Stitches woke up drenched in a warm sweat, “Guh!” he unzipped the top part of his jumpsuit and peeled off the soaked undershirt. “The hell is it so hot for?”

He wiped away some sweat with his shirt and tossed it to the desk. He took a breath, rising to his feet and leaned forward to pull the duffel closer. He dug through and pulled out a plastic bag holding several toiletries in small portions including a cheap looking toothbrush. He sat back into the hammock with a swing and began to brush the sleep out of his mouth. Bored he grabbed the manual from the floor and flipped through it again. With a good nights sleep, it started to make a little more sense to him.

Better room, better bed, air conditioning, he thought, ignoring the other topics as he searched through.

He stopped at a page titled ‘housing options’. He let go of the toothbrush in his mouth and flipped through the pages with both hands. The options he found were only moderate upgrades from his current living conditions, and each had their host buildings stamped into a blank box at the top of their pages.

He stopped at the last page, which to his surprise was a decent 2-bed apartment. However, the location he found was the main building and the price was high. Stitches paused and thought for a moment resuming his teeth brushing. He had no idea how money here worked or its relative value to his hometown. He knew already that certain jobs he chose to take here would pay according to the difficulty, and that the only ones that paid well were the ones that had the highest risk.

There was a small scribble at the bottom of the page. The writing was very dignified and neat “Choose the apartment option. If money is an issue, a group can all pitch in for it and share.” hastily written underneath like an afterthought “don’t forget to register first”

An arrow pointed away from the word money and a rougher scribble offered some advice, “If you have any outside contacts, bug them through the mail until they send you cash”

“Mail?” Stitches mumbled through toothpaste. He spit to the floor and tossed the toothbrush onto the bag. He used the index and flipped towards the section about mail scanning it quickly.

“Building Z1” he stood up and stretched his arms upwards. Hanging them by his sides he pulsed static through his body to loosen his stiff muscles.

He pulled the privacy curtain open and then closed it suddenly remembering he was shirtless. He tied the upper portion of the jumpsuit around his waist and dug through his duffel for a change of clothes. All he could find were a couple undershirts folded up and wrapped in plastic. He put one on and grimaced at his black patterns showing through the fabric.

“Oh wait… Nobody cares here, huh” he smiled at the freeing feeling and left his room stuffing the manual in his pocket.

The sounds of snoring passed his ears as he stepped outside. How the others could be sleeping so deeply in a place like this eluded Stitches.

The cool air outside brushed against his skin and small pockets of light danced gracefully across the ground. The sun above him, half penetrating the passing clouds of ash. He briefly wondered what was keeping the dust from smogging up the ground around him. It was oddly clear weathered around the Prospector compound but he dismissed his curiosities with the answer, “probably some science shit I wouldn’t understand”

He stepped off the plywood ramp leading up to C11 and walked towards the main building reading a heavily draw over map included in the manual. From what the map showed, structures surrounding the main building labeled “Asshole HQ” by a former owner, were divided into rows A through Z, with HQ being the center point all the rows branched out from. As he studied the buildings passing him by, he concluded that this was an old town on the city outskirts Prospector must be using as a base of operations.

That HQ building must be the only thing they specifically constructed here from scratch.

As the building came into view, he was able to study it a little better than he was the night before. It was a building that appeared to be torn right out of a bustling city with shining polished glass set in an oppressive steel skeleton.

Quite a commotion could be seen through the lower level windows. The way the figures inside stirred around vapidly, it was like a beehive hard at work. Walking closer, he could see the figures in better detail; mostly humans in suits as well as a choice few metamorphs in ill-fitting business attire.

As his eyes passed the receptionist desk the man from yesterday came into view seething in frustration as he busied himself. Stitches smirked “four arms might’ve left more of a mark then I thought he would”

He entered Z1 from across the dirt parking lot. Compared to the buildings he passed in the A-D rows this one was much more worked on. The outside had its shoddy points but the interior was incredibly polished. Rows of almost matching chairs and a barred off set of teller desks made it look rather professional. He approached the middle one leaned on by a horned man reading a small book. Over the top of the open book his eyes moved to meet his and the book was closed with a ‘pop’

“Ah, an early bird” he was dressed casually with his lengthy hair swept back behind him. A mischievous look gleamed from his eyes.

“Yea, do I have anything?” His connections visited him briefly before he was shipped off and promised they’d do what they could for him. Stitches thought optimistically about the kind of help they’d send.

“Maybe” the clerk teased, “Name?”

“Stitches”

The clerk sneered, “Your legal name I meant.”

Stitches frowned, “Its not a nickname.”

“Sure,” the clerk typed something into a PDA, “What’s your contract number then?”

“Contract number? The guy at the front just threw me a bag.”

“Did you read the manual?” the clerk asked innocently.

Stitches body twitched and his face attempted to hide some rage boiling up, “If you give me that line, I swear…” he uttered coldly.

“Easy, easy,” the clerk laughed and held his hands up, “Your number is assigned based on the manual you get. Check the back.”

Stitches dug the manual out of his pocket and flipped it over. The back was empty save for some notes someone took. He pulled open the back cover revealing a collection of stamped in numbers.

“It’s the one at the bottom,” the clerk leaned in trying to catch a look at the numbers who had the manual before him.

“886,” Stitches recited.

“Ah! You almost got trips!” the clerk grinned and handed him a pen, “Write the first 3 letters of your name and that’ll be your complete contract number.”

Stitches scribbled STI next to his numbers and quietly cringed realizing the implication of the abbreviation. Not wanting to say it out loud he turned the book towards the clerk for him to read.

The clerk held back laughter behind a tight-lipped smile, “let me put that in for you,” his thumbs clicked away at his PDA for a bit, “there, now your contract number is bound to your account.”

“…”

“…”

“And?”

“Oh right, your mail. You do have something, let me go get that for you S.T.I.” the clerk clearly pronounced each letter to Stitches discomfort.

Stiches sucked his teeth, “shoulda picked a different clerk,” he hissed under his breath. He heard the door open and looked back. Two metamorphs walked in, one was more human sided with pale eyes and a rough look about him. The other was like a mix between a human and cheetah, but he had a buggy look in his eyes and crooked whiskers.

The cheetah person caught his eyes and a smile of carnivorous teeth spread across his lips.

Stitches turned away and a look of disgust wrinkled his brow.

He regretted his decision as he felt the man’s presence behind him “neeeeeeewbiiiiiiie” the man growled softly.

Stitches turned and crossed his arms, “What do you want,” To his annoyance the man had a couple inches on him and his patented ‘don’t screw with me’ look didn’t affect him in the slightest.

“I see you’re a red striped one huh? Did you get your fair share of humans before they pinched ya?”

“Plenty,” Stitches growled

“You don’t look like a killer to me…”

Stitches fingers buzzed and a crackle escaped his palms, “try me.”

The man’s smile widened and amusement crossed his eyes, “ohho, I think I’ll come to like you.”

Stitches didn’t dare take a step back, he was unsure if he could counter a strike being thrown at this range but if he showed weakness to this thing, he knew he’d regret it.

“We like to take bets on who goes first around here. Did you see anyone on your bus that seemed like weak links?”

Unintentionally, a couple faces from the bus flashed through Stitches mind, “No, they can handle themselves fine.”

The pale-eyed man watching him intently from behind the cat raised an eyebrow “Mary…”

Stitches looked towards him in alarm.

“Bell?” The pale-eyed man smirked satisfied and scratched his ear.

Stitches snarled, “If you hurt anyone, your dead.”

The cat laughed, “Careful… threats like that will earn you penalty strikes if a suit hears you. As thanks I’ll give you some advice,” he stretched his forearm and claws emerged from his fingertips, “fighting here isn’t like tearing into humans, train your endurance and perform sparingly when dealing with swarms. If you exhaust yourself, you’ll probably get overwhelmed.”

Stitches spun around to check on his mail.

The clerk smiled brightly at him leaning onto a medium sized box “here it is.”

“Just give it,” stitches growled, annoyed at him stopping to eavesdrop.

The clerk fit it into a sliding drawer that connected to his desk and pushed it through to the other side.

Stitches grabbed the package and stormed away.

“Byeee Stitches,” the clerk waved.

He looked one last time behind him, meeting the cat’s eyes once again as he pushed the door open. He spit and slammed the door shut behind him.