2 CHAPTER 2

"What happened?" I asked.

He looked at me and shook his head, tears seemingly threatening to fall from his eyes, his hands tightly held the edge of his black shirt as he heavily breathed trying to find the best words. Ian has been my friend for over a decade now, we first met each other when we were 6 years old, at that time he was a transferred student that was assigned to the same class as I, since we didn't have friends at that time we got together pretty well and in a few months we became best friends.

But I must say, it was quite difficult to hold him from destroying himself, he didn't have the same mentality I have, how would he understand the meaning of my words whenever I asked him to stay away from that shit ton of drugs, meth, stim, sycoke, speeders, boost...

I've lost count of how many drugs I have seen people using, those are just a few of them, the worst is how anyone can get access to this shit as if it was water. I always see his mother using one of those, I think the damage of losing her husband was too much to bear.

"I might have snitched on Big J..." He looked at me with a broken smile and started crying without making a sound, he brought his hand to his face trying to hold himself from completely breaking down in the classroom.

I could only take a deep breath hearing his words, how could he have done something like that?

Jared Boukard, he is one of the local crime lords and a pimp on top of that, no one messes with him or the other lords, they aren't any sort of joke, you annoy them in the slightest and you'll be lucky if they only break one of your legs.

There was once one guy that lived a few streets away from my house, an amateur cyber-ripper, he discovered something about Big J and tried to sell the info to someone only to get caught in a trap, they say he still has his head in a bag, stored somewhere in his house like some sort of trophy.

"How the fuck did you do that!?"

"How else? I heard one of his associates talking about a big deal, something about a package that is worth more than ten trucks full of gold." He laughed slightly at the memory of the event, on how he let his greed get the best of himself. "I sold the info to the Italians, some skinned guy called Vicent Morello, it seems that he worked for the Gambino, he was offering 2 thousand credits for that shit, you know how difficult things have been for me recently, I couldn't let that opportunity pass."

"The thing is..." He paused for a moment and blinked for a moment. "I heard they ambushed Big J, but he was prepared somehow and surprised them with some big guns, they captured everyone, I think it is only a matter of time until they discover who snitched on them. I fucked up too much this time."

"Yeah, you're fucking stupid!" I punched him on the chest making him cry in pain and look at me with bloodshot eyes.

Oh my fucking god, all those years educating him for nothing, this... bastard. "What are you going to do now? There is no way you can hide here, do you have any relative somewhere else? Maybe in another district like the Rid Cross or Wurreb District?"

He shook his head and sighed. "I have an uncle living in New Reyork, but that's far as hell, I don't have a passport, they will never allow me to board the b-train."

"You have already fucked up so bad, why are you even wasting your time thinking about doing things right? Just go stowaway on one of these freight trains, you don't have anything to lose anyway, at worst they would make you pay for the free ride!"

"I don't know men, I think there are already some people following me from home, can you help me?"

I would probably help him even if it was something worse, but just as he finished talking a message box popped up in front of me.

[

.1 Help Ian survive until he gets on a train. | Rewards ????

]

I looked at it for a moment then I turned to Ian and couldn't help but wonder, just how did he do that?

"Fine, but you'll have to follow me later, I have something to do here today, let's just pray that no one caught us in the middle of the job."

"Why? What are you gonna do?"

"I'm going to steal an info card from the school."

He looked at me with a frown on his face, his white forehead full of signs of his confusion. "Why?"

"Don't keep asking things you don't have to know." I couldn't believe how stupid he could be at times. "It is because of your curiosity that you keep causing troubles, you should learn how to listen and not to ask."

I would have said a few more things to him, but the moment he was about to speak, the last student entered the classroom and the holo-teacher appeared in front of the class. Her face was like a mixture of that of a woman and a man, even it's voice was like that, I never understood this part of the school, why would they use this type of hologram to teach?

"Welcome students from Sky City, I believe you all had a wonderful weekend. Let's start from where we stopped last class, open your databook on page 1310..."