Nico stuck to the alleyways. He went straight for a quarter hour, passing by a couple dozen people each smelling like a different type of alcohol, before he reached Block 200. He could see the bright white lamps light on the end. Every step he took towards it brought him closer to the sound of music. Half-way through he began to hear the faded voices of the people on the other end of the Block. He stepped out onto East Street and both the music and the sound of hundreds of people chatting simultaneously doubled.

The cobble street was as wide as an entire Block and filled to the brim with people for as long as the eye could see. There was no left or right, just people walking and jousting in all directions. Some went into the alleyways, though most came out to head towards the 2nd District, where the city was alive.

Sadly for everyone, there were no roofs to hop across to get to the 2nd District. The ground cut off into a steep black fissure. It ran around the entire 2nd District, a secondary defense system against monsters, though more likely against revolts. Little did the architectures know how spineless people were. A metal bridge as wide as the street connected the two Districts together.

It forced Nico to jostle through the slow moving, very drunk crowd. People carried more bottles than they did weapons. He was able to squeeze himself unexpectedly well, though he did get multiple faces of disgust when the stomp of his shoulders rubbed against some of them.

It always amazed Nico just how many of them there were, and just how interchangeable they all looked. Most people that afforded it wore the same black long pants, the same black buttoned up coat, and the same white shirt underneath with a tie that Rankers did.

As far as Nico was aware, it has been so for a couple decades. Things change slowly in the cities, most of all fashion. He wasn’t sure whether the city decided this was the best way a human could look, or whether people wore in bitter imitation of Rankers.

Role-players, role-players everywhere.

He kept his head slightly downward, lost in thought as he watched the cobble beneath his feet. Each bright white square had an obsidian black diagonal to it. It was a simple yet beautiful pattern. The city lamps above made it seem like it was glowing. The bridge’s floor continued the pattern.

He almost got across it too before a Watcher walked over to Nico, one arm resting on the handle of his axe by his side. They wore pants and a heavy black vest with a white shirt underneath and a shiny white hat on top. They were the neighborhood watch of the 2nd District that were tasked with protecting people and catching Outlaws. A good amount of them were stationed on the bridges to vet the people that came in, though they were there mainly to vet the Rats.

“Hello sir,” he said in that overly friendly tone. “What are you doing so late in the day?”

“The same as everyone else,” Nico said, waving at everyone else. “Work.”

That rose an eyebrow, as it usually does. Cripples weren’t particularly desirable anywhere. For an immortal, there was no greater failure than losing a limb—unless you were a famous Ranker, then it was a badge of bravery and honorable sacrifice. Nico obviously didn’t look that part.

“Do you now? Where?”

Nico raised his arm. The Watcher followed it, thinking Nico had pointed. “Just search me and we can get back to what we were doing.” For the Watcher that was probably eying pretty people. Any actual criminal with a brain wouldn’t waltz in through a checkpoint looking as haggard as Nico was with drugs on them. Not without a sizable bribe, at least.

“…Nah,” he said, his face arching. “I don’t want to touch you. Don’t cause trouble,” he said, ushering Nico past the bridge with his chin. He didn’t move, so Nico was made to move around him. He did so carefully, and was rewarded for it. Before Nico passed the Watcher stuck his foot out.

Yeah that’s an old one. Nico stopped before they touched. He set his foot down against his and turned towards the Watcher. “Changed your mind?”

“Yes, I think I will,” he said, his voice sounding even more forced.

People moved around them as he was searched, giving them a wide space. Dozens of cold eyes with thin lips glanced at him.

Look, the Watcher stopped that Rat for an inspection. The Syndicate must be keeping us safe. Nico could almost hear their thoughts in his head. The Watcher’s were nothing more than a show, a reminder to people that they were safe, even though they were safe regardless of whether the Watcher’s existed or not.

Nico didn’t particularly mind. He got searched half the time he passed through the Districts, but he of course waggled his eyebrows at the ones that gave him nasty looks.

Unsurprisingly, when the Watcher got to Nico’s groin, he pushed hard enough to hurt.

Nico clicked his tongue. More dudes have fondled my balls than women. That was not a good look for a straight man.

“Have a good night, sir,” the Watcher said, tipping his hat.

Nico walked around him without saying anything. He looked up at the city life, and the night turned to a day.

Long screens were built into the walls of the surrounding Blocks. They stretched from the 2nd floor all the way to the First District, playing hundreds of different muted advertisements for weapons, movies, music, shows, alcohol, hamburgers, colognes, and drugs so powerful that they guaranteed you to die at least twice or your Energy back.

There were lamps, but instead of the florescent light these ones had giant disco balls. Hundreds of different colored squares crawled across people’s gray skins, making even the most lackluster of them into walking pieces of art.

There was music—oh there was music of every conceivable sound. Jazz, rock, pop, classical, metal, alternative, and those were the only ones he knew. They boomed around Nico from almost every building, shaking the very cobble he walked on.

If the Third District was made of Living Blocks, then the 2nd District was made of bars with a supply of drinks as deep and wide as your credit. People drank from morning, to night, to the next morning, until their Energy ran out or an assignment came up. With drink came the natural necessity for music, dance, and sport.

The Ranker earlier on did not lie. The city was a beautiful place filled with enough entertainment to occupy a person a few lifetimes over, provided they had the Energy, of course.

Rather than a city of cowards, it was a city of drunks. Rats could not afford weapons or memory cards, but they could afford the pleasures.

They could, of course, not spend every night in the 2nd District and save for four or five years, work diligently to afford a Memory Card, and hope nothing bad happens, but that’s just not how most people worked. At least, not in the presence of drugs without consequence.

Nico looked down the road towards the 1st District. It wasn’t a District as much as it was a super megastructure—The Colosseum. 100 meters tall and whoever knows how many thousands wide, it had enough space for every single citizen of the 3rd City. It was where the preliminary matches for the 42nd Games were going to begin, but it was also where the most extravagant shows and concerts were played. The fanaticism to which people followed every event in there rivaled the fanaticism of the Children Of The Deep.

Nico pushed his way towards Block 174. He didn’t enter it, but he did enter the alleyway in between it and Block 173.

Not every alleyway was equally well lit. Save for the occasional metal plate that blinked the nearby store’s name, this one became darker the further he went. It barely had any traffic. Nico kept walking until the music behind him faded from ear-shattering to only ground shaking. He found himself above a small metal square that read Robin’s Lost Tombs.

He pulled open the door and was welcomed with the familiar smell of a musty attic. He took in a breath, his nerves unwinding as the rumpus music finally went silent.

There were six bookshelves, three on each side with a wooden counter that somehow retained its vivid color of reddish-brown wood at the end. Past the stools, behind a cloud embroidered curtain, his supervisor was in deep slumber. Or dead-drunk. Likely both.

There was no need for organization in Robin’s Lost Tomb— in fact, organization beat the purpose of its existence. The books were placed in haphazard fashion around the small shop, creating little pillars of dusty old books that made you think but what if you found a rare book containing ancient magic that would sell for a fortune?

Nothing of the sort was in there, of course. Nico browsed through thousands of them without finding any mention of ancient treasures or secret techniques.

Unlike the 5th City, public education wasn’t a thing around here. People had to try their luck in stores like this to learn more about Skills, Classes, Affinities, and other obscure sciences such as geography, chemistry, and werewolf romance. Some of those were fiction.

There were the Houses’ own libraries, but that required being part of the House. The library catalogues were how the Houses competed against each other in attracting Rankers, amongst other things.

Still, so very few people visited this shop Nico wondered how they stayed in business at all.

He walked up to the counter, snatching a random book on his way from one of the pillars. His responsibility only included reading the legible ones, marking the illegible, then stamping them with a number and summary. He got 1 Energy for every book he did, which of recent averaged out to 20 a week.

It was low pay, though beyond the boredom of reading about one group of people conquering another group of people and taking their stuff, otherwise known as history, there wasn’t much of a risk to his life. He found this job in a random billboard in one of the info hubs. Short of joining the circus, of which he heard many good things about, the amount of ways Nico could make Energy with one arm was limited. Besides, it did help him in his search for one of his questions that the city was certainly not going to answer.

Why did the 4th Fall happened? Was it revenge, or was it for power?

There were many, many reasons why someone would want to destroy the 4th City. Their way of life made the other cities seem like little utopias in comparison. There had been no deception in that city—it was a pure dictatorship by a single House who had the audacity to name themselves Sky.

People did everything they were commanded to, every hour of the day, or the Skies punished them. There were no appearances, no political maneuvering, no lies stacked on lies to manipulate the masses into obeying. There was no need for religion’s heaven for those that obey and hell for those that disobeyed. The 4th City had both within their walls.

Rebellion didn’t mean death—it meant eternal suffering in the dungeon, for you, and everyone related to you. It was a disgusting city whose very existence brought shame on the rest of humanity. It was also the strongest and richest, so that was that.

How the 4th Fall happened was already known—it was quite simple, frankly. Someone just yelled loudly, ruptured people’s eardrums across all the cities, and agroed every single monster on their face of the planet. By the time the city understood what happened, a dozen thousand monsters them were around the wall, trapping everyone inside.

Six hours and thirty-two minutes later, the Deep reached. The sound of the wall being destroyed sent earthquakes throughout the world.

What Nico wanted to know was why it happened. It’s been three years already, if the goal was to conquer or destroy the cities, then something would have happened by now.

“Deodo, a pretty brunette is asking if they can get a drink with you,” Nico yelled, setting the book down next to the ledger, then his cloak under him. His eyes scanned the pages as the ground shook from someone leaping to their feet. Glass shattered immediately after, causing more noise as other things fell—chairs, tables, warhammers.

Nico wasn’t hoping for anything interesting for the one he started with, just something legible. Unfortunately, this one was written entirely in curvy shapes, each one a painting, probably describing one thing or another. Freaking ancients. What was the point of so many complicated languages when English was so simple? He placed it in the ‘illegible pile’ and picked something from the uncategorized section.

This one was legible only by technicality. It was slapstick romantic comedy nonsense with some type of undead. Goodness were people into weird stuff. Amongst other atrocities, the undead were more than abundant outside the walls, and while kissing them might not turn out to be romantic, it could be funny.

He still read it, just in case knowledge was hidden in between the lines.