Our progress back towards the lift was slow, but steady. Turns out there aren’t many single digit Antithesis that can stand up against half a dozen assault rifles, chemical lasers, and heavy weapons, even at significant numbers. Humboldt didn’t even have to break her stride.

  After being so talkative before, she was surprisingly quiet. “What’s eating you?"

  “I was just thinking,” she replied.

  “About what?"

  She paused, for the first time in quite awhile. “You’re not exactly what I would have expected from someone that grew up in the undercity. No offense.”

  “I bet you thought the Undercity was all gang and squalor from the vids, right?” I asked. I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it from her mouth.

  “Kinda…” her face was red from embarrassment.

  I laughed. “Well, it’s pretty much all true. Most of us have to fight for scraps, and if you walk down the wrong street you’ll take a bullet in a gang war.”

  Humboldt paused, and turned towards me. “And you’re ok with all that? Don’t you want more?”

  Shrugging, I looked over at her. “This is all I’ve ever known. I grew up on the street, where the bigger kids look after the smaller ones. You learn a skill to contribute as quickly as possible, you learn who you can trust and who you can’t, and you learn to live with what you have.”

  “And you’re happy with that, you don’t want to get out of here?”

  “Fuck that, as far as I’m concerned there are three ways to earn enough to move above ground, I call them the dream, the nightmare, and the deathwish,” I said, jumping up on a nearby car like a stage so I could explain it. “The dream is becoming an apprentice for a skilled trade, and learn enough to be useful above. The nightmare is being ‘volunteered’ during a corp recruitment drive; There are always people that join up, but we all know if they’re recruiting down here it’s not for something good. And the deathwish, which is joining a gang and somehow surviving enough to gain a leadership position.”

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  “That’s a pretty dark way to look at things,” Humboldt muttered.

  I shrugged, “That’s life down here. It’s not all bad, I have a lot of friends and allies down here. The good people help one another, because we know no one else is going to help us, and the bad ones typically kill each other.”

  Humboldt shook her head and started walking again, “Fuck me.”

  We walked in silence for a few minutes before I spoke up.

  “What about you, what’s your story,” I asked.

  “Me? It’s not that exciting.”

  “Humor me” I pushed against her side, and only succeeded in pushing myself away. She probably wasn’t even aware.

  “Fine, I lived with my mother in a little corporate mining town you’ve probably never heard of, until she died in an explosion and the corp blamed her for the damage. I had to work as an Indentured Servant to pay off the debt.” She’d delivered the entire explanation without a mote of emotion, which is why it took me a couple moments to absorb what she said.

  When I did It was my turn to stop and look at her. “Excuse me. How is that not exciting?”

  “You try working a menial job day in and day out for nothing more than room and board, then try and convince me it’s exciting.”

  “Fuck,” I muttered.

  “Anyways, one day I was ordered to scout out a newly opened tunnel, which turned out to be a hibernating Antithesis hive. Everyone that was with me at the time died, thankfully I managed to get a hold of a pickaxe to defend myself,” she explained.

  “It took me a while to fight my way through the Antithesis, but at the end of it I walked out of the mine as a Samurai with a kick ass set of armor. The company executives fell all over themselves to find the true culprit for the explosion and hold them responsible, guess they really didn’t want to be on the bad side of a Samurai, even a new one.”

  I listened to the entire story in silence, but couldn’t help but make a comment when it was over. “That sounds like the plot of a big budget vid, you know once you make a name for yourself the movie studios are going to be all over you.”

  She blushed, “Shut up, it’s nothing big.”

  We continued forward, walking in silence for a bit while I absorbed everything we’d shared with each other. Finally, I shared what was on my mind. “You know, even though I’m a Samurai now, I still don’t think I’m going to leave this place.”

  She glanced over at me, “Really?”

  “Yeah, this place isn’t perfect, but there are good people here. I can make a difference here; If I leave, they won’t have anyone around to protect them if this happens again.”

  She elbowed me, causing me to stagger away. “You’re a good person.”

  I puffed up my chest, “I know, I’m awesome.”

  She laughed as we walked on.

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