The Online World of Roiyaru Kitsune...

The Elysian Archives

RANDOM ENCOUNTER

 

Haigen didn’t realize how ragged he looked until he entered the Khorsten & CO waiting room. Not because his dirty and torn up clothes stood out in any way. It was more the fact that all the other two dozen young men looked just like him. The white paint on the walls had cracked and peeled off, showing the grey cement underneath. Tired bodies sat slumped on worn out wooden benches waiting for the door in front of them to open. Eventually it did, and out came a man in a dirty white and orange jumpsuit. By Elysion-standards the man was clearly of lower class but compared to Haigen and the others in the room he might as well have been royalty. The man gestured for the group to rise from their seats by nodding his head and motioning them to come outside. Haigen followed, hands lazily shoved into his pockets.

He knew the drill by now. The men would stand in a line and the foreman would pick three, four, perhaps five of the strongest men. They would get two meal coupons and a tiny bit of cash in exchange for a days work of carrying things, scrubbing floors or mixing cement. He also knew that he would never get picked. It just didn’t happen. He still enjoyed standing in the line, straightening his back and feel the fresh wind from the docks running through his thick hair. It made him feel cleaner somehow despite the thick layers of dust and grime that covered him and every other slum rat in Brightholme.

The foreman walked along the line of men and pointed out the ones with the broadest shoulders and biggest arms before motioning for them to enter the back of his vehicle. Haigen was tall, but that was pretty much it. He wasn’t muscular enough to impress any employer that wanted real manual labor and in all honesty, he probably didn’t look like he was suited for anything. The rest of the men dispersed but Haigen decided to stand a little longer to catch the next breeze of salty air. It wasn’t as if he was in a hurry anywhere. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the thought of being picked out to sit in the back of that vehicle. To cash in the meal coupons and bring home food for his brothers. He daydreamed about how it would be to hold those two coins in the palm of his hand and the smiles of relief he’d get in return from his mother. The crooked smile of Tsygan as he received another lecture in how he shouldn’t play by Bright Bastard rules. He knew all that. Still, hunger forced everyone to play along. There were no winners. The winners didn’t live inside the walls of the slums. They were up there, in Elysion.

“Whatchu you doin’?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haigen snapped out of his thoughts when he heard the childish voice at his right.
“Are you pretending to be a tree or somethin’?”
Haigen squeezed his fists together and tensed up. He had seen people get mugged or pickpocketed after dropping their guard for only a few seconds yet there he was, standing alone in the middle of the slums with his eyes closed. What an idiot.
“So far you’re doing a pretty solid job. You almost fooled me!” Her giggle sounded cheerful but he wouldn’t lower his guard for that reason. His eyes drifted towards the source of the voice. The first thing he noticed was the bright, radiant orange of her hair. Her skin was pale compared to the general population of the slums where oil, dirt and marks from smoke was the norm. As if she didn’t stand out enough she also carried small plastic toys, pins and stickers all over her clothes. Parts of her hair had been brightly dyed in pink and blue. It was as if she deliberately tried to look like a candy shop after an explosion. .


Too. Many. Colors. He blinked at her and squinted as if to get a better grip of just who she was. Her wide blue eyes distracted him and made it difficult to articulate a decent sentence.
“I was just looking for work I guess“
She grabbed his hand before he had time to react.
“Follow!”
“H-hey!”

He stumbled along after her with her tiny hand holding his firmly. She seemed utterly fearless, or maybe just oblivious of her surroundings. He had to run to keep up with her. They drifted across the dock, through the slum streets and into the industrial area where his parents used to work before most of it got shut down. 
“It’s not far off, just keep up!”
Her accent was clean. She couldn’t be anything but a Brightsider. She did speak like a slum rat though and it confused him. She didn’t resemble anything or anyone he had ever seen around Brightholme and he started to get a bad feeling of anxiety the more he thought about it. Elysian Security patrolled the streets frequently and the only smart thing to do was to avoid them. That way you could also avoid getting beat up or dragged into an interrogation cell to end up dead in an alley a few hours later. If this girl was used as bait he’d be in way over his head. Different scenarios and solutions started racing through his head and once they stopped in front of the ruins of a factory he kept his eyes locked on her in case she’d try something. She let go of his hand and he noticed that her skin had gotten oil smudges and dirt from holding his.

“What do you want? Who are you?” He wiped his forehead to get rid of hair that constantly got into his eyes. The girl tilted her head a bit and looked sneaky in a way that made him think about how his youngest brother acted when he had some juicy secret to share.
“Are you worried? Are you scaaared?” 
“Just tell me.” He started to get annoyed. Just the fact that this squeaky little Brightsider kid could make him feel so uneasy with her presence was annoying enough.
“Ah well uhm... I’ve sort of been stalking you for a while.”
“What?”
“Yeah, like, I’ve been following you and stuff.”
“Why?”
“No real reason... Just uhm.” She chewed on her finger for a while and looked at him up and down as if judging him. 
“Just uhm what? Just spit it out already. If you’re here to set me up for some random security check or have me arrested for a crime I haven’t committed, just get on with it because I don’t have time for games.”
She stared at him for a moment and then started laughing. 
“W-whaa?! Seriously? Do I look like a security guard to you? Nah nah, no worries ‘bout that. I’ve been looking for you because of a rumour.” 
He looked at her in silence, waiting for her to go on and explain herself. 
“You see, there has been this rumour that a guy around here is all sorts of good at building stuff and also very good at sneaking through very complex security systems. Happen to know anyone like that ey?”

The anxiety he felt before now became a tension of panic threatening to emerge at any moment. He couldn’t let her see his reaction or he’d be screwed. How did a Brightsider know about that? How could this girl have heard a rumour about his business? Who else knew? He told himself to stay calm and think.
“You shouldn’t believe so much in rumours girl. Rumours lie and lies can be dangerous if you start spreading them around.” He didn’t exactly mean to make it sound like a threat but even if he didn’t intend to hurt her he knew others who wouldn’t hesitate to do so. If Tsygan found out there wouldn’t be a single little trace of the Brightsider girl. 
“Oh, ok. Too bad then. I sort of wanted to find that guy really bad because I need to find a really smart engineer for my team.”
“Your team?”

“Yah! My Core Guardian squad! I thought I should go see if there was any truth to that rumour because I want the very best and smartest engineer to be on my team! None of dem dwankies in training over there measure up.” She made a little gesture in the general direction of Elysion One which was way off in the distance like a white speck on the horizon. Haigen was smart. Smarter than most people he had ever met but this girl had a way of confusing him to the point where he started to wonder if he was hallucinating or not.
“Ah well, it can’t be helped I guess. Too bad you don’t know that guy because it’s not easy to find people who can hack through Bright Foundation code and sometimes you just wanna get to those secrets yanno? I’m a curious person. ” 

He opened his mouth to say something but she was already walking away, casually as if the situation was completely normal. 
“I’ll keep looking! Good luck Mr. Stranger!”
She disappeared around a corner and he was left standing there, questioning his own sanity.


“Well that sure was interesting”, Haigen muttered, still baffled by the crazy turn his day had taken. He was walking up an alley on his way home. The image of the flame-haired girl still burned in his mind and the fact that his left hand was remarkably cleaner than his right after she had held it was the only proof he had of her existence.

He thought about what he would tell his three younger brothers when he got back to the tiny apartment they shared. Another day without reward. Another night of listening to hungry stomachs growling to remind him of just how useless he was. He didn’t even want to think about Tsygans reaction to the possibility that a Core Guardian seemed to know about their secrets. Just as he felt his mood couldn’t get any worse he stumbled forward as someone crashed into him. Haigen spun around, ready to smash his fist into someones face but stopped himself at the sight of the tiny person with messy black hair that stood in front of him.

He checked his pockets to see if anything had been stolen, as was the routine when one bumped into someone in the slums but the young boy in front of him did not do the same. Instead he smiled and held out his hand, holding onto a piece of paper. The boy was twelve, maybe thirteen. His skin was naturally dark and wide brown eyes glittered happily towards him.
“She told me to give you this, just in case.” he said. 

As soon as Haigen accepted the paper the boy turned around and disappeared into the shadows of the slums. Haigen frowned and looked down at the surprisingly clean piece of paper. Elysion One Citizen Certificate. It was written in clear blue text with the shimmering seal of the Bright Foundation down in the corner. Haigen knew what it was but he had never held one of them in his hands before. Come to think of it he had probably never even seen one. The street price for a citizen’s certificate was about as much as he would earn in ten, maybe fifteen years provided that he could keep a job for such a long time. Such things simply did not happen.

How could this even have ended up in Brightholme anyway? And why give it to me? The certificate verified that the owner was a healthy and worthy member of society and granted him or her all the rights an official Elysian born Brightsider such as the right to vote, the right to own property, a home, take on a real job and even to join the military as a Core Guardian...

He checked again to verify that the certificate held an official seal. It did and in addition to that it had been filled in correctly in all places, except for the name column. It had been left blank, just waiting for a signature.