Prism Academy- Shadows Fall Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Chapter 1- Slums

178 Years Later…

I scanned the street while walking home. It was only common sense to do so. Any slummer could have told you so. These streets weren’t safe, not during daylight. Certainly they weren’t safe now with the sun long down and at best one in six street lights working. For a world that depended on light for safety, this just seemed stupid. But then again maybe the powers that be didn’t care about the lives down here.

It wasn’t that I wanted to be this late getting home. My job wasn’t so enjoyable that I lost track of time. Pretty much the definition of a slummer was that if we found work, it wasn’t going to be pleasant. But the overtime was hard to get and I was the only one the boss would trust enough to pay time and half. I would never be rich. Heck, I might never be able to break free from the slums and live in the burbs, let alone the city proper. Yet, I was close to being able to take my shot. Years of grinding, scraping, and saving. It was hopefully gonna pay off for me and Cara. That is if she could stay clean.

If the price for chasing a dream was that I had to walk home alone in the dark, so be it. Never let it be said that Aden Samuels didn’t do what it took. The deck might be stacked against me, but I’d make the most of the cards I’d been dealt and then fight, steal, or sneak for whatever else I could get. It was the way of the world.

It wasn’t like going home was this big thrill. Odds were I’d be walking into an empty apartment. Cara might be there, but she wouldn’t be present. It was a rare for me to see her when she wasn’t high lately. Bliss was all the rage or at least the latest trend in the slums. There were always drugs, that much never changed.

Cara should have known better. She had the medical training. She’d even had a job at one of the clinics as a nurse. But life here was hard and another rule of the slums was that you don’t judge anyone else. He’d seen some of the shit Cara had gone through since they met on the streets nine years ago. She’d had his back when a kid from the burbs ended up stuck on the street. She’d actually made something of herself and if anyone was gonna get out she looked like she might, but then addiction hit. Maybe that was why he put up with it all now. He’d seen the potential she had.

The loud sound of a trash can being knocked over, metal hitting metal resounded down the mostly empty streets. I jumped. It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle myself. Quite to the contrary, I’d  spent a great deal of time learning to fight. First when I was younger, before my parents died, it was in a formal martial arts academy. That sort of thing was taken seriously now. It was hard to believe that once upon a time kids did that stuff like an after school hobby. If you got into one of the academies you worked your butt off to prove you were good enough.

Those had been the days. Living in the burbs. Both my parents had good jobs working at a tech firm. Tech firm… I could only laugh at that idea now. Slummers didn’t get tech. It was restricted for those of a higher station. All they got were endless channels of drivel pumped into vid screens ranging from handheld devices to ones bigger than my bed. It was all the same.

It wasn't there for the benefit of the slummers. No, the so-called Liv Stream was just another drug. This one you ingested through your eyes rather than your mouth or a needle. Even cars didn’t work this far from downtown. Nor were their mini generators here like some of the high end burbs had.

Since my parents died and I ended up in the slums nine years before, my training had become even more practical in the school of real life. Yet it worked. For the most part I was left alone. I had built up a rep on the street as a guy not to mess with. Well and a guy who’d help out, which was rare enough in the slums. So, maybe a part of it was the good will that I’d built up.

Of course, a reputation is only as good as the number of people who have heard about you. When people didn’t know who you were they felt free to test you. The worst scenario for me was the one that it appeared I was about to face. While my attention had been distracted by whatever alley cat had knocked over a can, two scrawny kids had come wandering down the street from who knows where.

Thing is no one on this block would let their kids be out at this time of night. That meant that these kids were a thing that shouldn’t be. The established local gang the Tri-Stars, while they might have a laughable name wouldn’t have any use for kids here.

No, there were undoubtedly scouts from another gang that wanted to claim this part of the slums. It happened far too often. Usually the Tri-Stars had no trouble defending their turf but sometimes it got truly bloody. Not like the police would step into a slum like this unless the mayor was on some clean up the city drive. If the police wouldn’t come here then I couldn’t bet on any Shinies either.

Sure enough, the first kid asked if I had any food. Oh it could have been a simple beggar. It wasn’t like that didn’t exist but as bad as the slums were, the locals took care of their own, with what little they had.

There it was. As soon as I ignored the kids and walked past them. One of them whistled. When I turned but both the little ones were already off running and a group of half a dozen guys were walking straight for me. I took a second to take them in. They were definitely slummers. All young, probably sixteen to twenty-five. The were all wearing a symbol I didn’t recognize so either a new gang or one from outside of my sector. Their clothes were nothing special, but I saw the glint of metal on a couple of them. The fact that they were rather thin spoke to the fact they weren’t eating enough which might account for their desire to expand.

At 28, I would have recognized these guys if they were from this neighborhood. They were close enough in age for that at least, but I was confident after looking at each face that I’d never seen any of them before. As they got closer, I saw piece of metal pipe in one of their hands. Apparently, they weren’t interested in talking. Another was holding what looked like a small shovel while three of the others were mostly fidgeting.

It wasn’t those visible weapons that worried me. I was confident of my ability to take on a couple of thugs with what essentially amounted to clubs. Six might be a bit much, but working at the foundry had given me a physique most guys in the slums would die for and most girls would lust for. Heck, given how valuable even base materials were, it wasn’t surprising that the foundry included large meals as one of their perks. You needed a strong, stable workforce.

Now, it was a hidden knife or even worse, a shock gun that would be more dangerous to me. The one because I might not see it till it was too late. Fighting a group had a different dynamic than a one on one. You couldn’t go to the ground, unless you wanted your head kicked in and awareness of the situation was everything. The other was dangerous simply because there as no way a normal person could resist it. Being shot by a shock gun wouldn’t kill you, but in this situation spasming on the ground was a good as dead.

The guy in the middle called out to me. He wasn’t the biggest but the way he carried himself said that he might actually be dangerous. “What do we have here, boys? Looks like another late night trespasser. We’re gonna have to collect the toll.”

I just shook my head. Not that crap again. Why couldn’t new gangs ever come up with something original. I decided that the best thing to do was simply ignore them. Well, not ignore them. I was going to be doing my best to pay attention to where they were and what they were doing, but maybe if I didn’t engage they would move on and find easier prey.

That might have worked if it had been one or two of them or if their leader hadn’t been so determined. As it was, I think all I did was piss them off.

One of the younger ones yelled out with more bravado than actual ability, “Hey Dog is talking to you.”

Shit. Dog. Seriously? What sort of moron ends up with a name like that. At least it was Junk Yard Dog or some crap like that. I spun so I was facing them. “Look, I just got done working 18 hours. I just wanna go crash in my crappy bed, in my crappy apartment, in that crappy building, which is part of this entire crappy neighborhood. If you want a fight with the Tri-Stars for the streets, that is fine. Just let me know when one of you wins.”

I didn’t wait for a response. They seemed shocked that someone didn’t just roll over. I angled my path so that I would walk around the far end of their group of six, just out of reach of the guy with the shovel thingy. But, it just had to be one of those nights. The two guys next to boss pulled out small weapons from inside their coats. They were six inch long knives including the handles. Nothing too impressive. These guys couldn’t afford real metal knives so these looked like plexi-glass, but it cut flesh just as well as steel did.

That wasn’t the problem though. I realized just how serious my situation was when their boss pulled out a small weapon. That wasn’t a blade, it had a handle, barrel, trigger and all. A cold chill went down my spine. I felt my heart start to pound faster, my eyes narrowed and my muscles tensed. That wasn’t a shock gun. Shock guns were illegal for anyone but the police or other government types, but they weren’t outright lethal. No, what he was holding was a pulse gun, or in slum slang, a P-gun.

A dirty weapon from what I had heard about them. Cheaper, less accurate, and less high tech that beam weapons. Old fashioned firearms with their small metal projectiles may have gone out of regular use nearly one hundred and fifty years ago. With the restrictions on where humans could safely go, resources were simply too limited. Metal was valuable and becoming more and more scarce. That was part of why his job at the foundry was such a good gig. Of course just because one thing no longer worked didn’t mean that humans wouldn’t find other ways to kill each other.

P-guns fired some type of irradiated particle. Even if it didn’t kill you outright it would pass right through ripping up your insides. If you got hit too many times you died over a couple days in agony as your body literally broke down from the inside. If you got less than that it would be no less fatal as you developed cancer or any number of other conditions over a period years. The worst part was that the effect were cumulative. If there was any cure, it certainly wasn’t something available in the slums.

I moved slowly and raised my hands, avoiding any sudden movements, although I did take a step closer to them. The only way to deal with a gun was with distance. If you were far enough away, they might miss. P-guns supposedly had a short range. Or of course if you were the right type of daring or perhaps crazy you could get in closer. Up close a gun was not any more dangerous than a knife. I figured, they would react to me backing away, so why not do what they wouldn’t expect.

One of the knife wielders laughed. “I don’t think he knows who you are. He thinks the Tri-Stars still matter.”

Another of the guys in the group snickered at that and said, “Those shitheads are so much melted goop on the ground. Probably ran down the sewer drain by now.”