Apath and Spice were sitting at an outdoor cafe in the city of Ensenada. August afternoon was a surprisingly mild eighty two degrees farenheight and he café that they were eating their lunch at was typical of Ensenada’s market district. It was an old steel and concrete structure with a couple of dozen hightop tables that could seat two or three individuals. There was a single order window with a cook behind it and steam pouring out from a small vent near the ceiling. Customers would place their order at the window and a few minutes later it would come up with the ring of a bell. Large garage doors that made up the front of the café were rolled up and several of the tables had spilled out onto the sidewalk. A pleasant breeze was drifting down the evening street, and it swept into the hot and humid little restaurant providing its customers with some needed relief. The small street market outside the café was packed buying their goods for the day. The noise of a busy street market was juxtaposed against the the nearby harbor where most of the ships that came into Ensenada now lay.

The street vendors covered the full spectrum of resellers from fish mongers, to vegetable grocers, to cellphone brokers and everything in between. To the uninitiated the entire scene seemed like a chaotic mess as goods and cash were traded back and forth. Paper, coins, plastic, digital transfers, sometimes even poker chips were used. Anything was fair game and this was a common market that was found in most of the cities still around. There were perhaps dozens of similar markets spread across Ensenada alone and they served its population of nearly eighteen million with all of their basic and not so basic needs.

Apath and Spice both had just finished making a delivery and their ship the Purefold was sitting just at the end of the warf on a floating landing pad. The evening sun bounced off of the harbor’s water and Spice smiled at the picturesque scene with her ship silhouetted against the beautiful sunset. Apath and Spice had finished their delivery for that day and they had some time to kill that evening. With the weather being as pleasant as it was, they both agreed that it would have been a waste of an evening not to enjoy it when they could.

Forgetting all of that philosophical stuff though, Apath mainly liked this place for the fish tacos. Spice turned back around towards her husband just as he picked up a soft shell taco and stuffed it into his face. The lightly breaded fish taco and its sauce hung from the side of his mouth and she made a face as he quickly released what she was looking at. He wiped his face with his hand and then took a sip of his mojito.

Apath was about to take another bite of his taco when his attention was instead caught by large flat panel display set up above the bar just over Spice’s shoulder. "BREAKING NEWS” was plastered across the bottom of the screen in large red letters and everyone in the café turned their attention to the screen. Scrolling across the screen was information about an incident that had occurred at some sort of research lab in the ANX building in central Ensenada. ANX was one of the large corporations that ran Ensenada. They specialized in biogentics, mining and financial investing.The report went on to state that a group of individuals, being classified as bio-terrorists, had broken into a testing facility and kidnapped and released dozens of animals. The report then switched to a video stream from a security camera on at the site, showing several armed individuals with masks and assault rifles inside what appeared to be a research laboratory. With the terrorists were half a dozen scientists, all huddled on the ground with their hands above their heads. Members of the terrorist group were going from cage to cage, opening the cages and letting the animals spill out. It was all rather comical in a way. Apath tapped Spice on the shoulder and pointed up towards the TV. She turned around and a small gasp left her as she saw what was playing out on the screen.

"Ohhh my god." she said, those poor animals.