Ayenee Capital City (open)

[Sledge Rivers]

A rat ran from one steel line to the next, chancing against the morning passenger train taking workers from where they can afford to live to where they can't afford not to work. To the side of the in-use railway line was the rust rubble wreckage occupying the breadth of Ayenee Capital City's unused railway yard. And beyond the yard's chain link were sickly slums and their shit stream sewers. That side of town, oppressed by the enduring loom of ZCorp Tower, was abandoned by the city's eastward sprawl of affluence. All the rodent could see when it twitched its nose to the sky was the choking smog of unchecked corruption. The corporate skyscraper, whose executive inhabitants were responsible for the gloom, grew beyond the darkness and into the glare above.

After dodging the deadly steel to steel grind, the rat poured through an opening in the rail yard's fencing. The little squeaker went through a hole in a wall and found itself in the treat of a broken family's paltry pantry. Gnawing on the thick crust of a stale loaf, the rat was able to eavesdrop.

A sneering whine sniffled into the room of cardboard and corrugated plastic, "The Cherub couldn't get me. And forget about MacCallister. We had the better equipment, the better resources. Always!"

The unpleasant man's conversation partner was struck into silence.

"S:1, blergh!"

Silence.

"Here."

The rat looked up from its carb feast and eyed the man with the sneery voice as he handed over an envelope stuffed with paper money. It was the well forgotten tyrant of Ayenee Capital City, de facto leader of the Zero Corporation, Sledge Rivers. The years had weathered the already unfortunate appearance of the 1%er. Rivers fell from prominence over a decade ago, and since then his skin had shrunk even tighter against his little skeleton, his nose had grown more pointed, his hair had thinned to embarrassment, but he still wore it long and greasy, his suit was still ill-fitting, his missing arm was still substituted with the cliché of a cybernetic stand-in.

Having finalised the deal with an S:1 insider to assassinate MacCallister, Sledge stepped out into the slum's streets. Of course, the slums were dangerous for him. He was dressed in a way that proved you could be poorly dressed in expensive clothes. The attire made him quite the spectacle in that locale. The ZCorp VP was the sort of villain whose unhinged psychopathy made him crave the violence of combat. While Sledge sloshed in his leather loafers in the fecal flow of the underclass, he was secretly praying that somebody would dare to take him on. He made eye contact with anybody he could, staring at the poor down the length of his ugly proboscis.

Maybe somebody would try to kill Sledge Rivers again.