Under-City

Chapter 1

 A car was parked in an alley, tucked away from any unknowing passerby, it sat tucked away The pitter-patter of the water hitting the roof of the car was calming to Sophia Rose, anybody else would have moved the car out-of-the-way of the leaky pipes above but the rain never showed up in the Under-City. It was the closest Sophia was ever going to get to experiencing the sound of rain hitting the car. "Johnny could literally not be taking any longer," she thought to herself as she let out a long sigh, Johnny had been business partners with Sophia for a long time, they mostly ran small jobs together: "Deliver the drugs, deliver the guns, get some money from this schmuck" things like that. Finally, Johnny came out of the 'abandoned' building down the street, he waved Sophia down and jogged over quickly, Johnny's fashion hadn't changed since he was a teenager. He wore a long, baggy shirt with bootcut jeans, and sneakers, occasionally he would wear something on his head, for the most part, it was a bandana, Sophia always thought it made him look more goofy than tough but it was what he chose to wear. Sophia herself always wore a shortened leather vest with a baseball cap and jeans she tucked into her boots.

Johnny got into the car and began his long explanation of his story about what had happened. By this time Sophia had learned to tune him out until he got to the point. There was only so much of his New Jersey accent she could take anyways. Sophia slammed on the gas and peeled out, she had to leave the area quickly before the cameras came back on for that area, their employer: Mr. G made sure that the cameras were stuck on loop until his employees left the area. After getting a couple of blocks away she stopped Johnny in the middle of his deep description of Mr. G's new suit. "Where am I driving Johnny?" she said without taking her eyes off the dark road. "Huh? Oh! Yeah start driving towards Nihil City", she turned off the street they were on and drove towards the Locus City checkpoint, it was especially busy now with multiple cars trying to squeeze through the two available. There were two Peace Police members stationed at each lane inspecting the passengers and cargo of the cars ahead of Sophia and Johnny, Johnny patted his pockets and suddenly turned to Sophia with a scared expression on his face "Sophia, I'm packing heat right now!", Sophia turned to him as calmly as she could "listen just stay calm and they won't search us, this isn't the first time we've had a close call".

The car next to them pulled into the second lane, a Peace Police officer waved them forward, per usual both Sophia and Johnny pulled out their ID cards for inspection, Mr. G always supplied his employees with fake named ID cards in a desperate attempt to prevent their criminal record from being damaged. Everything went smoothly and Sophia took her card back from the officer and was prepared to drive off except the second Peace Officer opened Johnny's door and in the usual monotone voice caused by the mask, he politely asked Johnny to step out. Sophia could practically see the sweat rolling off Johnny's forehead, calmly Johnny stepped out and held his arms out to be patted down. Sophia slowly reached for her blade she kept in her boot at all times and waited for Johnny to signal her, time seemed to slow down at this point, the Peace Officer was patting Johnny's shirt and was slowly inching his way down towards Johnny's pocket. Suddenly in the other checkpoint lane, some poor fool had tried to carry some Frozen Fire through and it had been found, suddenly the two Officers inspecting Johnny whipped out their PeaceMakers from their hips, the sound they made upon extending sent shivers down Sophia's spine to this day. All four of the current Officers at the checkpoint began beating the man 6 feet away from Sophia and Johnny, nobody said a word as the man was knocked over, and yet still the brutality continued even as he was laid out on the ground. Johnny reached into his waistband and tossed his gun to Sophia, she quickly tucked it into her own waistband and tried not to watch the still continuing beating.

Finally, two officers dragged the now unconscious and bloody man towards the Pacification Station a couple of feet away. With an almost robotic fashion, the other two officers came back and finished inspecting Johnny. In synchronization, they both saluted and in that terrifying voice wished them a good day. After they pulled out of the checkpoint Johnny spoke, "Christ Sophie, that could've been me, makes me sick to my stomach to think what they do to those poor bastards, damn Sentries all they do is beat the hell outta folk tryna make an honest living" "Johnny. We don't live honest lives." 

"Maybe in The Upper-City but down here, it's fair game".

Sophia had been driving for about 15 minutes when she realized that Johnny had never told her what Mr. G had requested them to do, she turned to him, he still looked like he had seen a ghost "Hey what did G want?" she asked. "Huh? Oh, this one's big. Ya know how G runs Locus City? Well, you could say he's looking to expand his territory a little bit", Sophia inhaled sharply "You mean to tell me we have to take down a goddamn city?" Johnny nodded, the rest of the trip was silent. Nihil City was something special, it was the closest anyone was going to get to what late-night Japan looked like before The Devastation: neon lights everywhere, busy walkways, pimped out cars, good food, and illegal drift racing. Even from a couple of miles, the city's neon lights shone brightly through the piercing darkness of The Under-City. Luckily Sophia and Johnny had managed to make it through the checkpoint without being searched again, the lights were always Sophia's favorite part of Nihil while of course, Johnny preferred the girls and the food the city had to offer. Sophia pulled the car over deciding it was best to walk to their contacts place, "make sure you keep your hands on your Credits Card" she reminded Johnny before they got out of the car.

Sophia's contact was Waka Waka's shop was hidden away in a dark alley, it was set up in the basement of a Ramen shop that nobody came to on the Yakuza's side of town. Johnny opened the door to the Ramen shop to find what you would expect from a Ramen shop: dirty, torn up seats, a nice smell, behind the counter was a giant African-American man with a dirty white t-shirt (that looked more grey than white now) and a black cooking apron on. He looked up from washing the counter to see Sophia walk in, he grinned and folded his arms "Well, well, well. If I knew you was coming I would've warned the entire city" he said in a joking tone. "Yeah nice to see you too, Waka," Sophia responded, attempting to put as much sass as she could into it, Johnny walked in with a heavy sigh waiting to see what clever jab Waka would take at him. "And the boy who never grew up, still wearing that headband I see." Waka said, almost immediately Johnny threw his own verbal shot at Waka "Still ain't washed your shirt huh?". Waka let out a booming laugh and threw his head back, "Now I suppose you two are here for my wonderful cooking right?" he said raising his eyebrows "of course not" Sophia said with a chuckle. Waka hung up his apron, turned the neon "Open" sign off, and closed the blinds. He gestured for both of them to follow him through a secret door hidden behind a bookshelf in his office. The door led to a very wide stairway that was well-lit and went in a downward curve to a what appeared to be a rug and carpet shop. This was only a front for the amount of weapons stored down here, with one flick of a switch the entire shop revealed weapons on the other side of the walls. Waka took his seat behind his tiny desk and rubbed his hands in anticipation of what was required of him, "right then what will you be needing from my humble shop?". Johnny slid a letter across the table with G's seal on it, a little old-fashioned but G saw it as being classy, despite the amount of Credits it cost to get paper nowadays. Waka cracked it open and read it with his eyebrows raising and lowering occasionally throughout, he stood up in complete silence and shoved his desk over to open a completely hidden latch under it. Waka climbed down and a few minutes later came out with a chrome-colored briefcase with a smart-lock on it, he put in a 6-digit code and with a hiss, the briefcase opened. Inside it was not at all what Sophia expected with all the confidentiality, it was a tiny broadcast chip made out of solid gold with the initials C.B engraved into it. "What does the C.B stand for?" Sophia asked, "City Breaker" Waka replied in a dark, grave tone "Take it and put it somewhere secure". As Sophia reached out for the C.B, Waka grabbed her wrist and stared into her eyes so intensely Sophia felt as if he could see her soul. "This chip right here is bigger than both of us. Take care of it." Sophia slid it in her back pocket. Waka pointed towards the door, obviously indicating they should leave, Sophia walked towards the exit Johnny stayed behind to grab some other supplies. Sophia stepped outside and started walking towards the car when a small kid bumped into her, it wasn't her first time being pickpocketed but as she was about to grab the kid, they took off at a surprising speed the other direction. "HEY!" Sophia shouted as she started off at a dead sprint towards the pickpocket 

"SOPHIE! WAIT!", 

Johnny shouted at her but some street rat had swiped the chip off of her. As Sophia was about to catch the thief, they took a sharp left into an alley so quickly Sophia almost lost her footing making the same turn, the area that Sophia had been led into was a maze of twists and turns until she found herself cornered in an empty lot by an exhausted Sophia. Between breaths, she managed to say "Kid.....give me.......that", a figure stepped out from the shadows, patted the little girl on the head and grinned at Sophia. She let out a heavy sigh "Hello Yu, how's the Yakuza life treating you?"