Slumrat Rising

Which Way To Hope?

Truth looked around the washroom. The building had been some kind of commercial or light industrial space- lots of bare concrete floors, spots where shelves and tables had been bolted down, sconces that would have held high capacity Cosmic Energy relays. Those relays would have been the first things stripped out of here, maybe even before the… whatever it was… officially went out of business. It was inky dark, damp, cold, and smelled of mildew and rat piss. The fact that it wasn’t filled with homeless people and their waste was a deeply suspicious miracle.

On the other hand, it had a bathroom with one functional water talisman, solid walls, and with the exception of the window he ruined, it was pretty secure. A place with real potential as a hideout.

“Hey Vig, have a look around and see if there is a good place to stash the loot.”

“Huh?”

“Can’t take it home, right?”

“Right.” Vigor started hunting around in the hallway. “Hey, there is an air vent here. I can get it open with my fingers.”

“Sounds good.”

Truth was as clean as he was going to get, and he wasn’t going to get any warmer, so they headed out. He did his best to disguise the broken window. It wasn’t great but, for an alleyway in the slums? It would probably do.

It was getting dark. Not a good time to stick around outside. Truth suddenly jolted. There were… things… that were once people. That really, really liked the dark. Like, picking an example completely at random, the basement of a mostly lightless abandoned building.

Whelp. That’s not great. And he hid the money there too. At least they didn’t have to worry about it getting stolen.

Dinner was… awkward. The sibs ate quietly and dutifully did their homework. Truth found it hard to concentrate. So did Vigor, clearly. What was worse was Dad lurching to his feet and demanding that everyone turn their pockets inside out, then jump up and down, just to make extra sure they weren’t hiding any money.

Truth looked down at the practice questions he had painfully copied from the school library. One in twenty pass the SAT. Some years less than that, but never more. Worse, Starbrite wasn’t always hiring at every position every time the test was administered. Truth wanted to be a talisman maintenance tech, but did Starbrite need another maintenance tech?

Well, it was more than "want to." More like he had staked his life on it. Every waking minute he wasn't hustling for cash, he was studying. Maintenance Tech was the highest paying, most difficult job a slum technical school offered training for. It was a job even decent schools in decent neighborhoods promoted. Class C in Starbrite was no joke. Plenty of people with decent jobs in Starbrite were class D or lower. But Class C was where it all changed. Class C? You got the lapel pin that told the world you were part of Starbrite. You got the System. And you got the kind of benefits that even white collar workers in other companies couldn't dream of. Including very, very cheap, good quality housing, even for their trainee maintenance techs. And it’s not like he could do just any other job- he needed those Class C housing benefits. Because the sibs couldn’t live like this.

He could… do something else, maybe. Earn money, somehow. If he gave up on studying for the SAT, more options would open up. The Sibs would have to live here for a year while he was conscripted, but they could manage a year, right?

Yeah, he didn’t believe it either. He looked around the table at the sibs, and tried to pick out what, exactly, felt wrong about them. Because something did. It took him a few minutes. The sibs were cold. Studying had been an act of rebellion, of liberation. Now? Now there was no hope. Their parents wouldn’t let them succeed. They were doomed to miserable lives, a few more slumrats in the swarm, never quite able to forget the time they thought they could be more. This “studying” was just going through the motions. Humoring him.

They were never getting out of the slums. Doomed to slavery of one sort or another. Staking their lives to retain even one tiny shred of dignity, of self respect. They had bet everything in their hearts on Truth, and now, even Truth had to bow his head. What hope did they have?

The bubbling giggles of despair tried to sneak out of his throat. It was on him. It was always on him. It would always be on him. Since he was old enough to walk, it was on him to look out for his sibs. So he had to go do the only thing he was even kind of good at- violence. He would have to, by himself, search through an entire abandoned building, clearing out any Ghūl that had holed up in there, then turn the building into their secret fortress of studying. A place where they could hide out from their parents and the other predators of the slums.

A whole fucking, FUCKING, commercial or light industrial building. Fighting the Ghūl freaks that were almost certainly infesting the place. Freaks that barely registered pain, had almost perfect low light vision, and sincerely enjoyed hurting people. He vividly remembered how, one night, he watched from his window as a man desperately hammered on the door of a building across the street, begging to be let in after dark. The door demon didn't recognize him. After the Ghūl caught up, even his mother wouldn't have recognized him. It was the silent reverence of the way they pulled the man apart that most haunted Truth. The way they worked fingers between muscle and skin, separating them, peeling them apart as the man tried to scream without a tongue. The horrible gentleness to their brutality, which only lasted until they found a part unnecessary. Those were simply torn away and discarded. He remembered watching them slap the man, bringing him back when he had passed out. It was the only time their body language seemed irritated. Like the man wasn't doing his part. And now Truth had to go empty a building full of them.

Which was flatly impossible at level 0. He had to level up. He wasn’t far off now. Not at all. But if he wanted to make it over the line in the shortest possible time, he would have to spend all the loot they just won. Truth looked around the table. He should discuss this. They could eat well for a long time with four hundred wen. It would take a lot of stress off. Make their studying a whole lot easier. Maybe bump their grades up too.

He saw a flash of white under Sophia’s sleeve. Bandages. “Soph? How did you get hurt?”

She pulled her sleeve down and looked away. “I got scratched on a bit of metal. Don’t worry, I put the ointment on it, so it wont get infected.”

“Good but… how? Or why, maybe?”

Sophia looked mulish, then sighed.

“You know how you always trawl for scrap in the canal between The Points and Magoon?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I thought about it, and realized that there is a better spot- just down the canal from Folley and Fung. They are always working on all kinds of shit and they ain’t never paid for a dumpster. All goes straight into the canal.” She shrugged.

“Yeah, but the canal is fenced off all the way to…”. Truth’s voice trailed off. He got it now. He looked over at Dad, apparently absorbed in his scry. Then shook his head. “Damn shame you didn’t get anything.”

“Yeah.”

The same fucking day. Not even twenty four hours. Two brothers scheming murder for money, a schoolgirl trawling for scraps, and Harmony, the eldest- Truth looked over at him.

“Asking around about work. Near the Meat Market. Never know if you can bring home something for dinner.” The Meat Market. Not the most violent den of gangsters, but only because their unofficial slogan was “I don’t fight.” Start shit over by the Market, everybody dies and new product goes up on the hooks. Everybody knew it too, so only the most rabid base fiends and boomers tested them.

Not even twenty four hours. One sib ready to go gangster, one ready to risk rape for murder, one fishing industrial waste for food money.

Desperate for a change of topic, he looked over at Sophia’ homework. “What’s jamming you up, Soph?”

“Spell progression. Which seems not needed. I mean, almost everybody gets to Level 1, but how many people reach level 2? Before old age? Maybe it’s different uptown.”

“Valid. It is different uptown, at least in the big corps. It makes sense when you think about it from a job hunting point of view.”

“How?”

“Everybody can learn the Jeon National Universal Spell, right? They literally hand it out in the train stations. Nobody cares because every country has basically the same spell.”

The sibs nodded.

“It’s a great spell, because you can use almost any type of magical device with it. You can do most modern jobs with it, even white collar ones. On the other hand, it’s a shitty spell because it can’t be used for anything else but magic devices, has zero offensive or defensive capability, and it doesn't improve your body any. Or mind. Or magic. Whatever.”

“Like the Sharp Spell does.” Vigor started connecting some dots.

“Exactly. Sharp is a basic bitch cutting spell, but it toughens your hands, arms, even your back, to make sure that you can get the most out of each cut. BUT. That’s just level 1. At level 2, there is a lot more power behind the spell. Bigger cutting area. More of a hand transformation. Better cutting power. Level 3 Sharp? Military and heavy industrial stuff. Guys working down at the shipyards with a Level 3 Sharp spell? Big, big money.”

“And it’s all the same spell? That’s what the book says.” Sophie asked, unsure.

“Kind of. As your level gets higher, the spell slots get bigger. They can hold more powerful, more complicated versions of the same spell. The spell grows to fit the available space. Think of it like an evolving creature inside of you. As you get stronger, so does it.”

“Which is why a real Sharp spell costs more than forty grand.” Vigor concluded. “Not for what it can do at Level One, but what you can earn with it later.”

“Yep. Of course, you gotta pick carefully, because once the spell is in, it’s a bitch to get it out and learn a new spell. That can take anywhere from weeks to months. And it sucks, from what I hear. Like, physically painful, mentally fucks you up, that kind of shit. Honestly, it’s pretty much permanent. You’ve got to think about each spell and how it will work with any future spells you get, for the rest of your life.” Truth nodded at Vigor.

“Unless you got the System.” Harmony said.

“Unless you got the System.” Truth agreed. “A Starbrite Man Is Always Ready.”

He would go back to the building as soon as the sun was well up. He would collect the money, and buy a tonic to help him break through to level 1. He would ride the post breakthrough wave to pass the Starbrite Aptitude Test, then either get his maintenance dream job or any job they offered with Class C housing. He would leave himself no path of retreat. Collect the money, buy the tonic, breakthrough. Tomorrow.