Chương 156: Book 3 - Chapter 3 - Those Lucky Few

I flew to Sector Eighty-Two in my truck. I briefly considered taking a Kodiak, but unlike the northern sectors, the south did occasionally see truck traffic, so I decided to try and keep it low key. I had Nyx whip up a set of armored clothing ahead of time and made sure it was sufficiently filthy before I left so I wouldn't draw much attention to myself.

"Are you sure you don't want any backup, Boss?" Bob asked when I hopped out of the truck at the edge of the district.

"The squirrels might not attract a lot of attention, but having you guys walk around behind me certainly will," I replied.

"Just idle someplace close, in case I need you." He nodded hesitantly before pulling the door closed. I waited until my truck disappeared into the streets above before venturing deeper into the district. The people in Sector Eighty-Two were relatively wealthy, by undercity standards. Many of them worked in the industrial sector, which meant their families could eat twice a day, and because they worked for the corps, the gangs had to be careful about not pushing too hard.

If they injured too many corporate workers there would be swift and brutal backlash. The one thing you didn't ever want to do is mess with corporate profit margins. The downside? This place fucking sucked. I'd never been this far south before, but I'd heard the rumors. The factories down here were supposed to pipe their pollution to the surface, filtering it along the way to have as little environmental impact as possible, and maybe they did at first.

After years of neglect, many chimneys had holes in them, dumping their smog right back into the undercity. Even the titanic extractor fans, which had been designed to catch any leaks, couldn't keep up with the pollution. Eighty-Two wasn't even in the actual industrial section, but the streets were coated in a thick layer of ash and smog. Most of the people I walked past either had impromptu rebreathers or were coughing so badly I thought they'd collapse in the street.

"Nyx, gimme a rebreather," I muttered under my breath.

"Make it look really beat up." Your new lungs are more than capable of filtering out this low level of pollution without any issues.

"Yeah, but if I don't have something covering my mouth, people are going to start questioning why I'm so healthy," I replied quietly.

"Just give it to me on the down low." I reached into my jacket and waited a few seconds for the mask to be teleported in before grabbing the grubby thing and strapping it around my mouth. It probably provided better filtration than anything the corps provided, so I made a mental note to pass it off to some kid before I left. The pollution wasn't the only reason why life sucked around here. As I turned a corner, heading towards the point Nyx had marked on my augs, I saw a corporate SUV parked in the street.

Some guys in combat armor were pulling a family out of the building, while some suit read out orders from a tablet nearby. Someone related to them must have made a mistake or gotten injured, and god forbid the Corps give anyone a break. There was always some clause that allowed the company to force the family into indentured servitude in order to pay for the damage or medical bills. It had been that way for fucking years, and everyone knew the risks of looking for work down here in the south.

A lot of people would rather starve than deal with this bullshit. I briefly considered intervening, or calling the bears to deal with it, before discarding that idea. This same situation was going to repeat dozens, if not hundreds, of times today, all across the area. Saving one family wasn't going to change anything, and they knew the risks when they signed up. I skittered away, swiftly making my way deeper into the district until I came upon a surprisingly open section.

The area was filled with old cargo containers, which people had turned into tiny shop stalls. The different levels were connected by makeshift stairs, ladders, and bridges to make the entire area traversable, and unlike the stacks back home, it actually looked surprisingly stable. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. As I slipped into the area, careful to avoid the locals milling about, the area was filled with cries.

"Fresh veggie-waste! Give those nutri bricks some flavor!"

"Recycled fabric here. Great for new clothes, only used once!"

"Solid fiber boards for sale! Plug those holes in your walls, mostly not rotten!" I stopped for just a moment to inspect the cloth the woman was hawking. It was dirty and ripped, but in mostly one piece. The junk being peddled here was slightly above the quality of stuff that would have been available back home half a year ago and significantly inferior to the goods these days.

Despite having some money coming in, these people weren't in any much better shape than the people in the north, they were just surviving in a different way. When I reached the center of the market, I paused and looked around the area. I couldn't see Helen anywhere, even with the half dozen squirrels perched on the nearby buildings.

"I can't believe I trusted her," I mumbled.

"I thought you didn't trust me," came a voice from directly behind me. I spun around in surprise, only to find Helen standing right behind me, smirking. She was dressed like a scavenger with overalls and an old ripped-up canvas jacket. I barely recognized her.

"How the fuck did you do that?" I hissed.

"My specialty is perception filtering, remember? It's the reason Mirage agreed to let me come down here," she replied, gently placing a hand on my back and directing me towards one side of the market.

"Should you really be admitting that so loudly and in the middle of a crowd?" I asked suspiciously.

"Really Teddy? What did I just say? No one is going to notice us or listen to our conversation unless we bring attention to ourselves, or I want them to hear us. Speaking of which…" she looked me up and down, "did you really have to put on another jacket with ears? Are you trying to attract attention?"

"Shut-up," I snapped.

"It's a popular style in the north these days." As Helen led me over to a major north-south artery, I got my first look at the industrial district. The entire area looked like a solid wall of industrial machinery and factories, packed as closely together as they could possibly fit. Unlike the residential areas, the industrial section was fairly well maintained, and there were trucks rushing between the different complexes and the nearest surface access.

I had some trouble making out any details because most of the area was completely bathed in smog, but I could make out the occasional corporate-branded security vehicle patrolling just outside the clouds of pollution.

"So what exactly is your mission?" I asked as we joined a slowly growing line of people trudging towards the access bridge into the next sector.

"Someone is inciting the workers to quit their jobs, strike, and sabotage the factories," Helen explained without turning her head.

"While some of that is expected, what's not expected is for it to happen so often or for the families of the insurgents to have the money to pay off their debts."

"So you think someone is bankrolling this? Why?" I muttered, glancing at Helen.

"It's filled with unskilled labour, assigned to dangerous, menial jobs, but it doesn't produce anything important. It's mostly low-level processing for materials that are used in the advanced manufacturing centers in the north."

"That, my dear Tedward, is what we're here to find out," Helen said, flashing me a smile.

"I have a couple contacts inside, some of my old group, who I hope can point us in the right direction. I assume you have eyes on the inside already."

"Don't call me that," I grumbled.

"I have some around, but the corps got pretty uppity when the squirrels got close, so they're mostly watching the perimeter."

"That'll have to do," Helen replied. Now that we were approaching the industrial district, I could feel the heat rolling off of it. Between the forges at the lower levels, constantly processing ore for the factories above, and the massive machines constantly stamping parts, the entire district must have been a sweatbox. When we got to the bridge, we had to push to make it on, shoving against the other unwashed bodies struggling to make it across.

"Are you ready?" Helen asked as we bounced around.

"Because I have a feeling this is going to be fun!" I, on the other hand, was sure it was going to be quite the opposite.