In the Night, Chapter 2
The girl with the flowing copper hair stood in the cold chill of mid-morning. Her toe throbbed from hitting it on the table, but she didn’t try to rub the pain out; she deserved it for being so foolish. She had spent a long time trying to get to this moment and she had ruined it.
She held the blanket closer, wrapping it tightly as the breeze picked up. She gathered her clothes haphazardly discarded in the back rooms and silently left out the front door. The guards paid her no mind - they had seen the same pre-dawn escapes happen numerous times. The penthouse owner was known for his passion in love-making and anger, so it would be best if she wasn’t there when he found out he had been robbed only steps away. She made her way to her downwell home on the rapid transit lines. She changed shuttles four times, covering her tracks in case she was followed.
When she arrived home, her dwelling’s Intelligence welcomed her, “Good morning, Fae. It is 6:21AM. Would you like to hear this morning’s top stories?”
She silently assented.
“The International Science Counsel in Pacifica has awarded this years Carbon Zero prize to the French ASILE for the second year in a row. The third launch of the Mars Colonization Mission has once again been postponed due to the superstorm presence near the equatorial launch site, leaving the current colony with enough supplies to last only a year unaided.”
Fae walked through the tiny apartment and slipped her clothes off, climbing into the shower. She showered quickly, the closed loop of recycled and purified water only remained hot for a few minutes. At some point, the Intelligence had acknowledged that Fae had stopped listening and promptly went silent.
She got dressed in a simple slim-fitting jumpsuit standard issue to the agriculture and purification workers that spent most of their time on the bottom of the WELL maintaining vital food and water supplies. Fae didn’t work in agriculture or purification; she didn’t work at all, at least in the traditional sense. Her job, her sole mission, was to find the White Specter, the thief she had come so close to finding only hours ago. She knew he had a place in Container Town, so that’s where she was headed to try and pick up the trail once more.
Container Town was the WELL’s slum. It was marshland on the absolute bottom, ringing the man-made lake that rainwater fell into. It was one of the first parts of the WELL built. As excavation crews dug deeper and deeper building the foundations that would later become infrastructure, the crews lived in a descending spiral of shipping containers turned dwellings. When they reached fifteen miles down, there was nowhere to put the containers so they stayed - the poverty-stricken and industrial workers moved there when there was nowhere else to go. The ground squished underfoot, the air was damp with an oppressive humidity worming it’s way everywhere and a rotten musty smell reeked off of everything.
Fae was nervous in Container Town. Once she stepped into Container Town, she left behind the safety and brightly lit hallways of the WELL. In Container Town, they kept their own law and it was not merciful. Fae rented a small container near the inner circle in a safer neighborhood run by one of the older industrial gangs. She paid in cash for six months at a time and they left her alone, so it fit her needs perfectly.
Pressing her hand against the door, the several steel pins embedded in the door unlocked, recognizing her palm print. She walked in and her Intelligence should have greeted her. Her lights should have come on. But they didn’t. The door behind her swung shut and the steel pins engaged, locking her in.
“Hello, Fairweather.”