In a sprawling metropolis, a rundown building located at the edge of the city's rooftop, the door was pushed open by a slender hand.
Following the hand was a skinny figure wearing an over sized black t-shirt, and shorts and old sandals.
Zander Spade exhaled softly, taking the fresh air at the top of the apartment building, then exhaling quickly and frowning at the smell that wafted from the stairwell behind him.
Closing the door with an irritated expression, he navigated through all the pipes and necessary facilities of the apartment all clustered at the rooftop, until he reached the edge and looked toward the street.
The street was blocked by an ambulance and police cars, while vans and other cars constantly honking and shouting for them to pass through.
Zander watched expressionlessly as the police tried to block the pedestrians surging around the street from getting closer to the crime scene at the adjacent building's front door. A body covered in white cloth was being carried away in a stretcher by paramedics. Meanwhile, firefighters were rushing toward the second floor, where a fire was blazing and spreading towards the other floors.
Looking at the dark red blood of the victim, Zander smiled a little, and thought with some relief, 'That bastard finally got what he deserved'.
Ever since he moved to this rundown neighborhood, he had been harassed and even punched by the thug who now lay dead. No one beside his family will mourn for someone like that, killed in a drive by shooting by his opps as they like to call themselves.
"What a wasted life…." Zander only emotion to seeing his bully dead was disappointment, not joy or even relief.
Instead, it was the loss of life to a meaningless and stupid things that made him sad. An idea closely associated with the death of his poor parents, who lost their lives in a drunk driving accident 3 years ago.
'Forget it, it's meaningless to think about this again.' Zander shook his head and tried to not think about the death of his parents, and the dark years that he left behind.
Zander kept watching the firefighters finally extinguish the flames 5 minutes later, and half an hour later, the shouting pedestrians were dispersed by the police, the firefighters left, and the police followed soon after.
He looked to the horizon, between a higher clustered apartment buildings, where the city skyscrapers illuminated by the setting sun glimmered in golden color.
New Mark, a city of wealth, power, innovation, as well as misery, exploitation, and death. Millions of lives entwined in its sprawling buildings that stretched to all horizons from the East Coast, connecting it to the busy Emerald sea.
Where hundreds of cargo ships pass by the harbor downtown daily, and the flow of goods streaming into the city is unending, one might say there would be no New Mark if it weren't for the harbor.
Shaking his head of useless thoughts, he picked up his phone and checked some content to pass the time until the smell from his neighbor's cooking that easily penetrated his apartment room died down.
A couple of hours later of surfing the internet, he went downstairs, smelling the air a little and feeling relieved.
'What an annoying guy, why does he cook something so smelly all the time…' thinking to himself about the fat neighbor adjacent to his apartment door, he reached his apartment on the 4th floor.
Just as he was stepping inside, the door behind him opened, and he quickly turned around, having always been cautious of the creepy fat guy.
"Hey Z! Sorry about the smell again, I was perfecting my recipe of a new dish, once I finish it, I will invite you to dinner, is that okay with you?" Beady eyes, greasy white tank top, and extremely over-sized shorts, and flapping flesh all over his body, he was not pleasant to look at, forget about dinning together.
"Uhm… I will have to pass, I have been busy with work recently, so I might not have the time." Saying so, Zander quickly entered and closed the door without waiting for a reply, something he learned the hard way. The guy constantly called him 'Z' as if they were best buds ever since he tried to have a normal conversation with him half a year ago.
'Who knows what that smelly thing is made off…' an image appeared in his mind, but he quickly shook his head, trying not to think about absurd stuff.
'~Sigh~ I really have to move out of here soon…' Checking his meager balance that he had been saving for 2 and half years, he felt even more despondent.
Plopping into his old creaky sofa, he looked at the peeling ceiling, thinking about where his life had gone wrong, where he was heading, or if one day he might turn like his neighbor.
At that moment, a short peep came from his phone that he threw next to him on the sofa. Lazily reaching out for it, he looked at what kind of notification he received.
His eyes lazily scanning the screen suddenly shot up in shock, his mind blanking at the texts that took over even the phone's background.
[UNLIMITED FUNDS AI ACTIVATED!]
[Hello User: Zander Spade.]
[I'm an artificial Intelligence that can give you Unlimited Funds to do as you please, with no repercussions, no limit, and no trace of the unlimited Funds you can use!]
[Status: Activated Preliminary Function]
[User: Zander Spade
Balance: Unlimited]
'...'
A couple of minutes later of rereading the absurd texts, he put the phone down, looked with glazed eyes in front, sitting still. His mind raced with a thousand thoughts at once, with steam almost coming out of his scalp.
Snapping out of his reverie, he quickly picked the phone up with apprehensiveness, and a little hope, wishing that it might really be true.
Seeing the screen back to normal, he went to his banking app and logged into his account. To his utter shock and belief, a feature that will have never been or could possibly be possible was next to his meager 3600 dollars, a feature that will be next to his meager 3600 dollars. '+'.
"This can't possibly be, right!?" He exclaimed loudly, his fingers holding the shaking, almost causing him to drop the phone.
Taking deep breaths, he tried to calm his racing heart, and with a shaking index finger, tapped the + sign. To his amazement, a small interface opened, a blue and purple lines crisscrossing across the small interface with a rectangular box.
Touching the box, a numeric keyboard appeared, along with an 'Ok' tap.
'… If this works, then it should be real, right?' without wasting a second, he typed 400 and clicked the OK tap. The small interface vanished, and the normal bank balance transformed from 3600 to 4000 dollars.
"… It's real?" he asked himself questioningly, before quickly pinching his thigh, and feeling the intense pain, quickly let go.
Then he went on the internet and quickly searched if there were some error that happened at the bank, but found nothing out of the ordinary.
When he looked through his phone, there were no trace of the supposed AI that granted him unlimited funds, so he went back to his banking app, still finding the + sign and the account balance of 4000 dollars.
'How is this possible? Where did this thing come from? What does it want with me? And How can I be so lucky to be the one to acquire it out of the billions in this world?' These were the questions that flitted through his mind rapidly and constantly every few seconds as he stared at the account balance in a daze.
'…. It doesn't matter, as long as I have this unlimited money, won't I be at the top of the world, able to do as I please, and eventually uncover its secrets?' With that dreaming thought, his eyes focused sharply, completely becoming different from the hopeless and lost eyes a couple of minutes ago.
'I'm moving out tonight, I can't stay in this place any longer.' With that decision, he picked his nicest suitcase, stuffed his nicest clothes in it, took his passport and other important stuff and some memento of his parents.
Taking a long shower, styling his dark brown hair, and changing into a pleasant outfit, he gave one last look at his home for the past 3 years, where only miserable memories were made.
With resoluteness, he opened the door, closed it with the key, and began walking downstairs.
Taking out his phone, he looked at the battery that he slightly charged when he was taking a shower. Seeing that it didn't even charge for 2 percent, where usually at that time would have charged 15 percent, a thought came to his mind,
'Is the AI absorbing the power?' shaking his head, he reserved the thought for another time. He then opened a taxi app, and put the address for his home and the address of a hotel not far from downtown, a normal hotel with decent living standards in this expensive city.
As he saw the taxi pulling up in only 3 minutes to his apartment building, he thought about what to do with the owner of the apartment building.
'… I will worry about that grumpy old guy later.' With that thought he exited the front door, saw the car matched, put his suitcase in the trunk, and sat in the backseat, the car quickly leaving the rundown neighborhood.