Yeung-Sung sucked in, shoving his arms as far as he could, arm-hair rising. In an attempt to draw attention away from his injuries, he applied a fixed smile on his face and enthusiastically replied, “Hi, how are you?”

“You’re silly.” A much larger man wearing a mirror set of clothes, patted his chest in a laugh. “You talk like we know each other. We don’t.”

Yeung-Sung swallowed and looked to see if they were alone.

The large PM member sported a ginger beard, which he was stroking as he looked Yeung-Sung up and down. “You’re a trainee,” he said, pointing at the outfit.

Then that means—

“Like me.” He patted his chest again and Yeung-Sung saw the PM emblem; The two letters crossed over in a way reminiscent to the hammer & sickle.

“Where’s your badge? Did they not give you one yet?”

“No, they did. I just -uhh, lost it,” Yeung-Sung said.

This ‘trainee’ leaned down and narrowed his eyes. The beard, his eccentric attitude, Yeung-Sung’s fear of being exposed, they all disappeared as he noticed the fact that, like Yeung-Sung he was also heavily bandaged. It must have been a struggle to get them on him, however, as between the rings of cloth was red skin, like boiling lava covered by clingfilm.

Yeung-Sung gasped. “You’re burnt!”

“Ha- Ha- Ha-Ha-.” He dropped his hands into his thighs as he laughed.

“Well, you’re blunt. And don’t look that well yourself.”

The ‘trainee’ straightened his back with some effort. “They just let me out of the infirmary,” he explained, tangles of his beard dancing to his breath. He pried back the collar of his shirt, showing a tighter, newer criss-cross of white cloth.

His burns must be severe. Worse… Yeung-Sung flinched. Worse than mine.

The burned ‘trainee’ flashed a morbid smile before letting the shirt snap back.

“In my absence I guess a lot has changed, so I’ve been demoted to trainee for now.” He wistfully stroked the emblem. Then, after a quick snap of his head, he pointed behind Yeung-Sung, saying, “They’ve got more over at the orientation stand. Where the food hall is.”

Yeung-Sung followed the direction of his finger and his mouth popped open.

“Be quick, Instructor Kelly-Ann said she has to start now, or we’ll miss the meeting.”

“More like she doesn’t want to miss the meeting,” he added under his breath.

Yeung-Sung bowed and thanked him, taking one more glance at the man’s injuries, his cracked skin webbing out from the ends of the bandages.

“My name is Yeung-Sung, by the way,” he announced. “What is yours?”

“Brinn”.

This is promising. I bet I can get all kinds of information out of him about the faction’s history.

But, how did he get those burns?

Kelly-Ann wore petite, black dolly shoes and a bowl cut fringe that encased her berry head. Tapping her shoes, her head wobbled yet her hair stayed still. She watched the various Player’s Market recruits gather around her like marbles sliding to the end of a runway. Yeung-Sung and Brinn were some of the last to join them.

“Come on, come ON,” she said, ushering them forward. Yeung-Sung found himself moving a little faster. Even though she her voice wasn’t commanding, it had the hint of a shriek that warned him what would happen if he didn’t listen.

Checking her tablet, held to her chest like a clipboard, she raised herself onto the tips of her dainty shoes and counted the group. A stylus bobbed quickly over each of their heads and at last the instructor settled. Even for Yeung-Sung there was no confusion among the group; All full members of PM must’ve already been summoned to the meeting.

Kelly-Ann smiled and said, “At last. Welcome, to the Player’s Market.”

“Let’s begin: The Market is made up of 7 hubs, as of our last re-structuring.”

She pointed to the huge room above the escalators. “’General’ decides when they are necessary. Happens maybe twice per reset.

“I’m going to take you through every hub, following our chain of operations all the way to the ‘Fighter’s’, who are the ones that participate in the Gauntlets.”

She swished her stylus. “It’s up at the top, on the third level. Then we’ll come back down and join the others for a meeting, after which you will all be made official members of PM. Excited?”

She cracked a thin smile. The nodding and murmurs of the orientation group were overshadowed by the waterfall of activity above them in ‘General’.

Good, I’ll finally get some answers. Yeung-Sung straightened up, feeling less pained and looked over to Brinn, who was idly playing with his hands.

A hand shot up behind him.

“Save your questions for –”

“What section are you a part of?” asked the trainee.

“Section 5: Admin,” Kelly-Ann said with a groan. “No more questions.”

“Can I just –”

The instructor tapped her foot like a gavel. This time her hair did waver. “At the end we’ll have time for questions.”

She nodded to ‘General’ again. “You can hear that, can’t you? We don’t have the luxury of time.”

She turned toward the area behind her, its opening running all the way behind the escalators.

“Come on,” she said. “I present to you, the ‘Gatherer’s’ hub.”

She made a dramatic gesture with her hands. “As the name implies, they gather the basic materials necessary to create things within Airgead.”

If the Player’s Market really is a mall, then did all of these ‘hubs’ use to be shopfronts? Well, this one, at least, looks like it used to be a book store.

However, no books were being displayed any of the short shelves, or the tall ones. Instead -to Yeung-Sung’s delight- potted plants took shelter in every corner of the aisles. Shrubbery lined the entrances, pruned into globes like green lollipops. Troughs of tulips; bluebells; primrose hung from the edges of the aisles. Even a miniature cherry blossom was maintained as a centrepiece in the ex-store, given plenty of space to shed its fragrant petals.

The orientation group wove through the gardening displays under radiant lighting, coming from a knot of daisy-shaped lamps.

“Every hub also has other duties within PM,” Kelly explained as she strode quickly ahead of the group. “In this case, the ‘Gatherers’ do a lot of the dirty work around.”

She scowled at the organic tapestry before her as she waited for the group to waddle through like tourists.

“Not like their Airgead activities take up a lot of their time, as you can see.”

Yeung-Sung wanted to stay close to Brinn, but the ‘trainee’ kept getting far ahead him. Yeung-Sung smiled and sniffed in the earth and floral scents; He did not want to leave. Luckily, some empty chairs lay scattered in front of the path they had chosen, so Brinn began to move them. Meanwhile, Yeung-Sung ran his hands over some tools left behind -gloves; a trowel; a sleeping tablet. Poking the screen, the tablet awoke with a dendrological essay, complete with diagrams of the trees in question. Having to leave it came with a pain he was not thankful for.

Kelly-Ann beckoned them again, tapping her foot rapidly,

At the stairs, Brinn and Yeung-Sung were waiting as for the clump of trainees ahead of them to get up the steps when Yeung-Sung noticed sleeping bags curled up next to a stack of yellow pillows.

“When does this place close?”

Staring straight ahead as if there was a camera on him, Brinn replied, “Why would we ever close?”

After that Brinn pushed ahead in the group, yet Yeung-Sung insisted on staying close to him.

For once, could I not be stuck with someone who takes their time? Hand on the railing, Yeung-Sung took a quick look back at the ‘Gatherer’s’ hub.

I hope I can join them.

“Really? I wouldn’t have thought that to be your style,” Brinn remarked.

His stare still forward, he had rolled his eyes to the very edge to look at Yeung-Sung.

Yeung-Sung had several snarky responses ready, but he wasn’t about to draw any attention to himself. He simply shrugged back and continued up the stairwell.