"Almost Green"

Peace Sells Pt. 1

It was a warm day. Decently warm.Could barely feel the chilly gales coming in from the north, somewhere from Higashi. A few catastrophes hit here and there, so Lungmen had to pack up and leave. Whole process took the higher up fancypants a good month or two to pull off, but it all eventually turned back to normal.

As normal as things could be, anyway.

There was some smoke. Rising like a vine, a craning stalk dressed in colorful petals, aimed towards the sun – much less pleasant in smell, much more hurtful and vomit inducing than an actual flower. Smoldering pieces of haphazardly stomped out cigarettes lazily lined the pavement path Andy found himself standing on. Lost somewhere between a towering, tenement giant scraped of most of its former glory in the form of jabbed off plaster, and a testament to the city's never ending greed – a glass tower. Feline bankers stood outside, all covered in sticky, greedy silks and wools, suits fitted perfectly to match their shameless outsides and shield the world from all the blasphemous rot that grew inside. Heads of hair, brains that grew the city, helped it expand like a set of hungry vines. Hunting vines, he thought. One of Kazdel's very own specialities, the roots that bit. The thoughts took him way back, all the way to the good old days of running around with a heavy rifle on his back and a group of misfits all around. Good old W. Andy missed her a little. She probably didn't even remember him at this point.

"Mornin'." Some voice chirped by his ear. Forcefully shoved out of his trance, he turned to look at the apricot haired girl who popped by his side, seemingly from nowhere. Having exchanged a quick round of pleasantries, she joined in on the game of staring at Feline workaholics.

"... Bit borin', no? I'd go insane in that kinda garment, baws. Much too packed. Too tight fer me." Croissant pointed out, before readjusting her loose jacket a little. There wasn't much beneath, just a slightly cropped tank top. Andy never really minded her unorthodox style of dressing up in clothes that quite liberally revealed whole patches of skin, but would never see himself pulling off anything similar. Then again, the chain smoking cat guys and cat gals that ruled the parking spaces before the glass giant really did push things to the other extreme with their perfectly identical suits. Navy blue, black tie, white collared shirt – boring as all hell. He blew a raspberry and kicked away a pile of wet cigarettes.

"Guess that's what it takes to make it big in this city. You gotta blend in so much they start mistaking you for the concrete foundation at some point." He said, before smiling at the silly mental image of a group of breakneck coffe-fetchers being treated like furniture. "No other way to climb up the corporate ladder."

"'S why we don't do corporate ladders at Penguin Logistics." Croissant shrugged and flicked her long ponytail around her neck, much like one would tie a scarf. "Feels to me like tha' big boss doesn't really care all 'at much 'bout no profits. Which's a shame!" Her voice took on a much more serious tone. It was a transformation Andy has witnessed many, many times before, whenever the subject of money slipped past her ears. "I keep tellin' 'im, I keep sayin' 'at if we nabbed som' of 'a costs down, we'd be makin' one helluva pile 'a cash by the end 'a each month, but NAAAAAAW, we just NEED to be buyin' all 'em fancy Yanese wines and, and Kazimierzian hard brews to stock up a bar 'at don't even serve nun' but employees most of 'a time! Hell, I'd be happier drinkin' cheap beer."

"... Uh-huh." Andy nodded at her little rant. His ears were somewhat on her, but his eyes kept grazing around the cat bankers. The image reminded him of the slave-trades happening around the Scar Market's grand and moving platform. Back then, he was way too young to truly understand what was happening, he thought those malnourished people with ribs sticking from their bare chests were paid to stand around in the sun and moan for food and drink. These people, however, were paid to stand around in the sun and smoke their lives away, while groaning commands into their telephones and dumping whatever stocks their clients had them play around with. Same deal, different masters.