3 Municipal Landfill

One train ride and trek through the streets of Rancho Coronado later, Ori finally reaches the junkyard, really junk city would be a more apt description. This was the main area where most of the city dumped their trash, from the lowest homeless beggar tossin' an empty pack of cigs to the Corpo big-wigs who'd ordered their lackeys to dump bodies.

There were literally mountains of trash, some even at risk of reaching the elevated highways. There were small shacks littered here and there, denoting that some idiots were actually trying to live here, despite the fact they might find themselves buried during the night.

There were also many 'Junk Rats', as people called them, while most of the trash on the surface of these heaps had little to no value or had already been klepped. If you wanted to find anything of worth you needed to delve deeper, like a miner searching for ore.

This was the main reason most Junk Rats didn't last long... Either they stumbled upon riches, or they were buried alive. There was no in-between here, anyone desperate enough to wade through the city's garbage wasn't willing to put up with mere cracked Shards or unsalvageable Cyberware.

Ori was the same, his sister had a dream and he intended to make it happen... He sweeps a hand through his black hair and lets out a sigh, stepping atop the first car wreckage that signalled the border of the massive landfill.

Unlike others, he was strategic with this, picking areas that'd either been freshly dumped or disturbed by vehicles, potentially dredging up hidden gems. He'd already found small successes with this, an undamaged Kang Tao smart scope, an intact Heat-Resistant Netrunning suit(Off of a corpse that'd had its brain fried of course), and a single Ripperdoc dissection hand that he'd gifted to Bats.

Still, the Eddies he'd made weren't nearly enough, especially if he wanted to buy his sister a Restaurant in a good area, not beset by crime, gangs, and corruption.

*CRAAASH!*

His head rapidly turns as one of the trash mountains collapses, he waits a couple minutes in case it's a full-on landside, that or another Cyberpsycho trying to blow the place up. Once it's clear he makes his over and finds a grin splitting his face. At the bottom of the newly unearthed area was a shining chrome pistol that looked almost completely undamaged beside the small wear and tear.

"Score!" he mentally shouts while sliding down to it, quickly swiping it and beginning to look it over. Full mag, sight undamaged, systems not even watermarked. Should be worth around two-thousand Eddies at the least.

He takes a seat on a half-shattered plastic chair overlooking the area and lights up cig, a ritual he'd begun whenever he found something. Was he proud of it? No. But when was anyone 'thinking' when they get addicted to something? 'Least he was able to hide it from Dad and Cat by only doing it here.

"Two thousand down, add the five we got stashed and..." he takes a puff and sighs, "Ninety-three thousand Eddies to go... Fuck."

He flicks the cig away and is about to leave when something catches his ears... The sound of grunting, heavy breathing... Panicking? "This better not be what I think it is..." he murmurs to himself as he starts making his way over.

There, he spots an old man wearing a dirty white lab coat hurriedly digging through the trash with his bare hands, his Cyberware being the only thing preventing him from completely bloodying his fingers.

"Come on-come on-come on! It has to be here! Why did I think this was a good idea!? Putting it here? Near the landfill!? Come on!" he erratically exclaims to himself, attempting to be quiet during his work so as to not attract attention... Which had obviously failed.

He continues digging, down and down until somehow he reaches the ground below the trash, he scrapes the soft dirt to the side, revealing a sleek metal box with an Arasaka symbol scratched into it.

"It's here! It's here! Oh thank god it's here!" he rambles to himself, pressing a button on the box which reveals both a keypad and some kind of sensor, optical if Ori had to guess judging by its shape.

This... Looked elaborate... And valuable. Most of all, it looked like his and his family's key to get out of the slums. He grips the smart gun tightly and starts slowly sneaking over, not wanting to disturb the man before he unlocked the safe.

*Beep-Beep!*

He enters the incorrect code the first time and swears under his breath, but he gets it the second, then tries to unlock the eye-scanner.

*Click!*

The door swings open, revealing... A smaller metal box, airtight and with a dozen locks and safety precautions... Ori could even spy a small explosive charge on the side that'd destroy the contents of the box. Why so many precautions were required he didn't know, only that whatever it was was very valuable. The box itself was probably worth five times the smart gun in his hand. He'd steal the safe too if he could actually carry it, but the thing must've weighed a ton.

The old man tentatively extracts the box and begins the process of unlocking it, he did many things that went over Ori's head, his Cybernetic fingers manually disarming the charge while the man himself entered the system via the port in his neck.

After waiting what felt like an eternity, the box finally hisses open, the stale air within rapidly escaping...

Ori sneaks closer, standing on a wrecked fridge, just tall enough to look over the old man's shoulder... Inside the box was... A knife...?

What kind of knife needed this much fucking security!?

It didn't look all that impressive either, a sleek metal black handle and a blade that was at least twelve inches long, but with a flat tip? The thing didn't have any edges either, as if it was a practice knife or something.

"It's undamaged... Oh thank god... No, I should destroy it?-No! I need it... What-should-I-do-what-should-I-do!? W-why did I even come back here!? Maybe-"

*click!*

The man wheels around and comes face to face with Ori, who was already pointing the smart gun at his head. "Why don't you put that down old-timer? You'll live another couple of years that way." he offers, cocking the pistol for emphasis.