City of Fog

01 Hometown

"Holy Shit, I'm finally here." I cursed in Chinese taking a quick look at the place. I laughed while sweeping my eyes across the place. It was just an old habit. After I finished scanning the place, I tugged along my luggage and began heading for the airport exit. And holy crap, is it just me or is there not a single living person in the airport I thought? Weird, on my way there I was the only passenger on the plane. Well whatever.

The airport was big though, it had an emptiness that made it easy to get lost in. Finding the exit took ten minutes; shit what kind of puny airport was so hard to get out of? Leaving the building I surveyed the parking lot. By the door was an old pick-up parked beside one Loony taxi. Its model was one of those out dated yellow taxis, that could miraculously still function. I began walking towards the taxi. As soon as I looked through the window I realized the driver was not there. I panicked for a moment and then realized that was quite silly of me, the driver was probably out for a smoke or something...

"Hey buddy can I help you?"

Holy shit, his cracked up Scottish accent scared the literal crap out of me. When I turned around, I found myself face to face with a rugged old man a pipe hanging from his scruffy beard. If you gave him a wizard hat he would be Gandalf.

"Whoa, you almost scared the crap out of me. Are you the driver?" I asked pointing towards the taxi.

"Yep, that's my girl over there. So where are you trying to get at buddy?"

"Huh...well actually, I just got here and don't know anything of the area. I was wondering if you could just take me around the city for a day and I could pay you at the end of the day."

"How much?"

"Uhhh...I don't have any local currency yet, is US dollar fine?"

"Meh, I would rather have gum," he gave me one of those wide-tooth buckle grins and began to turn and retreat into his cab. A thought passed through me, I didn't know if it would work but it was worth a try.

"I got gum."

"What kind?" the wannabe Gandalf asked stopping in his tracks.

"Trident letters."

"Meh."

"I was just joking, it's React 5."

The old man slowly turned towards me again, looking at me like I was the world's savior or something.

"Sold," he gave me one of those creepy Gollum smiles as I handed him over my pack of React 5. I still had several packs left in my luggage; anyways he agreed to take me around the city for the day. There were no further charges. I swear if everyone around here was just as odd as Gandalf wannabe here, something told me I was gonna have heck of a time here.

***

"That building over there boy is the Tri," the man pointed to a pyramid shaped glass building outside the window, and really no super computer in the universe could calculate the amount of f**k I do not give for that building. After passing a dozen more boring buildings there was one that specifically caught my attention.

"What the hell is that dark shit jutting out of the ground there?" I asked.

"Oh, that my boy is the dungeon."

"Tell me more about it."

"It appeared around the time this city was built. No one knows where it came from, no one knows why it appeared, and no one knows for sure what exactly it does."