Cast:
Rat - Hydroraven: ork, adept, tortured by AAA, cut-throat, budding street sam.
Werner - Gradivus: Ogre, Austrian, budding adept martial artist w/ sensei.
Chaim - rednblack: elf, face, budding adept, has a protective jewish mom.
Xem - Poindexter: elf, budding mage. Loner, wannabe runner.
"Hey Rat, you in there? Wake up."
Junior's thick city-speak is almost drowned out by the rain-patter on the tarp covering the little lean-to a few of you call home on bad-weather days. When it rains like that you can count on everybody holing up together for the night. Pez, Itty-bitty, and even Gundan are still asleep right next to you but Xem woke up too. Chaim and Werner live upstairs in the once abandoned Isle-of-View apartments and ever since you started hustlin' with them here and there, they started letting a few of you roof-less kids stay in the alley outside. They'll even bring you down the occasional loaf of buttered bread or smokey-treat when they can. Aside from a few run-ins with the Cutters or Chaim's mom kicking you off the corner for being a "bad influence" on her boy, for the most part you and the kids can squat in peace. Everyone in the Plastic Jungle is squatting in the technical sense of the word, just some squatters have to squat a lot lower than others.
Junior lifts the tarp up and bends down to peek through the entrance, his hooded poncho completely soaked.
"Kubiak wants to know if any of you did the heist on Sarafin's. Four kids pepper-sprayed the fool and grabbed what they could. You know I wouldn't be here unless I knew Kubiak was gonna go easy on you. He always does, just wants you to return the goods and say you're sorry. I already spoke with Chaim and Werner upstairs and they didn't have anything to do with it, so I assume you p-p-p-p-probably didn't either, but it doesn't hurt to check. If you didn't do it, you at least got a lead?"
Ever since Junior, the one-eyed stutterer, left the corner to work for Kubiak you haven't seen much of him. Sarafin, the cranky old bastard who owns the Kiosk on the southern edge of the Jungle, wants an apology? Somehow that doesn't fit. You've stolen the occasional trid-chip from the Kiosk, but not this time. For christ's sake, you been holed up with Xem and the other kids since the rain started. You'd have found out quick if Werner or Chaim knew anything about it too. Leads? Fuck, it could've been anyone. If there is one thing you know about Sarafin though, he'd have shot dead any kid caught stealing from him. Kubiak's justice was fair, but Sarafin wouldn't want fair, he'd want payback.
Sun's still down.