"The winner of today's planetary raffle is *brr* *brr* *brr* 78976544, congratulations on winning a brand-new apartment 100m below the surface of the planet." A beautiful woman with bountiful shapes reported on the local mag-station news. The station was a platform centered at the end quadrant of the city, Heart, being the only thing connecting Heart with the outskirts where most people lived. There was a dozen of people on the station waiting for the last magnet train for the day to pick them up. None of them looked like they just won the raffle either. As a matter of fact, they all stood dejected staring hollowly into the vast nothingness that were ahead of them. For some, this was a nice change of scenery from all the platforms with grids, colourful ads, and grey apartments that dominated everything behind them. Others were only trying to see the mag-train as they knew they would soon be home, while a few had a neural chip online allowing them to be in their own little world of entertainment, if they could afford it, that is.
In the background a soft buzz could be heard from the trash chute that was directly connected to the core of the planet. Burning trash this way had become the norm as humans had accustomed themselves to discarding their trash, having had centuries of more resources than they could use.
"Tsk," looking on his virtual screen, a hooded boy shook his head as he disconnected his Synapps2. The last thing he saw were the numbers 67865433 before the connection was cut off. 'Figures; the odds are one in one-billion after all. I should have spent the credit on gruel instead of this rip-off. At least the ticket gave me the clearance to watch the raffle and witness the beauty of Edina and her mythical class body' The boy, Lecra, thought to himself as he remembered that he will not be eating dinner tonight, not being lucky enough to find anything edible that day. Food was a privilege not everyone got to eat every day. 'Gruel tastes like sh*t either way so I'll try my luck again tomorrow.'
As Lecra pondered about his luck, he heard a *whoosh*, which indicated the chute opening for the daily trash emptying. Every day, on the way back from his job he heard this sound, and yet, he still turned around to watch the garbage bots work hard at throwing into the chute. This was a job that, among many, has been fully automated for many years. It had gotten to the point where the "job" that most of the lower planet citizens perform, was rummaging through the trash for scraps before the daily burning. Lecra being one of these so called "trash-rats" - a life truly reflecting his luck in raffles.
Suddenly, he heard a scream from the garbage collecting station! "HEEEEEEELPPPP!" A young woman shouted, as she was spotted in the masses of trash that were slowly and steadily being pushed into the chutes. She was also wearing a brown hoodie with her face covered, clinging onto something like her life depended on it.
"Another unfortunate rat that got greedy", "trash", "one less to compete with tomorrow" Lecra heard the other people on the station say. This was a regular occurrence here at Heart, not every citizen was able to give up eating if they were not lucky in finding something in the 12 hour window of scrapping they were able to utilize due to train departure times. Additionally, "chuting" as they called it, was a common method of suicide, as once you were caught by a bot; it's all over. The bots regarded all unregistered matter equally. Rats were after all, not worth anything more than trash.
'F*ck' Lecra thought to himself as he began sprinting towards the garbage station. Lecra did not care for the life of this woman, but he saw that the girl was clinging onto a large backpack. 'I better get some of her *loot*', he thought to himself as he imagined the legendary-rated steak that he once had "looted" from the trash piles himself. Lecra was quite the acrobat as a result of all the trash rummaging and rat v rat skirmishes. He swung himself from platform to platform gaining momentum on each connection between hands and metal grid, between feet and hovering floor.
Foot- floor, foot- floor, hand- grid, Lecra gained momentum and, before he knew it, he found himself in front of the massive pile of garbage. The sight is that of comparison to an ant standing in front of a house. Lecra grabbed onto the rope that was equipped with a knot around his waist akin to a belt, and threw the free end into the trash.
The rope was the only belonging Lecra thought himself lucky to have, the perfect trash rummaging item: sturdy, and at the free end of the rope a small hook was attached. This allowed him to scale the trash mountain with the elegance of a spider. He had dubbed it the '*epic* rat scaling rope of rummaging'. Rarity classes does not exist in this universe, and these titles were all within Lecra's imagination. These titles entertained him greatly, in fact: besides the raffles and paying to watch advertisements, he had no forms of entertainment, entertainment being a commodity not befit for rats.
Closing in on the girl, Lecra climbed faster and faster, reaching the top of the mountain. However, as he was a mere 10 meters away from her he realised he would not make it: The girl was about to be grabbed by the trash bot and there was nothing he could do about it.
'I guess I gotta put my life on the line,' Lecra grinned, as his yellow, crooked teeth showed themselves into the floodlight coming out of the trash bot's scanner. While he ran, he began to loosen his "belt" in order to have both ends free. He threw his rope at the trash bot and pulled as hard as he could, fastening the knot around it as to function as an anchor. He witnessed the girl being let go into the shaft, as he sprinted after and dove into the air after her, and by some miracle he was able to grab her mid-air and stick the hook into her backpack.
"I could not help but notice you falling for me," Lecra said with his hood now being entirely off revealing his balding, black hair and hazel eyes with pupils as constricted as could be. If the boy was not so malnourished and the body had decided to adapt for survivability, he would have been considered to be handsome, black hair and hazel eyes being an uncommon combination, as people in this age had eye and hair colour of all colours, white being the most common colour for both hair and eyes. The sight of this pale boy with balding hair and yellow teeth was enough to make the girl recoil violently, as she feared for her life. Lecra's grip on the girl was his one and only mistake in the rescue attempt, as the girl's jolt of movements lead to Lecra losing his grip before he could wrap the rope properly around them both. Luck: 3 Lecra: 0
"F*CKING B*TCHHHHHHH!!!" Lecra screamed as he fell into the chute. The last thing he saw was the girl hanging from the trash bot with her backpack connecting the rope, keeping her safe, white hair was covering her now non-hooded face. While masses of trash crept up and covered Lecra from all sides he could only think of one thing as his doom approached faster than he ever thought possible 'MY *EPIC* RAT SCALING ROPE OF RUMMAGING, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!'