Baruel in the midst of Summer consisted of sweltering disgusting heat. The wind from the ocean was delightful but not easily felt through the perimeter of walls and buildings that blocked the inner districts. Eden included, but all residents had air conditioning or were able to cool off in their personal pools during these waves. Temperatures this Sunday had reached well over 100 degrees fahrenheit, and the mood swings of both districts were high. There is a reason that ice cream sales and murders were correlated.

---

The president of MARCO was no exception as he could be found in his high rise wearing nothing but his underwear and a light grey cotton tee shirt. His shirt was damp with sweat as his hand was deep inside his bottoms, going to work. "Oh Elena.." he murmured, the latest VR googles adorning his face as he watched the altered adult content flash in front of his eyes. Joseph was enjoying himself greatly while his world below him was suffering. Chaos exploded as a group of activists had successfully pulled off their latest stunt. They had set fire to THREE central locations through out Baruel. One in Eden being the main meeting center. The other two places to be set aflame were an apartment complex in Korven as well as a entry and exit zone between the two districts.

A young female assistant came rushing into the suite, she had been given the entry code after serving MARCO for several years. "Sir!" the young woman gasped seeing their leader in such a state. Joseph used his free hand to remove the goggles as he removed his other hand from his pants and wiped it onto the couch that sat underneath him. What did I tell you about coming into my home during these hours?" The assistant nodded her head but began to speak quickly, "I'm sorry sir but there has been an emergency!" she swiped a few pages on her tablet as a holographic screen popped up showing the people running around as the fire began to engulf their belongings, their homes. "Send all the first respondents to the center, than send some to the border so that people don't sneak in without proper security clearance." A few more swipes of her tablet sent out the people needed for such an emergency.

"What about the apartment Sir?" the assistant asked meekly, as she watched Joseph stand up. "The people are setting their own homes on fire for what? They are mad about what? Try working harder or just being rich. I'll take any of these young women in this movement, fuck them good and turn them into something important. But no, they'd rather live like shit and set fire to the beds they sleep on." Joseph put on a button up shirt and a clip on tie as he walked over to his broadcasting system. His pants still gone. He smiled as the program booted up.

Soon his face would be casted on several large screens through out the city, as well as any and all television sets and proclaimed radio stations. "Good morning Baruel! The weather sure is hot!" he chuckled, "Due to this extreme heat it seems that mother nature has gotten the best of us and set some areas aflame. Please remember to cool your homes with MarCold Central Air and Heating Systems." A commercial would than be played for the previously named product. Joseph would appear back on screen for a moment, "Help will be sent as soon as possible. Please remember MARCO thanks you for your participation, have a great day!"

The broadcast ended as Joseph took off his top and threw it onto the floor, he turned to his assistant with a smirk "Send someone to clean me and my couch up." he demanded as he went to put the goggles back on his head, and settled back down.



Back in Korven, people young and old tuned into the broadcast, while one apartment in particular fought for their lives. Screaming and coughing could be heard as people tried to help one another make sure not only their family was out safe but as much as their belongings as they could manage. The only available help would be one another until some sort of authority could arrive, which by then might be too late to salvage anything.

"Hey that's MY shit man!"

A young woman yelled at another woman who had been taking this trying moment as a time to increase her own pocket value. A purse containing a few hygienic products had been taken out of her hands in the midst of movement, "I'm sorry Monique." a man said, placing his hand on Monique's shoulder. She had been crashing at his apartment for the last week. "Not your fault. I'm sorry about your apartment.. shit man, what are you going to do?" she asked, the two of them outside as they watched it go up in smoke. "I'll go live with my parents or something, what are YOU going to do?" he asked as Monique adjusted her backpack on her small frame. A backpack containing her entire's life worth of material items. "I'm sure work will let me stay there for awhile again, I'm scared once I have to quit though, they won't want any pregnant chicks working, unless it's some real specific fuck comes in and requests it." she laughed with a genuinely sad tone as the two embraced.

"Keep in touch with me man, I'm going to head to work, if your parents don't let you come back I'll find something for you." the man nodded, as he turned back to the apartment and then once back to her. "Take care of yourself Mo, I wanna see that baby when it comes too, don't you go and sell that shit, I'll raise it if I have to." Monique nodded, waving as she headed to the dance club she worked at. It would be hours before the place would open, but she could work as a maid in the mean time and maybe convince the owner for her to stay there a few months while she figured a new living arrangement out.

The waters were still, here, if only for the moment. Free from the confines of reality, he wandered beneath the sky, gazing up to the intermingling hues of cream and orange and magenta. Ripples drifted out from beneath his feet as they made contact with the otherwise placid surface, and he could feel the coolness between his toes. He couldn't help but smile. Shakily, he raised his arms out in front of him and they felt heavy, more so than the other times he found himself here. As his fingers danced about, tracing invisible loops through the air, the area past where he walked began to quake.

Small structures began to rise through the waters—statues that mimicked styles and cultures of the past, mimicked familiar faces he could, at once, barely recognize and hardly forget. Beyond them, small buildings resembling places he used to roam; better times in life where memories remained fuzzy at best and drowned in static at worst. Aimlessly, he shambled across the waters until he came into contact with a statue taller than himself. The face bore a striking resemblance to her. He wrapped his arms around the base and buried his face into the marble cloth that encircled her body, shaking silently as he started to weep.

Across the walkway, an old woman—a local shopkeeper and mother of two—watched a ragged, disheveled, clearly disturbed husk of black denim and blue nylon stumbling throughout the open plaza, somehow narrowly missing multiple chairs and tables. His arms raised out in front of him, fingers waggling in nondescript motions. As the throngs of passersby weaved through each other on the pedestrian path, their silhouettes masked his presence for only a few seconds before he reappeared again, his body slumped against a broken pillar with his arms wrapped around its base. His body quietly trembled in the distance, and she couldn't help but feel a slight sympathy for him.

The statue to which he gripped so tightly started to crumble and turn to dust, streams of marble residue pouring into his hands. Frantically, he tried to slap them back onto the statue—at this point, now half a body—only to physically recoil and plead in hushed tones when they failed to stick and ended up slipping into the water, clouding the once clear liquid. He bowed repeatedly, as if praying to the statue itself, but when he rose for the final time, the statue was gone, replaced with the sound of a gentle breeze. His arms fell to his sides and he stared across the realm and into the horizon, letting a tear stream down a pock-marked cheek. The sky above and the shallow, endless pool below started to fade from his sight, a landscape of gray, intermittent neon light, and scanlines returning to his senses, complete with the stench of garbage, gas, and smoke.

He lingered for a period of minutes before clambering to his feet, using the pillar to brace himself so he could take a few seconds to stabilize. His body ached all over, likely a result of falling over multiple obstacles or the occasional conflict with another transient. With a lengthy sigh, he positioned himself upright and took note of the scenery around him. He found himself in an empty plaza, rusted steel chairs and tables strewn about. Several feet away, a long barricade separated the plaza from a wide walkway, with open gaps interspersed throughout. The pedestrian traffic sped past in both directions, shadows obscuring faces. He touched his fingers to the composite mask upon his face, feeling the fringes of scars and melted skin. In that moment, he felt akin to the anonymous travelers.

Beyond them, an old woman leaned on a railing that lined the stairs leading up to the building in front of which she stood. As he noticed her, she likely watched the darkness beneath his hood, searching for something to recognize. They'd acknowledge each other with the subtlest of motions before she shook her head and turned to enter the building. Typical, he thought to himself as he exited the plaza, lumbering toward his home. He passed by the same lit landmarks, using them as signs to direct himself back to the alleyway. Though the outskirts of Korven were still relatively new to him, the signs and buildings associated with them had already become well-known enough for him to reliably use them for guidance—a neon Polaris, he once contemplated.

When he arrived at the alleyway, home to his bed of cardboard and torn tarp, a shadowy figure awaited him. He felt no sense of fear, walking past them and seating himself on the ground, the ache of his muscles brought to the forefront yet again.

"Senna," the shadow uttered, kneeling down to meet the homeless man at eye level.

"Lucid," Senna replied, slight traces of wind playing with the frayed fibers of the cloth beneath his hood.

The figure, seemingly referred to as 'Lucid', laughed and rested a gloved hand on Senna's shoulder. "It's been a while since we last talked. How have you been?"

Senna lifted a heavy arm to brush away Lucid's hand before letting it drop into his lap. His breathing was labored, a result of having little food to sustain him. "If you're looking for me to buy, I don't have anything for you. Just leave me alone."

"Nonsense," Lucid replied, his voice dripping with malcontent. "You could always do what you do best; take a trip to the medical center, get a few augments, let them poke at your brain for a little while, yeah? You did it before, remember?" Met with silence, Lucid rose to his feet and stepped back into the openness of the alleyway, his back turned to the homeless man. "But, I suppose that was during a time where you were desperate to leave your world behind, wasn't it? Back when it came crashing down around you. Back when they vanished."

An empty can landed near his feet, clanging across the ground until it hit the corrugated aluminum wall. Lucid laughed again.

"Guess that period of your life hasn't ended just yet."

"Leave, Lucid," Senna demanded, his voice hoarse. "I don't have the money to buy any HALOs. Your presence here is a mockery."

"Tell you what, Sen," Lucid countered as he slowly wheeled around to face Senna, clearly refusing his request. He moved back to Senna's area and knelt down before him once more, reaching into a pocket inside his leather jacket and producing a small, flat chip in his hand before continuing. "I'll let you have one HALO, for free, so you can escape—"

Lucid flicked the top of Senna's hood, to which the latter was too exhausted to retaliate. "—back into whatever little fantasy world you cooked up in that broken brain of yours. In turn, when you finally get enough money to your name, you find me, and you pay me. Consider it an advancement on our... unspoken agreement. Now, if you take this, and you can't come up with the cash, you won't have to find me, because I'll find you, and when I do... you will pay what you owe. Now, if I know you as well as I do, which I'd like to think is pretty well, you're going to take this deal, because HALOs are the only reason you haven't offed yourself yet, and you'd rather escape into some strange delusion than face reality head-on and deal with it like a man, so..."

He waved his hand side to side in front of Senna, the tiny metal pieces of the chip glinting in the ruby neon light.

"...what's it gonna be?"

Her eyes fluttered open, and she immediately felt the discomfort responsible for waking her. The room was warm, a little too warm, in fact. Elena looked around the space, noticing Damien wasn't there with her. She suddenly coughed without warning, her throat on fire. Despite the medication she was taking as instructed by her doctor, Elena didn't feel any better. She could barely speak, and at that moment didn't feel like calling out to her husband, but in the next few moments he opened the door and stepped inside the bedroom. He had obviously heard her cough, and she was thankful he was so attentive.

Damien walked over and sat on the edge of the bed before placing the back of his hand on her forehead. He didn't need to say a word; his expression said it all.

"You're burning up, love."

"It's that bad?"

"Afraid so. I'm gonna go grab some chicken soup for you and I'll be right back. You're gonna be okay while I'm gone, right?"

"Yeah, but you don't need to--"

"Sorry love, this isn't a debate. See you soon."

Damien gave her a quick kiss on her hand before leaving her alone once more, and Elena couldn't help but sigh. She'd been eating chicken soup for a number of days now, and she was growing tired of it. But it was easier bending water than trying to convince him otherwise. Sometimes his hardheadedness was useful, other times it drove her insane. Although she'd rather have someone who was on top of things versus the alternative, so she couldn't complain.

Elena turned her head to the side to look at the time. She should probably dial the office, let her partner know she was going to be out for a while longer, but she quickly realized she could let Damien handle that as well whenever he returned. He would want her to not get out of bed until she was feeling better, and she would oblige. Instead, Elena reached behind her for the remote, and in that moment a notification went off on her phone.

"Really?"

The young woman took her time getting up and walking across the room. She had left her slippers behind as she welcomed the cool feel of the floor underneath her feet. When she approached the dresser, Helena looked down at her phone and noticed it was her mother who had messaged her asking for an update. Not only did she have an overprotective husband, but she also had overprotective parents.

Yes mother, I'm okay. I haven't gotten worse. She thought to herself as she typed up the message. She figured it was the best way to respond without alerting her mother as to her condition. Elena didn't need another complaint going to Damien. When she sent the message, Elena went back to bed. By that point, she was a little anxious to get her mind off of things and instead binge on some episodes of the show she was currently watching. And for the next 10 minuets or so, that's exactly what she did until her tv suddenly cut off to yet another "important" broadcast.

---

---

There was a click and a brief whir as Sharp's camera cycled, capturing an image of two men meeting - one from the Kings and one from the Pure - for beer and information exchange. He wasn't entirely sure who they were working for just yet but these two gangs don't get along well enough for this to be a part of their normal operations; these two were up to something abnormally shady, and Sharp couldn't have that, not without him getting to know about it.

Click, again. Whir, again.

The pair were shaking hands outside a dive bar, the Pure's expression muted and dull, the King's vibrant and boastful. Both were grinning, creases forming at the sides of their eyes, expressions sly. The King was wearing a black leather bomber jacket that looked like it was one full size and three quarters too large for him, lined with torn navy synthetics and stained deeply with sweat - the buttons on the left side front pocket had long since been lost to time and the pocket itself had torn through, though that last part was an intentional if ham fisted modification, as this particular criminal also kept a gun concealed on the left side. His trousers were filthy off-white cargo pants, trimmed in what might have been purple a decade ago, with a bright golden handkerchief hanging out of both back pockets, just screaming 'look here, look at my ass and my clothes, look how much better I am than you'. His boots were the most interesting part and Sharp had taken great care to catch them in the photos from his perch on the second floor of the next building over - combat boots, MARCO Security issue ones, caked in pale mud from one of the flooded districts of Korven that are technically abandoned. The fact that MARCO had leaked surplus product into Korven was no surprise, even while Sharp had been-

------

- they had done that. Cost cutting measures, they'd said. They never sold the surplus that was anything other than fashionable inside Eden, so Sharp wasn't surprised about this at all, it was only logical that some ganger would want boots that looked as good as they served. The only informative part there was the mud - this King was a King of Smugglers. Sharp had spent as much time in the shadows of the flooded parts of the sanction as any smuggler, and he knew roughly where this idiot was keeping his shit. The Pure here was interesting too - all simple clothes and asceticism - but one thing he couldn't hide were the marks on his arm; not tattoos or scars, needle marks. The rest of it was irrelevant. Pure aren't meant to do drugs, and the King here had what looked like a small crate full of them.

Working theory? At least one - though probably more - of the Pure were collaborating with at least one - though probably more - of the Kings either for profit, a fix, or both.

Sharp took the camera focus away from his eyes for a moment, shifting a caffeine pill around in his mouth for a bit before crushing it between his molars and holding it under his tongue. Those things were bitter as hell, but they didn't kill you, and they kept you alert - and they didn't smell. Smells in Korven were myriad, strong, confusing, overwhelming - all of the above - but they give you away all the same. Sharp always took care to keep his smell either neutral or ambient. Preferably neutral. No deodorant, no cigarettes, no scented or flavoured gum or mints. If it stinks, even pleasantly - especially pleasantly - then folks will smell it.

Nobody realises how acutely they can pick up an out of place smell until they do in their own home. Sharp didn't need that kind of heat.

Sharp put the camera back to his eyes. The Pure junkie handed his Kingly counterpart a slip of paper with something written on it - Sharp couldn't see the text in the moment it was passed over, but he could look back through the feed on his camera later and figure it out. He might not need to, of course - the chances were that it was an address for a dead drop or a pickup point, most likely a pick up point for human cargo either in part or in whole. Any criminal organisation that grows to the scale of either of these gangs learns to accept that a certain level of skimming off the top in their operations. When you deal exclusively with other criminals then the norm is to get fucked over - profitable and sustainable gangs just make it known what level of skimming is acceptable, and what level gets you turned into livestock.

Working theory? These two were trading in skimmed product. The King needs flesh, the Pure needs drugs. The King was offering up a footlocker's worth of high, the Pure was offering the location of their payment in kind. This leaves us with a number of possibilities.

• 1. King's giving drugs they legitimately had as part of their business and therefore is doing no wrong by their gang other than dealing with the Pure - which, for the right price, could easily be forgiven. Pure is trading human body parts in return, which they're less likely to have had access to legitimately with the Pure, from the look of their rank - thus the Pure is skimming in order to provide for a drug habit or drug dealing. Is this likely? Not really. If they only had to transport body parts then sure they'd need to keep them cold, but the deal would simply have taken place somewhere where that could be arranged, so the King could take the merch away with them. But then what does a King need with dead bits anyhow? Not a whole lot, most of the time. This ain't likely.
• 2. King's giving drugs they legitimately had as part of their business, is doing no wrong. Pure, instead of trading dead body bits, is trading a live human being, or live human beings plural. This, this is a bit tricky, but probably more likely. See, the Pure tend to run a tighter ship than the Kings do - they're still motivated by greed and profit about as frequently on an individual basis, but the overall organisation has this terrifying tendency towards religious fanaticism. How they reconcile this with committing a variety of the worst crimes known to man, Sharp could never tell, but it made it hard to get certain things past them. Stealing a bunch of body parts in a cooler is one thing, stealing a human being still alive and crying is another - even if it were part of their legitimate, usual sales goods, covering up for their disappearance is harder and makes you more of a target. Why is this the more likely option then? Specifically because it's harder to do; the Pure ganger only gave the King information here, meaning he doesn't or can't have the goods on hand. You might not want to be caught with a bag of arms, but they're not gonna try to escape custody like a person might, doubly so if the person in question is people. More likely.
• 3. King's giving drugs, legit or not. Pure isn't trading anything material, but in fact solely on information. The intention is the same - Pure get drugs, Kings get people - but the MO is radically different. Sharp knew that the Pure kept their living stock together for ease of administration and security but also that these sorts of places aren't impossible to break open, especially with insider help and info. The King is fraternising with the enemy and possibly stealing from his bosses, but the Pure might even be turning traitor for profit. Only thing against it is that the Pure are well known to deal especially harshly with people who actively betray them, but for a fix when they're itching people will do a lot of dark and dangerous shit, religious fanatic or not.

Conclusion: Need to go look at the photo to be sure, examine the details of the note itself. Never act on suspicion alone unless lives hang in the balance. Reasonable cause to believe X, Y, or Z doesn't matter in the court of law or on the court of the streets, only evidence past the threshold of a trigger's pull.

The two subjects of Sharp's surveillance exchanged a few more words, but their relationship was clearly enough business first and nothing second; they dropped the niceties soon enough and headed their separate ways. Sharp, not being in a rush, took the time to dismantle the tripwire he'd set up around the entrance to the room he'd squatted in - and then the backup tripwire and two further redundant traps too. Nothing flashy, plenty deadly.

Then he went home. For the first time in three days.

Fuck, he needed some coffee.