…
Stacy Balivero skips down the artificial street. 'Apparently the stronghold is built in a pattern, but I can never understand why they'd make hills…' She wonders. For some reason each slum town is built nearly towards the bottom of the stronghold's height map.
"Gweniver!" Stacy waves to a friend who treks home from work. Gwen dashes forward, hoping she'll catch Stacy in a tackle. Instead Gwen misses and slams into dirt, face first- her construction hard hat nearly flying a few feet.
"Stacy~! My name is just Gwen!" Gwen complains, stomping her foot. They used to be friends before moving here to district 144. Even Nick would know who Gwen was, and they'd spoken many times. "If you won't take Nick, I'll steal him!" Gwen teases Stacy, who really has no interest in guys.
"You can have him if you want Gwen. Hell, I've even got an idea for you to get close to him…" Stacy extends her open palm to Gwen who sits down on the ground. Construction workers walk around them, tired of their day's long work, and not caring to get angry about Gwen blocking their path.
Still, only someone like Stacy would ever extend a hand in goodwill.
"Anything for you Stacy! Whatcha need?" Gwen swats Stacy's palm aside, then stands up herself. All that time working construction added some muscle to Gwen's bone. Stacy purses her lips, eyeing the numerous construction workers passing by. Many of these people would be thrilled to receive a bonus by tipping criminals to the guards. Their faces are tired at best, some unlucky enough to have corruption scarring their tissue, leaving a massive glitched wound.
"Lets… go talk with Nick. Do you care for a drink?"
Gwen furrows her eyebrows. A part of her desperately wished that Stacy would stay pure and innocent, but nobody stays innocent without money. "Stacy. This isn't shady, right? You didn't put something in my drink?"
Stacy blinks to a smile, thinking- 'fuck.' Lying was never Stacy's specialty, and especially not to a trustworthy friend. 'If she wants to report me, can I really pretend like nothing's happening?' Stacy smiles back.
"Nope! I swear it's not shady. Nick's been feeling down lately. Money's been on our minds, because we've only got one month left before we need to employ ourselves." Gwen sighs back at Stacy's carefree remarks, ruffling her rough black hair.
"Stacy, I told you that staying unemployed was a bad option. There's no way out of this hell hole. You either get a contract and move on, or die trying something stupid. Biding your time just has you taking longer to finish a 10 year contract." Gwen explains herself again, making much more sense now than a year ago. Someday they'll be older and unable to work as hard. Dangerous jobs like construction are only possible for young people, though anything else gives terribly low wages.
"You're right Gwen, but there's gotta be another way." Stacy can barely keep her straight face.
"No- there's not, Stacy." Gwen crosses her arms. Stacy looks back towards their apartment.
"I'll.. talk to Nick about it. He's pretty set on getting this done." Stacy sighs, looking towards the construction site. Gwen knows her idea right away. She's known Stacy for years.
There's no way Stacy would glance down towards the construction site without a reason. In fact, she considered doing that herself…
"... let's go have that drink, Stacy." Gwen groans.