“Phoenix had a particularly rough time in its conversion to self-sustenance. Its climate is already notoriously inhospitable to any sort of agriculture due to majorly insufficient water reserves, painfully low humidity, and some of the hottest temperatures in the entirety of North America, and any built up supply of food was almost immediately exhausted due to its population, the fifth highest in the United States prior to its collapse. During this period of instability, approximately 14% of its population died to dehydration, starvation, heatstroke, or a combination of the three, and estimates are likely tampered with to maintain ruling parties.

  After the collapse of the old city, the figureheads of Phoenix were able to come across a solution through collaboration with several Samurai. Hydro-positive flora–plants that are able to create more water than they consume, were installed in nearly every major synthetic farm to help reduce water burdens, and quickly spread to have a spot in almost every single building in the entire city. Water bills plummeted, as people no longer needed to use their taps for drinking water or buy it separately, and the issue of food was severely reduced.

  As for why the city retains its name, despite the collapse? Well, politicians actually remembered that the phoenix is a bird of rebirth, and that’s basically easy-bake branding for anyone with a functioning brain cell. Admittedly, that is a tall ask for any politician.”

  - Phoenix Down Makes Great Fertilizer: The Fall and Rise of the Independent Province of Arizona’s Capital, 2049

  Lessons for the future: don't ask Cal for alcohol.

  Protector booze is potent. Very potent. Just a few cups of that pleasantly dry concoction and I was thoroughly smashed, caught up in that warm fuzzy feeling and letting out a persistent giggle no matter what I did. All those worries that Scurvy had dropped on my plate faded away until they were but a subtle buzz in the background of my consciousness, and in the meantime I was riding high on the boat of inebriation.

  At least until the next morning, where the hangover hit with the force of a hover bus. Everything felt awful. My head screamed, my body ached, and my stomach churned uncomfortably. The most I could let out upon waking up was a miserable groan.

  Would you like a hangover cure?

  Words were too much, between my tiredness and shittiness, so I slowly gave a nod of my head instead.

  Purchased: Booze-B-Gone Hangover Neutralizer - 2 points

  Point Total: 9471, 1 token

  A little box appeared atop my sloppy pile of blankets and sheets, and with a bit of effort I opened it to see six little pills inside. I threw one back and nearly moaned in delight as all those horrible feelings disappeared one by one. My stomach settled, my head no longer throbbed, and Hangover Max was officially taking a siesta so Normal Max could assert control once again. “I swear, this stuff is like magic.”

  Now that you are in a state that can be described as functional, I have an update on Scurvy’s request. As requested, she has sent the locational data.

  A 3D wireframe map appeared in my augs, and a blinking red dot pointed towards the very bottom of it. “Deep in the undercity. Who would have figured.”

  Additionally, Scurvy was able to recall some information about Penelope, both old and new, and has compiled this information into a document.

  A bullet point list popped up, which I began reading through aloud. “Let’s see…botany major, single, noticeable sweet tooth, preferences towards older romance flicks… sounds more like the profile in a dating app, to be honest.”

  Yes, the list is far from detailed or comprehensive. Keeping it in hand is a solid idea, however. In an investigation, every piece of information matters.

  Thanks to the influence of alcohol and the chance to really sleep on the request, my head had cooled and I could now fully break down the request Scurvy had made. Tensions ran high last night and my reaction was unwarranted, but my actual objection wasn’t: finding Penelope was a difficult if not straight up impossible request. I’d have to investigate the singular decent lead that I had for the moment before making any further judgements, but there just seemed to be too little to work off of to zero in on one person in a mega city of tens of millions. Still, I’d give it my best shot. That’s what I promised after all.

  I transitioned into a few light stretches. A little blood pumping helped wake up the body. “What’s the time?”

  10:34 AM. Have you considered getting a watch?

  “Why would I when I have such a helpful AI like you, Cal? I’ll get some lunch on the way.”

  I exited the motel, albeit having to take a minute to remove the sound-dampening beacons from my conversation last night and slide them into my pocket. Hopefully I’d find a way to unload them without arousing suspicion towards my identity, but at worst I could just simply trash them.

  A gust of wind blasted my face with bits of dirt and sand as soon as I emerged from behind the door. I slowly watched the uncountable stream of hover vehicles trickle in and out of the city, and slightly bemoaned the fact that I would have to get caught up in such gridlock. Speeding ahead via Samurai privilege was of course an option, but the slower trip would give me time to… reacquaint myself with Phoenix. Plus, nobody liked a line cutter.

  Before I boarded my Charon, an idea struck. I fell down into the dirt. Intentionally. I rolled around in each direction a little bit, even made a few dirt angels on the side of the parking lot, before getting up and dusting myself free of any excess. While there was never an equivalent in Targ, I had never heard a single good thing about the undercity of Phoenix, and a piece of golden advice from one of my former ringmates scampered to the forefront of my mind:

  “If you ever go down to the undercity, look like shit. No one cares if you smell like sweat and oil and look just as pleasant, but everyone cares if you’re dressed in your Sunday best. Paints a big old target on your back.”

  Hopefully his jaw had recovered. Sorry, Pietro. It was just part of the job.

  Satisfied with my state of slightly dusty and mostly disheveled, I remounted Charon and shot off into the sky, merging with the traffic and gradually crawling south into the city proper. We all passed through the giant entrance to the city, met at both sides by those behemoth steel walls that kept everything else out that no one wanted in, and gazed upon the skyline that lay inside.

  Noxious was the first word that came to mind. A sickly, off-gray haze permeated the ground below and crept high enough to intrude on some of the lower levels of hover traffic. Most of the mega structures rose undettered through the smog, but any building shorter than ten stories was submerged in the toxic cloud of fumes. Someone I knew had once referred to it as like a persistent foggy day in London. I’d never been to London, but I seriously doubted its fog actively killed people so frequently.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I pointed the Charon’s nose downward, having to dive through the smog to get to the undercity deep beneath. As soon as my nose hit the gray my lungs screamed back in pain, holding back a cough as that would have inevitably sucked in more and started its own virtuous cycle. The discomfort spread to my eyes, irritated and watering so bad that I nearly crashed into another driver nearby.

  Elevation turned negative and the smog cleared by entering the underground half of Phoenix, but discomfort continued in another form: heat. A blast of hot air smashed into my face and made me wince. This place was hot, hotter than even the desert most days. A bead of sweat began to form on my forehead mere seconds after entering, and my decision to come here in a hoodie was quickly becoming a decision I was regretting.

  Me and the rest of the traffic spiralled farther down, some dropping out to their destination along the way. As we reached closer and closer to the bottom, it became easier for me to see the buildings in all of their slapdash glory. Unstable spires of concrete and scrap metal surged upward from the floor of the undercity, maintenance clearly a pipe dream with how it all looked hobbled together in the face of degradation. A sea of neon and LEDs could be made out below, and the crowds of people who circulated the streets stuck to the light like moths to a flame.

  A few minutes more of mostly uninteresting cruising through the sweltering conditions I was beginning to approach my destination, but landed down in a public parking lot a bit of the way out. I had decided before entering the city to reach the location on foot; I wasn’t exactly sure who could be watching or if the perpetrating Samurai in question was monitoring the area, but I figured that it would be less suspicious to do so on the ground than swerve in with my hoverbike. A little more discrete, easier to blend in maybe. Just had to get close enough to make the trek on foot.

  I circled the Charon down into the parking lot and hopped off as soon as the engine went dead. It was more worn down than I’d like, all sorts of cracks and holes in the concrete and asphalt, but it wasn’t about to turn my nose up at a public parking lot. More irksome was that my Charon actually did stand out a little bit, actually being in decent condition and still somewhat clean compared to the other vehicles currently being invaded by oil, rust, and weathering.

  “Do you think someone will try and steal my bike?” I asked out of less concern and more curiosity, flipping up my sage-green hood.

  I’d like to see them try.

  I huffed. Knowing Cal, there was some feature that would shock anyone who touched it with several thousand volts or something ridiculous like that.

  I snaked into the crowd and was promptly obscured by the flowing mass of bodies. It was just past noon when I had arrived, which meant everyone had chosen now to take their long-coveted lunch breaks. I wasn’t particularly claustrophobic, but the sheer number of people did make me a little anxious. No amount of foot traffic in Targ matched this.

  For a while I just followed the crowd, slowly moving in the direction of my destination. I caught a glimpse of a little bit of action on the sides, that being a shopkeep tossing out one of their customers and getting a whole load of swears back in response, but the crowd continued on with that motivated disinterest that kept it pushing forward. Indifference was the right word; the crowd didn’t care what happened as long as it wasn’t interrupted, and any internal element that got too uppity was mercilessly pushed out. The nail that sticks out gets hammered back down, as they say.

  A grumble of my stomach shifted my focus. I still hadn't found anything to eat. Better get something before arriving; who knows what the world would throw at me once I start sleuthing.

  After a bit of searching my eyes fell upon a large red box, larger than any refrigerator, sitting in a little corner between two shops. From its LED screen I could make out the image of a ramen bowl sliding in and out, to and fro. From the side of the box a metal bench extruded out, which was currently occupied by a single older man, his gray beard overgrown and messy, slurping up a bowl of noodles.

  “I’ve always wanted to try Noddle Stop,” I muttered to myself.

  I shifted out of the crowd, doing my best to be as unobtrusive as possible to the flow. It wasn’t entirely successful, as I did have to cut some people off and throw around a shove or two to get through. My approach towards the vendor didn’t go unnoticed by the gray-haired man, but all he gave me was a wary look before turning his attention back to the food.

  With a soft tap the screen lit up, and a dozen different options popped up. I was feeling a large serving, but the exact choice of item was currently eluding me. “What to get, what to get…”

  “Pork’s good.”

  It came from the man. A little dismissive and gruff, but well intentioned.

  “Pork it is, then.” I confirmed my selection, and immediately let out a huff of annoyance when it asked for a review before processing the order. Worse, its price was tied to the result of the review. Lower stars, higher price. Literal, actual bribery.

  I gave into the system this time, very begrudgingly giving a five star review, and a minute later a bowl of pork ramen popped out from behind a symphony of whirring machinery, piping hot and smelling…pretty alright. There were a lot of smells fighting for attention down here.

  Planting myself on the bench, I tore into the food, scooping up mouthfuls of noodles and pork with the provided fork. It was okay; the noodles themselves had a fake aftertaste to them, the meat was predictably synthetic and had that weird texture to boot, and everything came out just a little too soggy. Still, I’d had worse meals, and I wasn’t about to leave that food on the table. Not when I had just spent a bunch of credits on it.

  I ate in silence, a silence perpetuated by the man sitting next to me, taking far more time to savor his food than the hasty wolfing down I was doing. The crowd continued on unimpeded, flowing with that same fervor as before and despite the minutes ticking by only seemed to increase in intensity.

  “It’s pretty packed, ain’t it?” I said that to no one in particular, just mumbling the thought that came to mind.

  A snort came from my left. “This is actually on the slower side of days, kid. Clearly you ain’t from the undercity.”

  “Yup. Don’t even live in Phoenix actually.”

  “A tourist, then.”

  “Mmm.”

  Silence took over for another little bit, going back to our food.

  The man was the one to break the silence, having taken some covert looks in my direction. Looks that I had caught onto. “What’s with the gloves?”

  I had chosen to wear my forearm gloves today, visible currently as I had rolled up my sleeves before eating. Might as well give an explanation.

  “Chemical burns.” A lie, but a decently believable one. “Some jackass bad at their job spilled muriatic acid on my arms and now air makes them itch. Gotta keep them covered up.”

  “Knew a guy like that. Got his left arm soaked in some real nasty stuff, and the pain eventually drove him mad. No doctor would operate, so he ended up just chopping off the arm. Bled out a few minutes after.”

  “Yikes.”

  Once again silence.

  “What are you doing down here in Phoenix, anyways?”

  “Tracking down a friend. Disappeared a while back, and her last location was a few miles north of here.”

  In my peripheral vision I noticed the man stiffen. For a minute he was stuck trying to find the right words. “Good luck, that’s Vulture territory.”

  I gave a tilt of my head. “Vulture?”

  “The Vultures. A big gang here in the undercity. Not sure how much you can actually call them a gang with how much they’ve exploded over the last couple of years. They're more like a mafia at this point. You know what a mafia is, right?”

  “Mhm.”

  “Then you know not to fuck with them. You can actually see one of their guys from right here.”

  He very subtly pointed out into the crowd. I followed his motion, then shifted my gaze up to a balcony just in view, a full story above the hustle. Lo and behold, a man in a respirator with bird iconography was watching the crowd below, softly leaning on the long-damaged railing. In particular, my eyes fixated on the weird blue glow from inside the holster strapped to his leg.

  “Quite the weapon he’s got there,” I said.

  “Indeed. From what I’ve heard their entire M.O. is illegal weapon trafficking, mostly stuffed that's been modified past the regulations of most countries. Their boss must be a genius, ‘cause the stuff they pull out can do some real crazy shit.”

  A gang with high-tech weaponry that only grew in power a few years back, and happens to have Penny’s last known location within their jurisdiction. Something about that tickled my neurons, but it was too early to claim a connection. A lot of stuff can happen in five years, including people’s ambitions; could just be a complete coincidence.

  My fork hit the bottom of the bowl and I scooped out the last of the noodles. A nearby trash can was overflowing–-a predictable sight here in the undercity I bet– so I did my best to compress down the long since discarded disposable tupperware to add my own to the pile. “Quite the juicy info you got there. Unfortunately, I still gotta check this place out, Vultures be damned.”

  He gave a dismissive scoff. If I was in his shoes I probably would have done the same. “It’s your funeral, kid.”

  “Yup.” I walked back to the noodle dispenser and ordered another bowl of noodles. Once it popped out steaming, I took it and put it on the bench, garnering a confused look from the man. “Thanks for the tip. This one’s on me.”

  He didn’t give a response, but luckily didn’t wait for one. All I gave was a lazy wave before merging back into the passing crowd.

  Let’s see if his testimony about these Vultures held any weight.