I was laying on my cot while Charlie is snoring loudly over in his cot glad he could sleep after today. I couldn’t get back to sleep for some reason every time I closed my eyes I kept seeing Dinkerman face scrunched up on the other side of my fist. I got off my cot and went to the cell door and looked out the small plexiglass and saw the rows of cells doors closed across from me. Nothing out of the ordinary every time it’s lights out cell doors close anyone caught out gets killed by the security bots that patrol the cell blocks after lights out. I can still smell the yellow mustard gas still lingering in the air as it wafts into my nose, but what I saw after I gagged from the smog completly surprised me.

Dinkerman was out of his cell being carried off by a pair of men wearing the city guard armor light baby blue and gold the city guard uniforms. I wondered where they would be taking him, but it’s none of my business if they drag him off to execute him or whatever so I turned back to my cot to try to sleep some more. Tomorrow I get a real meal and since Charlie knows that we are up next to the pit he said we can get cleaned up at the clinic. I think to myself that yeah tomorrow is going to be a good day as I drift into a uneasy sleep.

**(Dinkermans point of view)**

I woke up with a alarm blaring and complete chaos all around me I notice that I’m on the ground. My eyes watery and stinging from the gas being pumped out around us shit that means it’s a riot. The last memory I had was of this little pup fresh off his mother’s tit swinging at me catching me by surprise and knocked me to the ground out cold I guess. I know what I had to do once I get out of this mess I have to snap that pups neck like the mutt that he is if I’m to save my reputation.

As the security bots came with its rubber baton and began to beat anyone who isn’t in the submissive stance I balled up on my knees and waited for the all clear. Wasn’t much I could do to that twerp that wouldn’t land me in a hot box. I hate the hot box it’s a three foot high cage by two feet wide where your stuffed in at a nearly deadly heat of a hundred and fifteen degrees fahrenheit all day and night. I seen what happens to them poor souls who come out they are tanned raw and damn near lost their own minds from heat stroke.

So I let the pup take Charlie back to their cell the time were they die will come soon enough. I went back to my cell the whole zone got put into lockdown so I’ll have to take care of my wounds after tonight. I was eating the slop they serve as food you get used to the taste of this slop but as I sat eating I couldn’t help but think back on how much I spent and wasted back when I was on top of my game in the free world.

I grew up like a lot of kids did after the great wars I was orphaned couldn’t remember if I even had parents. If I did to hell with them for leaving me to fend for myself in the slum towers of New York. I took to the streets running around making drops for bangers to hot to even think of hitting the streets since I could run and was small enough I can pass threw the crowds with no one noticing. Growing up orphaned wasn’t so bad no legal tags keeping you on radar of the big corps so you could do lots of different jobs for these hot bangers like hits, drop offs, and collecting debt.

When the job is done you disappear into the walking mass of the city with a few credit and look for a different hot banger to do some work for. That’s what I did I ran for a big time banger whose street named was toothless for always leaving the people he dealt with toothless after they cross him gruesome way to die have all your teeth yanked out your mouth one by one then left to bleed out in the streets. I saw it done once I learned that day the only way to make something of yourself is by making less of others. Toothless was a hot banger who ran a whole eight blocks and two slum towers. Being hot is one thing the citizens hated it made your credit useless unless you got a hacker who can launder your credit it also lets any city guard with a tracker able to spot you. Its why runners like me are invaluable to hot bangers like toothless.

The city riots of New York came along during my adolescence years I joined in the fun got a crew together and turned over a few city guard cars burned a few buildings and stole so much merchandise I didn’t starve or work for a whole month. Me and my crew actually got a lot of respect during the riots and that’s worth more then any amount of credit. It was set in steel that my crew and I were no mere punk runners no more we are something to be feared, respected, and that we’re an up and coming crew.

The city riot was harsh old toothless got murked by some up start banger and his worthless crew the up start died the next morning by yours truly ever since then I ran all of toothless old turf. Sure lots of slum tower bosses didn’t like that I ran the streets or that I was greedy and started to take over anyone else’s turf the moment I saw them flinch. If most of the old bosses didn’t die or were sent to the work camps I’m sure I would’ve died in a week at most a month after I started expanding my turf. Thankfully I was smart only took out the fresh new bosses and waited my turn for the few surviving old and smart ones.

One by one I took all of them out the last one to defy me was Kulviska Regalado a old Italian boss who ran little Italy with the help of the mob.