5 years ago

  Waking up was always the hardest part of the day. You had to willingly choose to leave the comfort of your bed, choosing to risk death and dismemberment, just for the chance to–

  “Arid! Get up! You’re going to be late for class!”

  I tried to ignore the voice, wiggling deeper into my sheets. Outside was cold and scary, and I’d much rather stay in the safety of–

  “If you don’t get up now, you’ll be grounded for the rest of the week!”

  I reluctantly sat up in my bed, letting the blanket slide off me. I glanced at the alarm clock by my bed, freezing when I saw classes started in an hour and a half, and I still had at least a two-hour mix of walking and Metro-line ahead of me.

  I launched myself out of bed, quickly opening my closet to grab a set of clean clothes, and threw them on. Grabbing my bag, I entered the small bathroom of our apartment, grabbing some mouthwash as I looked at my appearance in the mirror. I had a slight case of bedhead, but it wasn’t anything a few passes of a brush couldn’t fix.

  I ran down the stairs, making sure to avoid the slightly broken fifth stair, before arriving back in the small living room. I double-checked that I had everything, then grabbed my augmented-reality visor from its charger and slid it into my bag, making sure it was tucked safely in the specialised pocket. I had to make sure that it wasn’t damaged, since almost all of modern schoolwork was done on it, at least at Nirvaes Academy.

  Since my parents got their new jobs last year, I had to switch to this admittedly nicer, but much more corporate school. Commuting was a pain, but at least I didn’t have to deal with the wannabe gang members who infected my last school, even if I missed my friends. Well, Friend, singular. Carrie wasn’t the most put-together, but at least she wasn’t crazy, which was more than I could say for most of my classmates. Seriously, who thought that bringing a gun into school, then waving it around in the very visible courtyard, was a good idea?

  I walked outside, making sure that the door locked properly behind me, entering the alley that our apartment was located in. I started on my way to school, dodging the few homeless that had made the alley their home since the last sweep – the annual event where everybody who didn’t have a home was sent into the slums, so they wouldn’t “sully” the city with their presence. From the look of the ones I could see, it seemed they had avoided the last sweep, which was likely easier in a lower-income area like this, with most of the sweep being focused on higher-income areas, places where people who had influence lived.

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  Hopefully, this would be one of the last times I had to do this journey, since the last time I had talked to my parents, they had talked about moving. Apparently, they needed one more big contract to be able to afford a deposit and a few months of rent on a unit closer to the corporate districts. At least it would be cleaner there, I thought as I avoided yet another puddle of a suspicious, unidentifiable brown liquid. Next time I saw my parents, I could ask them about it.

  Although with their new work, they were normally gone in the mornings, and arrived extremely late, either when I was asleep, or they were too tired to answer questions. They told me they had switched to contract work, which was much more lucrative, but I was suspicious of what kind of contract work would be available for a security guard and low-level programmer.

  From what glimpses I could catch of our finances, we were doing better, although they were receiving large lump sums from someone named “M” rather than a traditional corporate, pay-by-hour style of payment.

  I walked onto the bus, using my optics to flick some credits into the terminal at the front to pay for the ride. The bus was nearly empty, with a few scattered passengers around the compartment, and what appeared to be some low-level Scroma gang members who were making a nuisance of themselves. I slid into a seat near the front, near the door, in case anything happened.

  Well, even if what my parents were doing wasn’t entirely legal, what was legal in Dresidon anyway? The corporations paid for whatever laws they wanted, paying off whatever politicians happened to be in power at the time. Gangs, many likely funded by the very corporations that ruled the city, extorted citizens in plain view of the police. If there was one rule in Dresidon, it was that if you didn’t work for a corporation or had joined a gang, you were on your own.

  If neither of those options appealed to you, but you still didn’t want to find yourself facedown in a gutter on some random street, you had the options of paying “protection fees” from whoever controlled the area. Paying for protection from other gangs or for the security teams in corporate areas was a necessity, and many places had it written into their rental agreements.

  The scroma members seemed to be getting restless and had started to look around the compartment, looking for someone to harass or rob. While they wouldn’t likely pull guns out while on a city-owned bus, they wouldn’t hesitate to “encourage” someone to follow them off the bus into the nearest alley.

  I snuck to the front of the bus and exited into the city. We were still in the Eastern Ward, although not far from the edges of the corporate-controlled Centre ward. Casting a cautious gaze around, it seemed like none of the Scroma had followed me. I quickly started walking towards the Metro-line station, hoping that I would still be able to catch the train.