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"Aleta," you said, the name rolling off your tongue with surprising ease. The servitor, Aleta, stood perfectly still, her expression unreadable. "That's your name now, alright?"
"Acknowledged," she replied as she tilted her head slightly, her voice a smooth, synthetic cadence.
"Right, Aleta. Let's go."
The neon glow of the casino faded behind you as you exited the casino, the servitor following silently at your heels. You scanned the bright neon streets, searching for some kind of back access point that would lead to the back of the building. Every city had its hidden veins, back alleys used for deliveries and discreet disposal.
A narrow alley snagged your eye, a sliver between towering casino facades. It reeked of stale grease and overflowing trash bins – perfect. You went in deeper. Filth overflowed from containers, the stench a familiar, almost comforting Hive aroma. Parked along the tarmac, cargo levi-ships rested like slumbering metal beasts.
And deeper in, hidden behind the vehicles, you saw it. A lone figure sprawled on the ground, unmistakable in their chrome-plated "metal man" aesthetic – a fallen Platino Tech-Priest. As a hiver, violence was a grim fact of life, but the weight of someone's death distracted you all the same.
There, nestled in the grimy shadows behind the man, stood a levi-trolley. Four Platino-branded plastic barrels rested on its platform.
A steely glint entered your eyes. You scanned the alley, your senses on high alert. No witnesses. Swiftly, you grasped the trolley's handle, the cool metal sending a shiver down your spine. Heaving it with surprising ease, you propelled it out of the alleyway's cramped confines and into the quieter neighbourhoods of Vassioport. Having explored around earlier, and the map, was paying dividends.
---
The clerk at the Crash Zone, a tie-dye clad dude with a perpetually glazed expression, eyed you and Aleta, then the barrels on the platform beside you. "Whoa, dude," he drawled, "Like, all this stuff ain't gonna fit in one room. It'd be major tiny, ya dig?"
Aleta, ever stoic, remained silent while you considered your options. "Maybe, like, two rooms?" he suggested, offering a solution with the enthusiasm of a sloth trying to climb a tree. "And, uh, another one just for the barrels?"
"We'll fit." you countered. "Two rooms."
The clerk shrugged, the embodiment of "not my circus, not my monkeys." "Whatever levitates your ship, man. Two rooms it is."
* -20 credits *
* -20 credits *
* 45 credits remaining *
---
A groan escaped your lips as you stirred awake. You woke up slumped on the narrow floor of your barely bed-sized room, with your head against the cool plastic of one of the barrels, with the other behind it. Above you, the bed frame loomed precariously, laid on top of them both. After using Aleta's incredible brute strength to help you get them back on the levi-trolley, you checked out, and reached into your pocket for the tarot once more.
