Chapter 2: Slums and Alleys

We bid our goodbyes to Barklay, and went outside. The first sight I was greeted by was a massive metal wall, covered with what looked like years of graffiti. Then the smell hit me. It smelled like someone had made an arosal form of frustration, desperation, and fear, into one collective sent. A bum came slinking up to us asking for spare money, Sal tossed him a small metal piece and led me the opposite direction down the alleyway "People here are poor, but stick in one place too long and you're liable to be found by a rat looking to try and make a few extra chips." Sal warned me. The people here looked worse-off than expected, and this part of Sector Seventeen looked more like a post apocalypse city than any amazing 'marvel from another world' like I expected. The city here resembled its people. Disheveled, abused, and broken. Many of the people were sick, wounded, or crippled in some way. "Please, have you any heart?" Asked a voice close by, which turned out to belong to an old man on the ground. "Help me, please, I beg of you." He pleaded. I couldn't just sit there and watch him so I helped the old man up to his feet and made sure he wasn't too much worse for wear. The old man smiled and shook my hand, thanking me for helping him, where most everyone else down here seemed to be too occupied with helping themselves instead. Not that I could blame them, what for the state they were living in. The old man told me his name was Caster. "Some cretins from the Security Force broke my legs a long time ago, and although the bones were fixed for the best I could afford, the damage has still been caused obviously. You'd be smart to stay away from them stranger." After helping Caster, Sal led me down the street and into another alley, where he had to pause to regain his composure again. "I'm sorry Floyd, the people here just remind me all too much of what happened to me. I can feel and understand their pain."

Looking at my own new "additions", I felt both pity and a great sense of respect for Sal. I barely knew the man, but he had laid his life on the line for me already and has been continuing to do so, despite the danger it puts him in. Knowing his story, about how he lost parts of himself, both physically and metaphorically, in the attack by Sector Seventeen Security, made me feel sorry for Sal. However he also showed strength and determination, hell he practically emenated it, in how he carried on and still searched for a way to help people who have also been affected. Despite all of his loss and pain and suffering, he looks to relieve the pain and suffering of others. Sal truly seemed to be like a saint among men, whichever species they may all be. It's a shame there wasn't more like him in my own time. I decided to ask Sal, "Just where are we going from here? Like is there somewhere we should hide or something? If this Security is as bad as you make them sound then shouldn't we lie low?" Sal just chuckled a bit. "You'll see where we're going when we get there, now hush up and stick close. That kid nearly tried to check your pockets by the way." He said as he pointed to a small child behind me. I quickly checked all of my pockets, then breathed a sigh of relief when I found my wallet, the only thing I had left of Alice and I's time. Of her and I. "I hope that Alice is alright..." Sal just gave me a look that seemed to translate to "stop worrying and be quiet." So we continued down this filthy alleyway and a series of what seemed a dozen more like it, until we had finally reached our destination.

The entire area that these alleys seemed to lead out to looked like a giant shanty market. All of the stalls looked to have been made from salvaged woods and metals and whatever else they could be built from, and the vendors at each seemed to be selling something of anything. As soon the smell of the dank and dirty alleys cleared my senses I was met with a million new smells, spicy, hot, cold, sweet, and one that I'd rather just forget because it reminded me of the porta-johns around the homeless camp in the city I used to live in. "Keep up, we're not here for sight seeing, we're here for equipment." Sal told me, before he started walking into the sea of people and aliens. I could only keep track of him by his sheer size allowing him to tower over most of the market's inhabitants. We had waded our way through what must have been a hundred different people at the least, before Sal stopped at this one, more deshevled looking than the rest, shanty stall. "Do you have the gear?" Sal asked the merchant, who appeared to be another Quady, but a very old one, much smaller in stature than Sal. The old Quady looked at me, gave a little "hmph" noise, then proceeded to go dig some rather large looking armor and a pistol out of a pile of rubbish, presumably to keep it hidden.

"Uhh Sal? That stuff looks way too big for me, I'm not your size you know?" I told him. Sal simply said, "stand still" and then held the chest piece around me despite it being much too big, but before I could even say anything, the chest piece began to shrink down to fit me perfectly. I must have had a look of disbelief on my face because the old man who sold it to us began to laugh at me quite a bit, before whispering something to Sal that got him laughing as well. I was more focused on just how this miraculous piece of armor worked just the way it did, I had taken it off and it still retained a perfect shape to fit me and only me. I put the chest piece back on and Sal handed me some boots and some glove pieces of the same material, and so I put them on too and they shrank down to my size just like the chest piece before them. One last piece was left, and it was the helmet to complete the armor, but as I put on the helmet, something strange happened and I blacked out. Right before I went under I heard faint screamsand Sal saying something I couldn't understand, but I could feel his panic. As quickly as I went under my vision seemed to clear and I was sitting at a table in a small diner with Alice. "Darling? Darling?! Are you even listening to me? These bills are stacking up, how are we going to handle these payments?" Then I heard my voice, yet I wasn't speaking. "I don't know Ali, but we'll manage, we've always managed. I can sell my project and pay some of those bills to make it easier." Alice's expression was one of deep thought and concern. "Are you sure?" She asked. "That project car has been your dream for years now, you'd really be okay with selling it?"

Author's Note

Still a work in progress, so forgive sudden endings