Dante felt unsettled as he bit down on the bread. Any guilt had been overcome by the growl of his stomach. He had tried to work, earn a living the honest way, however, no one would risk employing a likely juvenile boy with no identification on him. Even when begging, not one person had taken pity. So he had to resort either theft or starvation. And after two days of searching for a different way, he could no longer bear it.

He took it from an unsupervised cart in a parking lot in front of a retail store and then ran without looking back. But even after finishing the piece of pastry, Null still felt slightly hungry. His clothes were already starting to smell and the cold of sleeping outside in winter was getting worse. He stood up, refusing to forever pathetically crawl among the backstreets, scraping for anything to fill his stomach. A bit of crime was not a large price to pay for a better life, conscience be damned.

So he left the back alley and trod among the buildings, in a few minutes reaching the Royal Line shopping district. It was the Giltport city’s artery, thousands of people present at any given moment, entering and leaving the dozens of shops and restaurants while others marvelled at the occasional street vendor or performer. The perfect place for a young lad to go unnoticed.

The moment Dante entered the crowd, his hands strangely stilled. The chilled tremble as if disappeared and despite his nervousness, Null’s mind was clearer than ever. He observed, watching the bulges behind pockets and slightly open backpacks. He himself was astonished at his newfound keenness to such details. A target was chosen in a few minutes, the middle-aged man was wearing a jacket with large loose pockets and Dante had just spotted the man return a wallet into one of them after throwing some coins to a guitarist.

With an accelerated heartbeat, Dante crept closer. The man was looking around a bit absentmindedly and didn't even notice the boy until they bumped into each other, “Sorry,” Dante apologised and moved along, clearly feeling the item already hidden inside his sleeve. He took a few more steps and carefully disappeared into the crowd. The nimble certainty with which his hand had moved almost terrified Dante. At that moment he realised it couldn't have been the first time he had picked a pocket, the action felt far too natural and trained for that to be the case.

Without taking a look, Dante hid the wallet inside an inner pocket and started observing the crowd again. It was still just past noon and Null understood that one wallet was probably not enough. If he ever wanted to stop doing this sort of thing, he needed an identity and all things considered, probably a fake one. And those definitely wouldn’t be cheap if he wanted something well made. Soon enough there was another target in his sight.

An older woman covered in makeup and holding some sort of sweet pastry bought from a stand. She also had a rather loose-pocketed jacket into which the woman had placed her wallet, “Sorry,” Null once again said as he bumped into the woman and reached into her pocket. He actually even grabbed two items. That time, however, things did not go as well, “How dare you?!” the woman exclaimed loudly and Dante immediately broke into a sprint. The woman’s fingers swiped, though failed to grasp, his shoulder as Null rushed into the crowd and searched for the nearest alleyway through which he could leave the Royal Line. Yet the expected scream of ‘pickpocket’ did not follow immediately. The woman had not noticed, she was actually just that angry at someone bumping into her on accident. By the time the screech of ‘thief’ sounded about 10 seconds later, Dante was already safely hidden and feeling a lot less bad about that one in particular.

Though that much adrenalin was probably enough for him. What he got his hands on would last him at least a few days and the police would probably be called to look for him around there. As he retreated into more familiar back alleys, Null took a look at his loot, two rather thick wallets and an old cellphone. He opened one of them and for the first time felt at a loss. There was a total of 2700 of currency in bills as well as a few coins and Dante had absolutely no idea how much that was worth. Despite his amnesia, he just understood things so far, he had the basic understanding of society and technology, knew a thing or two about morality and law, even some basics about human biology and needs. But about the money, he had absolutely no idea.

The second wallet had only about 300 of currency in it, plus about 60 in coins, which did not help Dante come up with a reference frame. Instead of removing the money, he took out all of the documents, including the ID, credit card and a fitness centre membership card and threw them in his pocket. The wallet was plain brown and worn out so it felt like a good idea to keep it. Then Dante had to determine what to do with the rest, so he decided to seek advice.

“Hey,” after about 5 minutes of searching, Dante found two men standing in a dead-end alley, far away from anywhere a person without ulterior motives would be in the middle of a day. He kept his distance as he hailed them.

“What ya want, kid?” one of them turned around with a hostile frown.

“Do you happen to know any place I could sell this,” Dante took out the cellphone and waved it.

“Try a fucking pawn shop,” the other man grunted.

“I was also thinking of selling an empty used wallet along with it,” Dante added and the two men seemingly caught his drift at that point. They stared Dante down for a few moments before they looked at each other and the second man nodded.

“3 blocks from ‘ere,” the first man pointed in a direction, far less hostile than at first, “Find Pete’s pawnshop. The old bugger buys cheap but asks no questions and ain’t got no cameras.”

“Thank you,” Null nodded and took off. He did not wait around and tried to follow the direction into the pawnshop right away, though that quickly proved to be relatively difficult. He had almost convinced himself that he was on the wrong street by the time Null found the small pawnshop with no large sign or easily visible advertisement, just a few letters on the glass front door.

When he stepped inside, there was no one behind the till. In fact, the entire place was devoid of any people. Since that was the case, Dante took a glance at the prices. There were all sorts of items, some of which Dante couldn’t even name, though he quickly located the phones. While smartphones went for up to 10 thousand, old cell phones like the one he stole were sold for as little as 150.

“New around here, young man?” a burly voice interrupted Dante’s inspection. The man behind the counter was wearing a colourful button-up shirt covered with flower-like patterns, making him look quite eccentric despite his clean-shaven chin and well-kept ebony hair.

“Yes,” Dante quickly looked up and walked over, “I would like to pawn some things. Are you Pete?”

“Sure am,” the man smiled, “What have you got?”

“Just this,” Dante handed over the phone as well as the nicer of the two wallets.

“Hmm,” the man shortly inspected them, “I can give you 200 quid total for both. Though if they were taken today I can give you another 100 total for the credit card and ID that were probably inside.”

“I could just use those myself,” The man seemed very familiar and comfortable with what Null was doing so there was hardly any point in hiding it, instead, Dante tried to test the waters.

“The card will be dead in a few hours, maybe sooner,” Pete chuckled, “And even if it doesn’t, the police are probably gonna track down any swipe payments after the card is reported stolen. It takes one camera you don’t notice and they got you. Isn’t the safe cash better?”

“100 is still too little,” Dante frowned.

“How do I know these are not from days ego, eh?” Pete retorted, “Keep bringing these for a week or two and I will raise it to 300, even 500 if you are reliable.”

“200 for two then?” Dante placed both debit cards as well as all the other cards on the table between him and Pete, “I kept the other wallet.”

“As they say, kid,” Pete whistled and extended his hand towards Dante, “One is luck, two is skill. I look forward to working with you in the future.”

After shaking hands, Pete counted 400 in bills and handed them to Dante. With his earnings, Dante was about to leave when he remembered something that had been on his mind almost ever since his escape: “One last thing. Is there somewhere around here I could get a bed and shower for cheap?”