Raimund wandered the streets for a while.
Before going to launder his credits, he wanted to check once more if there were any good pickpocket targets.
He couldn’t go back to Sector 3 Residential District—he’d just robbed there, and the victim was probably looking for him.
So the only places left were Sector 1 or Sector 2 Residential Districts.
Sector 1 was a place where even people out for a casual stroll wore gold and pearls on their bodies. Going there, Raimund would stand out like a stain on a white tablecloth.
So he had no choice but to go to the less flashy Sector 2.
He took the red unmanned tram from Sector 3, then transferred to the purple tram to get to Sector 2 Residential District.
When well-dressed people in coats, quietly trying to escape the cold fog, got off, Raimund hurriedly followed behind them.
With no coat, or even a decent jacket, he quickly scanned his surroundings and grabbed some discarded newspapers from a trash can at the tram stop and a few free magazines nearby.
Spreading out the crumpled papers and carrying the magazines in one arm, he looked somewhat like a newspaper and magazine delivery boy.
He left the main road and headed toward the residential area. Since he hadn’t been to Sector 2 much before, he wanted to get a rough idea of the geography before starting his work.
Sector 2 Residential District was completely different from Sector 5. The streets were clean, and though there was some fog, the atmosphere was peaceful and calm.
Streetlights and trees were all well maintained, and no one was causing a ruckus in the middle of the street.
Instead of broken bottles or crushed cans, recycling bins stood in the alleys, and building walls were clean except for some moss.
Two police officers patrolling leisurely approached Raimund.
“Delivering something?”
“Ah, yes. Thank you for your hard work as always.”
“Be careful out there.”
Raimund stepped aside to avoid bothering them and walked far enough to get out of their sight.
Passing people chatted cheerfully and normally. Their clothes were impeccable, with no seams torn. It was, in a word, a perfectly peaceful and affluent residential district.
The houses lined along the street seemed at least five times larger than the small house in Sector 5 where Olive, Fioni, and Hazel lived.
Small front yards and gardens, shiny black wrought-iron fences, magnificent granite steps, and dark-colored front doors giving a neat impression.
The narrow tall windows on both sides of the door were spotless, sometimes covered with white curtains.
The houses built with irregular patterns of white bricks nestled between red bricks were truly… beautiful. Really.
Raimund didn’t regret the modest and shabby house he had won by lottery.
But seeing a row of mansions that could be called mansions compared to his house stirred different feelings.
Raimund grew up in an orphanage in Sector 4. The orphanage’s facilities were so poor they could be called the bottom of the barrel.
Thirteen kids crammed into a tiny room, meals consisting of green potatoes and mashed grayish-white artificial protein meat.
The director was always addicted to cheap liquor and headache medicine. He only cleaned up briefly when inspections came.
At other times, he obsessively controlled the kids and ordered incomprehensible tasks with authoritarian pressure.
Those who didn’t obey got harsh punishments. It wasn’t just corporal punishment; creative punishments like ‘cabinet punishment’ or ‘reflection time’ existed.
Despite the bad memories, Raimund felt strange whenever he thought of the orphanage.
Angry, but at the same time, wanting to cry.
The director received government subsidies for running the orphanage, so he was obligated to care for the children.
But he did not. Or rather, it’s more accurate to say he refused.
The drunk old director habitually spewed verbal abuse at the children.
— “You filthy brats. Scum like you are eating away at the shelter. Parentless bastards, you’ll all die penniless on the streets. You worthless idiots have not a single credit’s worth of value. Got it? Not even one credit’s worth of value, fools.”
…Thinking about it again made Raimund’s mood sink.
He looked up at an unusually elegant house he was passing by.
It was a three-story house. White paint and stone heavily used. Perhaps to absorb as much light as possible despite the low sunlight, the living room curtains were drawn open.
Beyond that, a small figure was visible.
A person with long white hair tied in a single ponytail. They seemed to be talking inside, and as they nodded, someone else turned from a window that had been facing away.
Ah, better not be suspected.
Raimund quickly left that house.
Yeah, there are days like this.
Beaten from the morning, stealing money, exchanging safety for commission that was practically a scam, and then going to an upscale residential district only to ruin his mood.
Raimund lowered his head and adjusted his hat. There was no time to get lost in such thoughts. The more he moved, the better chance he had to keep face in front of his ‘family.’
The world was never fair to anyone. For someone like him with nothing, it was only natural to have to hustle with his own feet.
He spent hours waiting for a chance but got nothing.
Where security was a little lax, there was no one around; where there were many people, there was always a cop or two.
If trouble started, the police would intervene, and that was the last thing Raimund wanted.
He realized once again how intensely people in Sector 2 cared about security.
Eventually, having earned nothing, Raimund wandered the park and sighed as he boarded the red tram.
Well, at least he’d been lucky since morning. They say pickpockets only get lucky once a day.
Comforting himself with that thought, Raimund rested his aching legs and watched the small artificial sun inside the dome set.
After arriving at Sector 5, Raimund didn’t head straight home.
His target was near the border of the district, close to the barely closed industrial zone at the outermost edge.
Turning behind some almost collapsing ruins, he found a small warehouse door.
He slid the stolen credit stick through the gap in the door.
— Thunk.
“Raimund. I want to exchange this.”
No answer came back. Raimund leaned against the wall beside the door and looked up at the sky.
After ten minutes, a disposable credit stick silently slid out from the gap under the door.
The person on the other side whispered to Raimund.
“You made a good haul. How’s it been lately?”
“This day and that day, you know how it goes.”
A vague voice, impossible to tell if male or female.
Maybe they had a voice modulator implanted in their vocal cords, but Raimund could only guess.
He pocketed the precious credit stick.
“You could make more if you just went to the Economic District.”
“I don’t go. How would I know what I’d be doing there?”
“For someone like you, you don’t seem interested in honest work in the commercial area either.”
“I told you, even if I got a job, I’d starve until the first paycheck.”
Raimund didn’t like thieving.
If his limbs were intact, he could do any job with his body.
But the simple reason he didn’t do “normal work” was obvious.
Where could someone like Raimund, with no education or background, get a job?
Could he live off the pay they gave? Could he get an advance?
No, would any insane shop owner even want to hire some guy living in Sector 5 for a normal job?
Maybe it was just his excuse.
If he thought harder, he might find a healthier, legal job.
But Raimund had to send 300 credits every week to the orphanage director as a ‘pure token of gratitude,’ besides his rent.
On top of that, a lot of money was needed to maintain the house, breaking down here and there due to aging.
What about the family? Hazel’s meals? Fioni’s shirts? Olive’s painkillers don’t just sprout from the ground.
Raimund shrugged and was about to end the conversation.
Then the voice spoke again.
“Is that so? Then you’ll like this. Interested in doing a simple errand for pay?”
“An errand? What kind of errand?”
“I heard from a broker I know. Don’t know details, but if you want, I can connect you to the client.”
Ah, Raimund had an idea.
Crime naturally happened inside the British shelter too. Not petty theft or minor shoplifting, but serious, grave crimes.
He wasn’t involved in that, but he’d heard sometimes outsiders were hired to evade surveillance.
They recruited unrelated civilians to deliver or act as contacts.
“I don’t want to get deeply involved. Don’t want to get noticed by the cops. If I get caught, my home gets redistributed.”
“That might happen.”
“How much’s the pay that you’re even bothering me?”
Raimund asked without much thought.
The voice hesitated a moment, then said.
“50,000 credits.”
Hearing that, Raimund was shocked as if someone had struck the top of his head.
Fifty thousand? Fifty thousand credits?
That’s about 25,000 pounds in old currency. An amount Raimund had never imagined.
That didn’t sound like a simple errand.
Raimund asked suspiciously.
“You’re looking for someone to do an errand, right? Not a healthy person missing a kidney or something?”
“The client was in such a hurry to find someone that the request reached me indirectly. If you don’t want to, don’t. If you do, I get a small brokerage fee. As a thank you, I might reduce your fee to exchange old currency and credits.”
Raimund wasn’t confident the job was safe. The pay was just too good.
It didn’t seem to be just leaving something somewhere unknown.
If it had been about 5,000 credits, Raimund would’ve accepted without hesitation.
The amount was so large that it made him hesitate. Surely the risk matched the reward.
Raimund wanted to refuse.
He definitely planned to.
But at that moment, he couldn’t help but recall the three-story house in Sector 2 he had seen today.
The beautiful house. The clean yard and spacious living room. The elegant house shining under the faint artificial sunlight.
With 50,000 credits, he could live comfortably for years.
He wouldn’t have to steal anymore.
He could buy Fioni new shirts.
He could get Olive prosthetics or a wheelchair, or stronger painkillers.
Hazel? The child who stopped talking properly after being hit on the head by a bottle thrown by the director—if he could get professional treatment for her?
If he could create an environment where she could get an education fitting her level?
Hazel wouldn’t have to grow up like him, as a petty thief.
Fioni, Olive, and he wouldn’t have to live in the mud-filled Sector 5.
He could also plan a proper future, not one based on petty thievery.
A future fitting a nineteen-year-old.
Everything he had ever dreamed of, within his grasp.
If only this once, if only he could do well this one time.
Raimund answered the unknown broker on the other side of the door.
“I’ll do it. What do I have to do?”