Han remained smiling as Fesyen closed her hands, only nodding along before replying. “Thanks! I will be sure to head there once I check out the spa.” What awaited her there, the human made horrors beyond her comprehension, were of course unknown. Fate itself, for some reason, dictated that she had to watch someone disfigured into an anthropomorphic fox. Observe powerlessly as the bones and flesh were molded into an aberration that mocked all of creation, followed by a howl, a scream of defiance against nature, the defiler’s bow, his macabre finished product now on full display for everyone to see.

After the nice little window into the depravity of humanity Han did a 180 turn and spoke again. “Actually, I think I should get going instead.” Her smile unchanging, she speed-walked to her car, waving goodbye to Fesyen and adding a little “Don’t worry sir, I promise you I will get the bits!” Before she fully left both the homeless man’s and the tailor’s field of view.

One rapid entrance followed by a gear shift and enough acceleration to make the wheels slightly slip later she was on her way to the flooded underground. “Just like the old times, right?” She asked to no one in particular, eyeing the middle of the back row as if able to see the gun in the vehicle’s trunk. [i]’I wonder what he would do in a time like this…’[/i] Han thought as well, a small memory being indexed and then played by her nervous system automatically; the heavy traffic facilitated this, having flashbacks was one hell of a time-consuming activity. Why exactly traffic was this bad she did not know, did some highway blow up or something?

It was a regular Tuesday evening, the sky was cloudy and the night was warm. Light pollution reflected off the clouds enveloping the city in an eternal twilight only eclipsed by the city’s own artificial lights. A dark figure drove calmly towards a destination Han had unindexed and overwritten a long time ago. “Those fucking Xenos.” The man spoke, his voice raspy like Marlboro Red’s smoke. “Brought war here and sold us the guns to kill each other with. If you ever get the chance to, crush their skulls and skin them.” Then a brief pause. “Reverse that order, actually.” After, a prolonged horn followed by screaming at a cyclist who just got out for his morning ride. “Fucking asshole, anyway the only good thing they brought here was some damn fine ass- “His sentence was interrupted by the man taking a sip of his bud light. The conversation was deafened as Han already knew he was going to go into extreme detail of how he fucked an alien while in Africa even though he somehow does not even know if it’s a continent or a country. No, her eyes were focused on the man’s machine gun resting in the backseat. “-Hey, you even listening kid? Ah whatever-” He threw his empty beer can out the window. “Tell you what, if you can field strip this pistol I got from one of the guys I killed today in a cleansing operation you can keep it.” The man then reached over Han’s lap for the glove box, opening it and browsing past a bunch of fines before he finally took out the gun, a black Springfield Hellcat. “Who knows, maybe you’ll shoot someone accidentally with it.”

The pale woman finally reached one of the entrances to New Venice. Luckily for her they were still kept in the vehicle’s navigation system. [i]’Can’t beat good old GPS.’[/i] She thought as she stopped and left the car in a not so stupid place before she exited it and made her way to the underground. Memories rushed back in as she stepped down the stairs and into the dilapidated flooded part of the New York metro. Han did not even need to follow the swatches, her memory implants already knowing the way to the place Fesyen described earlier, yet her conscious self could not help but wonder where she was going. As she got closer the endless tunnels and corridors started to sport banners, xenophobic messages, and culminated in some sort of makeshift frat house in an area previously unknown to her. [i]’This must be the place.’ [/i]She thought as she made her way through nerd-land and approached the first person she saw, hopefully her appearance would come in handy for gathering information from these social outcasts. With a naïve smile she asked: “Good afternoon, sir! Would you be so kind as to point me to the current job openings? I am a bit strapped at the moment and could use some bits.”