For Every Market, a Submarket Grows

The opera house was booming. Cheers and screams poured from it’s open doors. There was stamping and applauding, whistling and whooping. Hundreds of voices called, “Brava!” Outside, thousands stood, crowded around the entrance, straining for a glace at what was causing the uproar.

And a little girl, covered in blood and wearing her dead mother’s dress, walked away from it all, unnoticed.

Shilo tried to breath, but there was nothing there. No lungs, no heart. She was empty. She saw nothing. Affixed in her mind’s eyes was but one image - a dead man, in a pool of blood, only some of it his, his eyes cool, fixed, and complete. Shilo’s feet, clad in her mother’s boots, were taking her somewhere, and she trusted them. She knew wherever they led her, it would be better than the atrocity at her back.

Shilo felt a thought well up in her, and it was almost a relief. A blank mind is hard to bear.

* I’m an orphan. *

Her parents were both dead. And she, Shilo, was merely seventeen, and completely alone in the world. There would never again be anyone she could rely on, someone she could look to for help. Alone.

“Quite a stir you caused, kid.”

A familiar voice wrenched Shilo from that dark, empty place in her mind. She blinked, seeing, for the first time since she left the Opera, her surroundings. She knew this alley. That day that she’d gotten into Rotti’s limo, the day at the fair, when Graverobber - that’s it. This was the alley where Graverobber had shown her what he did for a living. The alley where she’d first seen Amber Sweet. The alley where she’d learned of Mag’s fate. It all seemed so long ago.

And there he was. Graverobber sat atop a closed dumpster, head tilted back against the brick wall behind him. He was watching her in that appraising way he had. She remembered, then, that he’d spoken to her. “Um,” she began, and her voice cracked.

Graverobber waved a hand dismissively. “I’m not asking for a replay, kid,” he said. “Everyone on the island heard it.”

Shilo couldn’t think of what to say. So, she said nothing. Instead she hopped up onto the dumpster next to him, leaning back against the wall. There was an odd sort of comfort she gleaned from his presence. He wasn’t from GeneCo. He wasn’t a Repo Man. He wasn’t a Largo. He was just… Graverobber. He had nothing to do with anything that had just happened to her. He was just a drug dealer. And, considering the events at hand, Shilo found that incredibly reassuring.

Shilo sat in utter silence, listening as the noise from the Opera wound down. She wanted everyone to just go home, to forget the Genetic Opera and all that had transpired there. She wanted nothing more than to sink into the brick behind her, and never come out.

She had no idea how long she sat there on that dumpster. The sound faded away completely, and eventually, the world went back to normal. The sun set, what little of it they could see through the smog, and darkness fell around her. The alley slowly started to fill with people. Shilo dragged herself from the depths once more to observe the change in her surroundings. Graverobber still sat next to her, and people were lined up in front of him. It took Shilo a moment to realize what was going on.

Graverobber was selling Zydrate.

“A vial, Graverobber, that’s all I need, just one vial, please?” A small woman with dirty hair and a fresh surgery scar across her chest knelt in front of the dumpster.

Graverobber said nothing. He smiled and held out his hand.

The woman shook her head. “I have no money.”

Graverobber glanced around above her head. “Next?” he said.

“Wait!” The woman grabbed onto his pants. “Can’t we work something out?”

Graverobber watched with a slightly annoyed look as the woman’s hand slid up the leg of his trousers, in a poor attempt at seduction. Graverobber gripped her by the wrist and tossed her aside. The woman landed on the concrete and dissolved into tears. “Next?” Graverobber said, ignoring her.

A man stepped up, shirtless and covered in scars. This one had money. Shilo wondered for a moment what the addict would have done if he *hadn’t* had any money. She imagined him trying something similar to what the woman had pulled. Shilo laughed.

Graverobber stopped mid-sentence, looking at her. “Welcome back,” he said. He smiled slightly, then went back to his current business deal.

Back from where? Shilo shook her head. There was something unnerving about this Graverobber. Why was he always so damned omniscient?

After awhile, the addicts crawling through the alley dissipated, leaving Shilo and Graverobber alone once more. Shilo took a deep breath and released it, slowly, feeling some of her previous coldness ebb away. She could feel Graverobber watching her. She turned to look at him. He looked amused. And for some reason, that annoyed her. “What the hell’s so funny?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You’ve been sitting here for four hours, and I just realized you’re covered in blood.”

Shilo looked down at herself. He was right. Congealed blood was all over her, across her back and down her arms, and in her wig. She could even feel some on her face. She said the first thing that came to her mind. “Gross.”

Graverobber laughed, then hopped off the dumpster. “Come on, kid,” he said, holding his hand out to her.

“’Come on’, where?” she asked, suspicious.

“So, am I to take it you *want* to be covered in blood?” Graverobber said.

“What? Oh, God no.” Shilo replied. “But, what are you going to do about it?”

Graverobber shrugged. “I *was* going to offer you a shower, but if you don’t want it - “

“No, I do,” Shilo interrupted him. She took his hand, then, and let him pull her off the dumpster. Her heel caught on side of the dumpster, and she stumbled. Graverobber caught her, holding her up with a strong arm around her waist.

“You should ease up on the Z, kid, it’s making you clumsy,” he said.

“I’m not on Zydrate!” Shilo said, indignant.

Graverobber shrugged. “If you say so, kid.”

“I have a name,” she said, pouting slightly.

“So do I,” Graverobber said. “You’re nothing special. Come on.” He caught her by the wrist and led her towards a door at the end of the alley. It opened onto a staircase. Shilo stopped just before entering.

“Wait! What is this place?” she asked, suddenly nervous.

“I live here,” Graverobber said. “Sometimes.” With that, he dragged her up the stairs, not giving her another chance to protest. The stairs led to another door, this one made of rusty metal. Looking around, Shilo thought the place looked like a really old hospital. It made sense. After GeneCo sprung up, it put all other hospitals out of business. Graverobber took a key from a chain around his neck and unlocked the padlock on the door. He turned to Shilo and said, “Don’t touch anything.”

Shilo raised her hands, palms out, trying to look innocent.

“I mean it, kid. Curiosity killed the pussy, little girl. So don’t get curious. Got it?”

Shilo nodded emphatically. God knows what would be in Graverobber’s sometimes-apartment, and how dangerous it could be. Something told her there was way more to this man than Zydrate and corpses.

“Okay, kid,” Graverobber said, sliding open the door. “Come on in.”

She couldn’t see anything beyond the door. There was no light in the room. Shilo took a deep breath, and stepped into the darkness.