“Nothing endures but change.” - Heraclitus

Victor sat, nursing a glass of vodka that tasted of salt and rubbing alcohol in a bar that smelled like ozone and burnt plastic. The drink burned against his bleeding gums. He thought he deserved the pain, letting it rest in his mouth. Victor believed failure merited pain. he swallowed and tongued the cuts in his mouth that branched across his upper jaw where his computer had once been. The events of that morning ran through his mind again, as it had countless times already. His software had been chipping away at an encryption and was near completion when he got flagged. He took another mouthful of his drink and held it there.

Once he’d been flagged, he had to act fast. Opening his mouth wide, he had yanked with all his might, uprooting his computer, and dropping it to the ground, a bloody wad of silicon and copper. He’d taken flight, running as fast as his thin short legs would permit. He turned corner after corner down the warped and winding streets of the neon lit slum of Lower Sheol, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the security drone that was heading to his computer’s position. His blood had pumped like sludge through his veins, thick with the stimulant drugs he’d taken that morning. His mouth filled with blood as he ran.

He swallowed another gulp of salty vodka and rubbed his cramped legs. After hours of running and hiding, the threat of mechanical retribution had passed and he’d found his way into the bar. And there he had remained, recalibrating.

He had thought his program was solid. He’d triple checked to make sure the algorithm worked. He’d done everything right. That depressed him. It would have been an easy fix in the future if he had only forgotten something. He finished his drink and stared at the empty glass.

Victor was sixteen, short, thin, with almond shaped eyes so dark they looked black. Looking at the boy, anyone could guess he was a true Korean. The only feature out of place was his large nose that slanted downward sharply, as though it had been hammered downward at birth. His father’s nose, the trillionaire CEO, Si Truman of Medici Incorporated.

Victor was one of Mr. Truman’s lab bastards, meaning his mother had purchased the CEO’s sperm from a clinic, so the man was only his father genetically speaking. Victor had never had an interaction with his genetic father, and would almost certainly never get the chance. A man like Mr. Truman fathered thousands when he put his genes on the market so he doubted the CEO had ever once heard his name or seen his face, but he was comfortable with that. He had no desire to meet him. All he wanted right then and there was to have his computer back and a few cold hard standard from a successful job to feed his family a few days.

Just then, Skip Jenkins entered the bar. Skip was white, with an elongated neck that bulbed into a round head, as though he was blown glass. He had spiked hair dyed an icy blue, and he wore a matching icey blue synthetic leather jacket with tight black pants, that exaggerated his already gangly limbs. He smoked an E-Cig, that puffed a blue mist. His half-dozen lackeys of all shapes and sizes followed him in, dressed to match.

“Hey there bartender,” Skip declared to the solemn old Korean man who was whipping the counter tops in silence. “Why don’t you get some drinks for the Ice Man and his crew.” he said.

“What’ll you be having?” the old man asked, face not moving.

Skips eyes fell on Victor. “Well I reckon we’ll have whatever Vicky here is having.” He said, beaming a smile with blue tinted teeth. “How are you Vicky?” he said, in his sales pitch tenor.

“I’m not interested Skip.” Victor said.

“Aw now you haven’t even heard me out. Now what sort of friend doesn’t hear out another friend’s offer? Huh?”

“Here are your drinks.” the man said, placing a tray on the bar. Skip picked up one of the glasses and took a sip and spat it out, some of it landing on Victor’s feet.

“I asked for drinks not urine, good God. Wow.” he said dramatically, lackies snickering. Victor could feel his anger rise, his grip on the glass tightening. “Oh well, to each their own. Live and let live, I’m not one to judge.” Skip said smiling his blue smile, regaining his salesman character. “But say, you know what isn’t all that pricey and will really make you forget your troubles, and tastes a hell of a lot better? Some crisp, frosty void.” he said, opening the side of his jacket, showing clear bags holding the blue crystalline drug.

Void, also known as the “god drug”, was a potent hallucinogen, that gave the user a powerful hallucination while maintaining their lucidness, enabling them to manipulate the hallucination at will. Victor had no patience for such easy escapes.
“I’m not interested.” Victor repeated, still looking at his glass.

“Vicky,” he implored. “Come on now. Loosen up. Relax. You’ve earned that. Live life the way God intended. High on Void!” he said. His gang gave reaffirming whoops. Victor didn’t respond. Skip’s smile faded, and his face grew dark. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.” He said, laying a hand on Victor’s shoulder, turning him. He squeezed Victor’s shoulder with his long fingers. Victor’s hands remained clasped tight against his glass.

“Now, look,” he said more hushed, “I’m trying to cut you a deal here, and you’re throwing it back in my face. Now lucky for you, the Ice Man is patient. So why don’t you just play it cool and buy some void you Tru-bastard, little Ground Zero, piece of” he said, interrupted by Victor’s glass crashing into the side of his head. Had it been made of actual glass it would have shattered, but Lower Seoul wasn’t the type of place to have glassware. It was all reprocessed plastic here in the slums. The reinforced plastic glass let out a dull clunk throughout the bar.

Victor’s anger melted into regret in an instant. “I’m going to die for that.” he thought. Before they had a chance to retaliate, Victor tapped his right ring finger to his right thumb, followed by his left index finger to his left thumb, the signal for extreme danger. The circuitry embedded in Victor’s palms sent the message out. If Rick was nearby, he might reach him in time.

He was dragged out into the alley, blood streaming down his nose. He had flailed but there was no point. He was small for his age. His knees scraped against the outside pavement as they dragged him. His eyes were growing warm with blood clots, swelling shut. No one else followed them out. In Lower Seoul, the rule was to clean up your own mess. At Victor’s age, he was expected to know that. “I need you Rick. Where are you, little brother?” he thought desperately.

They stopped a few dozen meters away from the bar, a dull lime green street light shined, reflecting off the thin city smog. Skip kicked Victor in the stomach. “You’ll pay for that you little Tru-bastard!” he shouted, kicking him again. His face had a long red streak where Victor had struck him with the plastic mug.

Victor writhed in pain, his mind racing. “You have to get up, run, plea, fight, get away, get up! Anything but lie here and moan!” he thought, moaning while he layed there.

“Do you know what the Ice Man does to people who disrespect him?” Skip asked, looking at his knuckles, brushing back his icy blue hair and straightening his blue leather jacket. He referenced to two of his lackeys, having them pull Victor to his feet. Even with his face forward, Victor was only level with the Skip’s elongated chest. Skip wound back a fist, and punched Victor across the jaw. A white pain pumped through his face.

“Tell him Rez.” said Skip.

“They get... iced. ” said the fat man named Rez, holding one of Victor’s shoulders, smiling, with dull yellow eyes.

“These are the people I’m about to be killed by, degenerates with bad wordplay. This is my legacy.” Victor thought, squinting up at the fat man.

“That’s right, they get iced.” said Skip, lifting a large hypodermic needle out of his jacket. Its tube was metal, and droplets beaded around its exterior. “Do you know what this is Vicky?”

Cool steam radiated from the thick metallic casing of the tube. Victor had heard stories about this, but he didn’t know if he believed them until now. “Liquid nitrogen.” said Victor.

“Good guess!” Skip said, pleased. “Any idea what this does to you if I stick it in you?”

“I’ve got to stall,” Victor thought. “I’ve got to give Rick time. Think carefully.” After a moment he said, “I hear it kills nerve cells so that you can’t feel it and it’s how someone kills themselves if they want to go quick and painless.”

Skip was somewhat taken aback by that. “I don’t know where you learned that, but let me tell you what really happens.” he said. “It doesn’t pump through your veins like you would think. It freezes your blood on contact. You’ll feel the cold lump of ice forming inside you, growing. You’ll feel a chill so cold it feels like it’s burning hot. While you feel like you’re burning from the inside out, your veins start to pop,” he said making a popping noise.

“And the ice will keep growing bigger and colder. After a while you won’t be able to wiggle around anymore ’cause it starts to break your spinal cord. When it reaches your heart, you die, but don’t worry, I know how to make this last a while before that happens.” he said with a wide, wicked grin. Victor looked down.

“Have you done this to others?” Victor asked, making sure he sounded frightened.

“Ha!” Skip laughed. “Rez, how many times have you seen me ice someone?”

“A whole lot. More than I can count.” the fat voider rasped.

“That’s probably not much.” thought Victor.

“And how long have you been in the Ice-men?” Skip asked.

“Few months I guess.”

“More than he can count, and he’s only been with me for a few months, Vicky.”

“Did they all scream?” Victor asked, shivering as he tapped his “extreme danger” signal again. “Come on Rick. I can only do this for so long.” he thought.

“Nope. The ice takes the breath right out of them. They scream with their eyes though. Lets you know it’s working.” he replied, looking at the needle, thoughtfully. Water drops slid down its canister.

“Please don’t! Please! I was stupid, I was so stupid earlier! I can’t buy any void because I’m broke, but give me a few days, and I’ll buy everything you’ve got! All of it! I’ll be a lifelong customer!” Victor lied.

“As much as I love to hear you beg, and really I do, it won’t help.”

As Skip spoke, Victors fingers twitched with a response from Rick. Right index over ring finger. “Close/Almost” it meant.

“But I’ll give you a chance to say some last words. Make them count Vicky.” Skip said.

“Couldn’t agree more.” thought Victor. As he sat, he started tapping his fingers frantically, searching online for any information he could find on Skip Jenkins. An electropad on his back under his shirt acted as his monitor. Instead of pixels with color it sent light jolts into his back at certain locations and intensities. Over the years he’d learned to understand these jolts with the same ease as looking at a screen. “Well... I...” he said with long pauses fingers tapping quickly and silently. “Can you send a message for me?”

“Awe, a goodbye to mommy? Sorry, can’t do.”

“No not to my mom... to... to Lorri.” Victor said, finding a birth record of a Lorri Jenkins, who was about Victor’s age and born in this district. He hoped it was a relative.

Skip paused at that. “How... you don’t know Lorri, you little Tru-bastard!” he said, getting in Victor’s face, grabbing his collar.

“Jackpot.” thought Victor as he dug deeper into the record. “It’s his sister.” he discovered. “She may disagree with that.” he said, as he searched for everything he could find about her. He may not have brawn, but he knew how to do this. This was his domain. He found her medical records. “Attempted Suicide” it read, and recently too. “Perfect,” Victor thought.

“After her... incident, we met at...” he paused, searching for the rehabilitation center she attended. “Saint Mark’s. I was there too. We’d both made the same mistakes, but we’ve been each others’ support since then. We check in about once a week. If you have to kill me, at least let me record her a message. It won’t take long.” Skip looked horrified in disbelief.

“Boss,” said the lackey Rev, pointing. “his fingers are twitching together.”

“Little Tru-bastard is wired!” said the one to his left.

“Strip him!” Skip commanded. They pushed him to his knees yanking off his dirty clothes. Victor resisted but it was no use. Once they had ripped of his shirt, his electropad was revealed. It was paper thin and black, and it glistened in the neon-light alley. It covered his whole back tight like another layer of flesh and wrapped around part of his side. It was clearly meant for a larger person, but it was the only one he had been able to afford. “Tear it off!” Skip barked.

They pushed Victor onto his hands and knees and began to peel it back. The pad clung to his skin and each tug sent a jolt of pain through his back. The skin underneath was a hot pink and burned in the open city smog air that it hadn’t felt in over a year.

Stripped of his digital eyes, half naked, with a swollen face, Victor curled in a ball on his side. Tears welled in his eyes.

Skip flipped Victor and pinned him to the ground. “You’ll pay for bringing Lorri into this. I usually try to keep the face in on piece for the family, but a worm like you, you don’t deserve that. I’m going to start with your eyes. Then your smart-ass tongue.” He said, looking at the needle as the thick tubing attached dripped cold condensation onto Victor’s bruised face.

“More time.” Victor thought. “Anything for more time.” Victor began blabbing and laughing incessantly, loud like a madman. “Come on Rick. Come on!” he thought as he cackled. “I can only confuse this dumb animal with loud noises for so long.” He hollered, cheered, sang little tunes and blurted out like an alarm.

“Well he’s lost it hasn’t he?” said Rez.

“Either that or I want some of what he’s having.” said the other unnamed lackey.

Skip struck hard against the side of Victors face. “I want him to feel what’s coming.” he said, striking him again.

Victor cackled louder, making baby noises. “Shut up!” said Skip, covering Victor’s mouth firmly with his hand. Victor began licking Skip’s palm. “What the hell?! You freak,” said Skip, pulling his hand off.

“Just put him down.” said Rez. “He’s gone.”

“Looks like we broke him the little fella,” laughed another.

“Rez, get down here and hold his face in place. I want a clean shot.” he said as Victor began gurgling, shaking his head back and forth, humming an inaudible tune.

“With pleasure.” said the large voider. He knelt beside Victor’s head and grabbed it tight with both hands.

Skip raised his arm, looked Victor over, and brought his hand down. Victor closed his eyes. What followed was a loud ping, a scream, and cursing.

Victor opened his eyes, and saw Rez, grabbing his arm at the wrist, his hand had gone purple with the large needle deep inside. The skin began to shift from purple to a crusty brown.

Skip clinched his wrist, cursing. “Slop! What was that?!” he barked.

“Someone down that alley chucked a bottle.” said a lackey with cyan braided hair.

“My hand! I can’t feel my hand!” Shouted Rez.

“I’ll buy you a new hand! Find who threw that and kill ’em!” shouted Skip.

Rez screamed, looking at his hand delirious.

The lackeys looked at Rez, and down the alleyway filled with smog, wide eyed. Out of the smog, a chunk of pavement came whizzing out. It clobbered the one with cyan hair, causing his body to go rigid, and fall to the ground. “Two down, five to go.” thought Victor. Even for Rick, those were long odds. He had to find a way to help.

“Leave now, and you’ll live.” boomed a voice from the smog. Rick, though fourteen, had the voice of a full grown man. Still growing, his genetically engineered body stood over two meters tall, and nearly a meter wide shoulder to shoulder. His silhouette formed a massive humanoid shadow in the smog as he walked forward.

Skip’s junkies looked frantically between Rez who was weeping, the voider with the cyan hair who was a gurgling mass motionless on the ground, and the giant shadow emerging from the thick clouds of Lower Seoul’s exhaust.

“Whoever brings him down gets a week’s worth of void, on the house.” Skip shouted. The fear in his lackeys’ eyes melted away into a furious hunger. Some drew makeshift blades, others pulled out bars of hard metal and plastic. They began walking towards the smog.

“Time.” Victor thought. He had some, now how best to use it? “Just take Skip’s void! He’s the easier target!” shouted Victor before he was interrupted by a swift kick in the stomach.

“Shut your mouth you tru-bastard.” Skip commanded, drawing a long piece of metal that had been whittled into a blade.

“Who’s first?” bellowed Rick, standing in place, still obscured from view in the thick mist.

“Plug,” hissed one trailing lackey to another. “I think the little worm’s right about this one.”

“Shut it.” said Plug.

“I’m serious. We don’t owe Skip a thing.”

“Either of you two null-for-brains try to make off with all that void and we’ll kill you both.” said the front most lackey.

“I’d like to see you try you inbred malformed!” the lackey hissed, spittle flying into the air.

“What did you call me?”

“Shut it Simon!” said Plug, swinging a hard arm back at him.

Fear filled Skip’s eyes as they talked. It was the most beautiful thing Victor had seen all day.

“Come on!” shouted Rick, who began to sprint towards them, emerging out of the yellow mist. His skin was dark as night and his long dreads sprawled out as he barreled forward.

As he emerged, the lackey named Simon took his blade and stabbed the leading lackey’s side. Retracting his makeshift weapon, he began to run back towards Skip.

“Simon!” shouted Plug, turning around and going after him.

“Looks like you have bigger problems.” said Victor, showing bloody teeth as he grinned up at Skip.

The stabbed voider fell to his knees. Rick slammed into the last remaining junky who was standing still, confused. The junky lost his footing and his back slammed into the ground taking his breath away, body going rigid.

Skip grabbed his blade in hand, eyes darting from Victor to Simon and Plug, to the huge mass that was Rick who had begun running towards them. Victor could see the gears turning in Skip’s brain, what few were left. “Drop some of your void, it will distract them.” said Victor.

“I’ll get you for this worm!” he said, kicking Victor one more time before he turned around and ran. Simon charged after Skip, eyes ravenous. Plug shouted after him, trying to catch up, paying Victor no mind.

By now, Rez’s arm had gone black, and the discoloration had spread up his neck. He cried frantically, ignorant of what was happening around him, rolling from side to side, needle still buried deep in his now dead hand.

“Turns out it isn’t painless.” thought Victor.

Rick ran to meet his beaten brother. Victor spat out a mouth full of blood and grimaced as he sat up, his back bare and bruised, shining in dull yellow light. “Daughter of god! Are you alright?” Asked Rick.

“Been better.” said Victor, taking deep, pained breaths. “Can you help me get up?” he asked, extending a hand, hoping his little brother would offer to carry him.

“You shouldn’t be walking. You probably have broken ribs, good God. I’ll carry you.”

“Well alright, if you insist.” Victor said, relieved. “And yes, I think I have three broken ribs, a sprained arm, and maybe a punctured organ somewhere in my abdomen.” he added, feeling gingerly along his body with his good arm. “Do you have any salve on you?”

“Yeah, here.” Rick said, reaching into a jacket pocket, pulling out a tube of thick liquid with a screw on cap. Victor held open his mouth. Rick undid the cap, and poured the thick jelly into Victor’s mouth. Victor struggled to swallow it, but managed to down the tube.

“Good.” he said, rubbing off his mouth. “That’s probably enough to keep me from bleeding out internally. Now I need you to listen to me. Take the,”

“Woah, woah, Probably? We have to get you to Matthis.”

“Yes, ’probably’. Matthis can wait. Now listen to me. Take the needle out of that writhing idiots hand. An insulator like that is probably worth a good bit of standard. Then, we search those three heaps,” Victor said referencing the motionless lackeys that lay on the ground. “Take their standard, and any void if they have it. Once that’s done, we go up that way a couple hundred meters or so. ” Victor said, pointing in the direction Skip had run. “And we see what happened to the Ice Man.”

“It’s always money with you, isn’t it? Here we are. You’re nearly dead, and half-naked. I probably just gave those null-for-brains some serious brain damage, and you’re concerned about standard.”

“I’m concerned about our mothers being able to eat. I lost my comp today and I’ll need to be able to afford a new one. So hurry. I’m dying over here Rick.” he said, grinning through his pain.

“That’s not a funny joke.” said Rick, who walked over to Rez who still riled, and landed a punch across his jaw, making him go motionless. He pulled the needle out of his arm and looked it over.

“That was one hell of a throw earlier.” said Victor.

“Guess I’ve got my comp-bastard blood to thank for that.” said Rick, his cold and serious expression beginning to melt as he searched the pockets and pouches of the other junkies one by one. Unlike Victor, whose genetic father was a frail business giant, Rick’s genetic father was a, once, internationally ranked gladiator named Miercov Desmond, who had stood nearly three meters tall and weighed over two hundred kilos. He had died several generations before Rick was ever born. They had synthesized the sperm from Desmond’s archived genetic code. So the other kids called Rick a comp-bastard, his conception derived from ones and zeros on a memory disk.

“It was through the mist too.” said Rick, pleased with himself. “I was aiming for his head and missed, truth be told. Got lucky. But what happened anyway? What did you do to make them so mad?” he asked, carelessly flipping the body of lackey over with his massive arms.

“Suffice it to say I screwed up, and to make up for screwing up, I screwed up even more.”

“Well at least it’s not all bad.” said Rick, pulling a small baggy with blue crystalline powder out of a limp body’s jacket. He put it in the back slip of his pants. “I should clobber voiders more often.” he said pulling out and inspecting some plastic cards with the logos of different corporate families on them.

“We need a more reliable sources of income. Less life threatening.” said Victor.

“Coming from the kid who just got flagged, that’s saying a lot.”

“One time!” said Victor, lying. There had been several times, but he’d always managed to keep that hidden from his family. After some silence he added, “But thanks.”

“I’m sure your big mouth would have gotten you out of it without me.”

“A big mouth can only do so much against inarticulate drug addicts... Come on already, let’s see what happened to Skip.” said Victor.

“You’re the one concerned about standard. I was being thorough.” he said, releasing the body he was inspecting. The body fell back to ground with a heavy thud.

“Yeah whatever, come on, grab my electro-pad and pick me up.”

“Your gratitude sure ran out in a hurry.” said Rick, picking up the crumpled leathery electro-pad, and then cradling his big brother.

“Find me Skip’s void, and I’ll give you a big kiss. Sound good?”

“You’re too poor to give me anything else, so it’ll have to do.” said Rick as he began to jog down the alley.

“You’re just as poor as me, ass.” he said as they trekked down the neon lit streets of Lower Seoul.

The boys passed row after row of mega-towers, gigantic constructs that spanned whole blocks. Victor looked up at them all as they passed, eyes swollen. In Lower Seoul there was no sky. In its place was the foundation of the city’s next level and it spanned as far as the eye could see. The mega towers supported the colossal construct, keeping it suspended. It made Victor feel like an insect,a beaten and bruised, weak insect.

The word on the street was that standard flowed like a river up there, and that slop was a thing of the past. Victor had seen what it was really like though. Not in person, but through cracked video logs that he dug up. In truth, it was the same as lower Seoul. Just another layer of the same smoggy filth and poverty. Victor had learned they were actually on the third level down, and that there was another two layers still below him, though most of the citizens on those levels were virtual citizens who spent all their time in VR. On top of all these layers was where the real standard flowed. That was where the giants lived, the big players that actually had a say in the world. That was where Victor’s genetic father lived, and where, Victor knew, he’d never be able to go.

“Woah, check it out!” said Rick, nudging his head towards a ripped open bag of void, spread across the pavement.

“That means we’re close. They must have been gaining on him.” Victor replied. As they ran onward, they could hear screams and whoops echoing down the alley. Rick turned the corner, and there was Simon and Plug, whites of the eyes turned a deep yellow, and mouths gaping. Signs of a heavy trip on void. They lulled about and a blue haired, body clothed in icy blue synthetic leather lay still on the ground beside them.

Rick gently placed Victor against a nearby wall. “Hey there boys! Feeling alright?” he shouted to them.

Neither replied. The two druggies whispered inarticulate gibberish as drool ran down their faces, mouths hanging open. The “god drug” blocked all perceptions, and put the user in a lucid dream state. Victor looked at the ground beside them, at all the bags of blue scattered across the ground, several ripped open.

“They’re going to be gone for at least four hours with how much they’ve had.” said Victor. The one named Simon began to cackle, eyes staring blankly into the distance.

“Rip! Rip! Rip!” Simon shouted to the sky as he laughed. “Yes! Yes! Into the ocean we go!” he said, heaving his arms, losing his balance and falling onto his face. His cackle became muffled by the pavement, but his laughing continued.

“Voider freaks.” said Rick.

“Just grab what you can and let’s go. Try not to touch the stuff too much.”

“How much you reckon Matthis can give us for all this?” Rick asked, as he picked bags off the speckled blue pavement.

“He doesn’t like dealing in this sort of thing, but he’ll probably give us enough for a new comp and to patch me up, maybe some change left over.”

“Sounds good. Buy a ham for the moms and a whiskey for us?”

“We’ll see.”

“It’s been too long since I’ve had a good whiskey.” said Rick, picking up Victor.

“You’ve never had good whiskey.” Victor replied.

As they began to leave, Victor could hear Skip wheeze something. Victor didn’t look back and neither did Rick. In Lower Seoul, the rule was to clean up your own mess.

Rick carried Victor down the winding streets through a colossal maze of mega towers, entering the main downtown area. It bustled with people of all shapes and sizes. Shouts of barters, squawks of genetically engineered hybrid animals, dozens of different neon-light colors bathing the street. Cheap cybernetic limb dealers, meat vendors, stimulant distributors, cracked video log peddlers, virtual navigators, encryption crackers, a hundred-hundred one man businesses, all wanting the same thing, a little more standard to feed their families. It made Victor feel sick to watch it. They were like dogs chasing their own tails, taking petty cash from one another only to lose it to someone else.

Victor’s work, when he had a computer, mainly revolved around digging up long forgotten cryptocurrencies whose references had been lost after exchanging hands so many times. He was a kind of digital archeologist, gleaming whatever forgotten treasures he could out of old servers on the deeper web. Most of these old servers he dug through were owned by wealthier prospectors, who owned hundreds of similar cryptocurrency “mines” and had the things searched by teams. Most of what Victor was able to salvage was just the scraps left over, but occasionally he’d strike digital gold that the miners had missed. He’d been doing it for years now, and it had kept his family fed for nearly two years straight.

Though food was the most sought after commodity in Lower Seoul, that’s not to say people died of starvation there. The people of Seoul had access to free food on tap in every living-space in the form of a black goop that had the consistency of crude oil. The goop, called “Slop” by the locals, contained all the necessary nutrients to maintain life. When it was created it was held up as a miracle substance.

The catch was that it slowly killed the person who consumed it. Rather than living a healthy full life of one hundred and fifty years, as was expected for an average healthy human, a lifetime of slop consumption limited you to about seventy five years. The saying was “Get a day, take a day.” This trade-off, though often resulting in tragic death, was preferred to mass starvation, and so slop production continued.

Over the generations, the goal of all citizens had become to eat as little slop as possible. How much standard you made, how much real food you could afford to eat, was life and death in Lower Seoul.

Rick carried Victor passed a kiosk filled with a dozen exotic creatures, then another with fragrant mists wafting out of it.

“Hey there big guy,” said a small old man with an elongated beard, and earlobes that sagged to his shoulders. “How would you like to regrow limbs? Never have to sleep again? Become invincible?” he asked extending out his jacket, exposing a dozen needles. “I got whatever gene-seed you could ever need! And cheap too!”

“Eat slop.” said Rick walking onward. The old man began talking to the next person to pass, not missing a beat.

They came to an unimposing gap in the rows of kiosks that lead to a narrow, unlit alley. Small rodents scampered in the corners, and mechanical insects scurried in and out of the garbage scattered on the ground. Crumpled plastic wrapping, broken LED bulbs, tatters of aluminum sheets, and used e-cigs laid strewn on the floor. They crumpled under Rick’s giant boots as he took a left, then a right, then another left, turning through webbing of alleys, until they came upon an unlabeled door. The door was thick and metallic. A small dish shaped contraption extended from its top right corner, with holes for a speaker underneath.

“Hey, Matthis, we need in!” Rick said to the dish. They waited.

“For the love of God’s daughter Matthis, I know you’re in there, Victor’s got internal bleeding and he needs patching up!” The dish turned to face them and inspected Victor.

“The boy’s got at least a day or two left, there’s no hurry.” An unseen voice replied.

“We’ll pay you for it.” said Victor.

“With what? The hot void you’re carrying?” The intercom said, dish turning to Rick. “Since when have you boys been in the drug trade? What would your mothers think of that?” Victor hated Matthis’s digital eyes. Every since he was a little boy, they always got him in trouble.

“It’s a long story, tell you what, let us in and you can lecture us to our faces.” said Victor.

“Lecture, and discuss price!” said the wall. The door’s lock clicked. Rick yanked it open and stepped into Matthis’s workshop with Victor.

Walking down the hallway, they entered a room thick with a cherry flavored mist. Bolts of electricity sent blue flashes through the dull red lit room. A dozen small robotic creatures whizzed back and forth through the mist, bringing mechanical bits and pieces to the center. Along the walls were a hundred different contraptions, most of which had been gutted for parts with exposed wiring, others were of Matthis’s own design. He was a tech-dealer, and most of what he sold rode the fine line of legality in Lower Seoul. Lucky for him, no one really enforced those laws.

Matthis sat in the center of a circular desk at the end of the room. He was bald and wore wide goggles that had a thick bundle of wires extending up from them into the ceiling. He wore a sweat stained white T-shirt, and tattered khaki shorts. He puffed out cherry mist from rubber tubing the hung out of his mouth that connected at the other end to a large tank under his desk. He had two thin biological arms, and two mechanical arms extending out of his shoulder blades. All four worked diligently, grabbing supplies from his small robotic servants, and welding them together. “So, who did you make so mad?” he said, work uninterrupted. The smell of ozone flowed from his workplace, mixing with the cherry in the air.

“No one of consequence now.” said Victor.

“Body snatcher food if we’re lucky.” said Rick, grinning.

“Darwin takes another, huh?” said Matthis. “But I wonder if he forgot you two? Getting in fights over void? What did I teach you coding for Vic? Sure as slop, it wasn’t so you could get yourself beaten to death. Maybe from the giant piece of meat I’d expect this. He’s actually built for it!” he said, pointing a robotic finger at Rick.

“Hey!” countered Rick.

“Giving me a couple lessons when I was five hardly counts as teaching me coding.” Victor replied.

“As ungrateful now as you were then. So what do you want and what are you offering? Be quick, I’m busy.

“I need some patching up, my electropad reattached, and a new comp. Some food for moms if you have any for sale.”

“And in return? Hm?” he said, using his metallic arms to pick up a large sheet of metal. The arms then folded up the sheet into a desired shape, the sound of denting metal pinging out. His biological arms then welded the piece to what he’d been working on.

“All the void we have on us, which should go for several hundred standard pretty easy, a decent insulator syringe and some corporate credits.” said Victor.

“Ah, it’s nice to know this transaction isn’t completely comprised of illegal merchandise!”

“Cut the crap, since when have you cared about legality?” countered Victor.

“Put it all on the counter and we’ll see if you’ve got enough.”

Rick placed Victor against the wall and began to empty his pockets. He piled up half a dozen bags of blue crystal, dropped the metallic syringe, and tossed three plastic cards onto the circular desk. Matthis didn’t look away from his work. Instead, a small rat-like robot with a large lens on it’s head, scurried up the desk and scanned the items. “Ah, well lucky for you, this should cover most of your costs.”

“Most?” asked Victor. “Don’t scam us Matthis. I know how much that void is worth.”

“Ah, you know how much it’s worth in ideal conditions, which these are not. I’m a tech-dealer, not a drug mule. No, no, this covers most of your costs.”

“Well that’s a load of slop and you know it Matt. Why don’t you just spoon feed it to us?” asked Rick.

“You boys don’t need to be getting any dumber, so don’t tempt me. No, all you’ll have to do to covey a message.”

“And what’s that?” said Victor, anger melting to annoyance.

“Tell your moms I haven’t seen them in ages and could use the...good company.”

“You’re disgusting.” said Victor.

“It’s just me and the robots around here. What’s a man to do with himself?” he said.

Rick laughed aloud. “You old rust tank. Do you even have those parts left or are they metal too?”

“The metal bits never tire!” Matthis said looking up from his work for the first time, smiling a hideous smile of eroded yellow and brown, cherry mist seeping through the wide gaps.

“Daughter of God...” said Victor, grabbing his temples.

“Come on,” Matthis said, slapping on the counter top with one hand while he swept the payment under the counter with another. He extended one of his metallic arms into the air. Mechanical arms reached down from the ceiling and latching onto them. The mechanism wheezed and hydraulic pumps puffed air as the machinery removed the hand like attachment and replaced it with another. Matthis flew through the new hand’s many attachments, flaring syringes, drills and blades.

Rick picked Victor up and laid him on the desk. “This is going to sting.” said Matthis, eying one of his needles.

“Let’s just get this over with.” Victor said, taking a deep breath.

Victor felt the prick of the needle going into his neck and the burning anesthetic flowing into his blood. A moment later he was unconscious.