could do, except restock on basic equipment while he was still at the Shop, then go home and wait for James to finish work and tell him the news.