Interlude – Get Some Bread
Interlude - Get Some Bread
"Hey! We're out of bread!"
He blinked, then removed his headphones and leaned back into his chair. Not so far that it creaked, but just shy of that. "What?"
The door to the tiny space that was his room was pushed open halfway. That was as far as it could go before it bumped against the edge of his bed. His mom stuck her head in. "We need bread," she said.
Groaning, he rubbed at his face, then looked around his room. He did a quick count of the empty cans. Five. Which meant there was one left in the fridge. He was gonna drink it later, which meant nothing for the morning.
"Yeah, alright," he said. "Got cash?"
His mom snorted. "You've got a job."
"Yeah, and the bread is for both of us," he muttered before standing up. Whatever. It wasn't worth arguing over.
He'd been doing enough of that over the last couple of hours. It was nearly seven in the evening. He finished work at five-ish and had immediately hopped onto his old PC to bitch and moan about shit online.
He was pretty sure that half of the people on his media feed were bots. It was sometimes hard to tell. Some of them were real, though. He knew that much because they had tags like 'Deus Ex is a Lil Bitch,' or 'Emoscythe can't coordinate for shit.' It was the sort of tag that was mostly an ironic meme, made all the better because the corpo bots wouldn't dare say something like that because it would get back to the samurai in question eventually.
Whatever. His back was sore from work, but if they needed food, then he'd get it.
He grabbed his smartphone and checked his banking app. His last pay period was three weeks ago. He had some six hundred credits to his name to last the next little while. It would do.
Shuffling his work pants on, then his boots, he made his way through their apartment. It was small, with a low ceiling and it smelled like gas all the time. The walls were thin, and a few had some concerning mold stains on them, but the monthly rate wasn't all that bad, and he had discovered an open internet port from an office nearby and slipped in a while back, feeling like a proper mech-hacker as he did. It was saving him a hundred-odd credits a month, so he took it.
"Alright, I'm off," he said as he shrugged his jacket on. It had the company he worked for's logo on the back. Technically it was still their property, but whatever. He did road maintenance work, which mostly meant babysitting re-pavers and then filling in all of the mistakes the expensive machines made before anyone caught on.
It was either boring or backbreaking, but the pay wasn't so bad, and the hours were usually pretty okay, if a little random.
Yawning, he undid the six locks on their front door, then he hesitated before grabbing a sheathed knife from a little table and slipping it into his belt at the back, where his coat would cover it.
He'd rather have a gun, but they needed permits for those within the megabuilding, and he didn't have the time or cash for that.
Moving out, he relocked the door, then started on his way to the grocer two buildings out.
There were delivery services that would bring the food to his door, but he didn't fancy a 300% markup, and half the time the delivery driver would steal shit anyway. There were also grocers within the mega-block of apartments, but they upcharged for everything too. He'd save a fair few credits just by walking across a few bridges and down a few levels.
The problem was that it was in a sketchy part. Not like, outright dangerous. It had been weeks since the last person was killed down there, but it wasn't exactly safe.
He walked fast, hands in his coat's pockets and back straight. The walking was probably good for him, or something. It helped un-shrimp his back a little.
Making it to an elevator, he pressed the down button, then ignored the ads that played across his augs while he waited. He had a third-party mod that blurred them out and muffled the sound, so there was that, at least.
The elevator came and he slipped in. The old woman within shifted to the side, away from him.
They went down sixteen floors, then he was out and walking along another corridor. A bit wider than the one on his floor, but the walls were the same off-grey with mud splatter on the bottoms and tags painted every few feet.
He turned down onto a bridge that would cross him over to the next mega-building, then paused.
The streets below were filled with people. There had to be thousands of them down there, walking at a slow trudge. Lots of signs were held up over heads, and there was the frequent flash of light from a lit smartphone screen.
"The fuck?" he muttered.
He wasn't expecting an answer, least of all from someone else on the bridge. It was rare that he ever actually spoke to anyone.
"That's the protest over... like, fucking everything, man," some guy said. Just a man in a sport's jersey, wearing flip-flops and who either hid a gun or a smartphone tucked into the band of his pants.
"Oh, yeah," he said. "Cool."
He kept his head down and continued to walk. It wasn't too long before he was pushing past intrusive ads as he tried to get an idea of what was going on.
The news was a little confusing. There was a lot of talk about how the army was being deployed, how people were being told to stay home, and then more shit about how the government was basically absent.
Then some news from some Samurai from out of New Montreal. He didn't buy it, but he supposed he could respect it when someone decided to get shit done.
There was even a report of some corpo heads leaping out of their penthouse, and some general being arrested for not doing his job.
He still didn't know what the protests were about, but it was probably not just one thing. Whatever it was, the mainstream media wasn't saying shit.
His distraction got him down a few more floors and across a second bridge to the little grocer that he knew had the best prices. Only... when he walked in, he discovered a line at the counter, and most of the shelves were only half-stocked. A few were entirely empty.
Frowning, he moved over to the fridges at the back and swore under his breath. Only two cans of his favourite soda. He'd have to come back, or deal with withdrawal headaches for a while.
He took both, then moved over to grab some bread, which they did have, fortunately.
Then he got in line and waited. Only...
This part of the city was always a little rough. People were weary of each other. It was somehow worse, now. No one was talking in the line. Most people weren't on their phones, or looking around blankly as though focused on their augs. They were glancing at each other, quietly, without ever lingering too long.
He got into the line and waited, jostling forwards as it moved, and pretended not to hear anything. Though, when two people nearer the back started to talk about the wall, he did listen.
The army was being pushed hard by the Antithesis? He didn't know much about that, he fixed potholes for a living.
Eventually, it was his turn at the cash. He scanned his items, put them in the bag, then stared at the cost. It was three times what he'd paid just four days ago. "What the fuck?" he muttered.
That, of course, prompted the auto-cash to flag an error, and he had to listen to a spiel for a moment, but when it passed, the amount was still there.
He paid, including the mandatory tip. Didn't have much of a choice.
While heading out, he did pause on seeing one ad. It was scrolling by on a tall banner-screen across the street. Join the Army now! Free room and board! The Chance to Defend Humanity next to Real Samurai Heroes!
He snorted before moving on.
Not for him. He'd be keeping his head down.
***