The Night Before.

Dana woke up earlier today. The sun had not set yet and she felt sore from sleeping on the cold concrete ground. She stands, leaning herself against the cold walls as she stretches her body and extremities.
 
The building she sleeps in is one that is occupied by hundreds of others, sleeping in a large, expansive room similar to that of a parking garage in the 2020s. As she finishes stretching, she heads to the ramped center of this building, heading down to the ground floor. As she does, she walks past many other individuals, some now heading to sleep, some being cared for by other members of the community. She steps outside, her vision clouded by a dust of rubble from a building collapse. She waves the faint dust out of her face as her vision adapts. Her focus is on her Brother, Luca. As she walks to the central square, the rubble fog disperses slowly.
 
Dana looks around as she continues on her way to the block where her Brother resides. She sees the bar in this part of the District. District 76, the numbered signs show. She knows it by the name of “Home”. The business owners on the higher levels know it as “Bucale”. The bar is numbered, just like the districts are. 76 14th, the 14th bar in this area. She reminisces.
 
I had my first drink here. It made me cough and hurt all over on the first sip, given to me by my Cousin Gerry. But after the first taste, it felt fine. My body hated me the next morning as I had more; I still don’t get why.
 
Dana looks to her right as she turns the corner, met by Mother Dina’s restaurant. There is no signage to indicate such, just the windows wide open to the kitchen and shelves filled with canned food. A crowd has formed around the restaurant: people covered in rubble dust. They are receiving meals, “fresher” meals than usual to help them recover faster. Dana remembers the last time she had a hot meal; this community saves those for big occasions, such as the Orange Moon in a couple cycles.
 
Dana reaches the block Brother Luca resides in. This block is usually for the oldest people in the community, but it is also for those who are well respected. Brother Luca is one of those respected individuals, a major figure who has helped many people find this community. Dana walks up these ramps, going up six rotations to his room.
 
Brother Luca’s room is empty. A cot sits on the floor with its head laid against the wall, a chair sitting beside it with another on the far side of the room. Medical supplies such as needles and empty medication bottles lay across the floor. Dana steps inside, seeing Brother Luca leaning out of the window. He is singing to himself, a melody from the Yellow Day festival two cycles prior. He stares down the gap that separates this building from the next, a very deep chasm that even the light that reaches down here cannot reach the bottom of. Dana approaches him as he hits the highest note, sending him into a coughing fit. She reaches out to him, patting his back to calm his cough. He looks over to her, a strain in his voice.
 
“Always nice to see you, Sister Dana.”
 
Dana takes him over her shoulders, walking him over to sit in the chair next to the cot. Brother Luca points to the other chair, which has a piece of felt with markings across its surface.
 
“That’s the list of what I’ll need for this week. I always feel bad for asking you to get them f-”
 
Dana cuts him off.
 
“It’s always okay, Brother. Don’t worry about it.”
 
She walks over to the chair, her right leg creaking very quietly as she walks. Despite the room being loud from the wind and lack of insolation, Luca hears this and a wave of concern crosses his face.
 
“Sister Dana. You aren’t doing too much, are you?”
 
She turns to him as she picks up the felt from the chair.
 
“Of course not.”
 
She looks down at her leg, which had a wire sticking out ever so slightly. She leans down, fitting the wires back into place, reading over the list on the felt as she did her maintenance. She had a run during her training with Baby recently on a device that tracked how fast she could handle moving. She pushed herself too hard during this exercise, resulting in some of the wires coming out.
 
The list is the same as usual, it seems. Needles, gauze, adrenaline. Alongside this is the medicine that Brother Luca had been using to treat himself for the past few years: glatiramer acetate and cortisone. These medications are very expensive due to many shortages in the production of the drug, but it still finds use down here. It is only purchasable in weekly or biweekly dosages, however.
 
Dana stands with the list clasped in hand, finishing her maintenance. She smiles at Luca.
 
“I’ll have these for you by the time the white light shines down.”
 
He smiles in return meekly.
 
“You don’t know how thankful I am for you, Sister Dana. I would be long gone if not for you.” His eye implant glitches in place a bit; it always does when his lacrimal glands moisten.
 
Dana just smiles back to him and nods, knowing he is sincere. She rubs his head, rummaging the small and thin amount of hair on his otherwise bare scalp.
 
“Anything for you, brother. If no one else will, I will.”
 
She leaves, going down the ramps until she reaches the second floor. She follows the path and hops on the train to the next district, the 89th District, officially known as “Crown”. She arrives at the center of the 89th District within a couple hours, met by the streets busy with workers returning home from the factories. These workers are fully kitted out in cybernetics, wearing gear flashing colors over their eyes and walking on auto-pilot. Dana recognizes the average routes of the people who walk through this area, slipping through the crowd with very little effort.
 
Slipping into an alleyway, Dana finds the office of Doc Tiller, as she calls it. The receptionist at the door greets her as she enters, prefacing immediately after that she is an AI who they are from the year 2054. It asks for her name and reason for coming in, followed by a time signature 6 hours ahead.
 
“Dana Vogel. Here to pick up Luca Anthem’s medicine.” She says in as clear of a tone as she can muster with her modulated voice. The AI tends to not pick up her words exactly due to her accent.
 
A check mark appears on screen, and a door opens on the fifth floor. It offers no indication of such, which took Dana a lot of time to find the first time she did this run 4 years ago. It is second nature to head there now. She clutches the list in her hand as she goes up the stairs, moving past people who had sat or passed out along it.
 
When Dana enters the room, she is greeted by a terminal next to a dispensing machine. She rummages through her sweater pocket, the outer material wearing down due to chemical interaction and sweat. She takes a data chip with the amount of money needed for the materials, inserting it into the machine. She looks down at the list and types in the identification codes on the touch screen one by one. As she types in the last code, the machine adds a new upcharge, and multiple fees. A service and convenience fee, and a fee for no identification. She sighs, transferring the remaining funds to the machine. A big green check appears over the screen, with a “Thank you!” written in Russian, a common language in this district. The machine whirrs to life, dispensing the materials one by one. As each material comes out, she stuffs it into a cavity in her chest that she hollowed out for storing things. It is a lot harder to steal things that are inside you is her thinking.
 
When the final object is dispensed, Dana has about two hours to get back to her home district. Rather than going down the stairs to leave the building, she goes up four more floors, leaving through the eighth room’s building window, which is still broken after three years. She exits onto a creaky metal pipe made from material that had fallen from a higher level, rushing to catch the next train to “Bucale”.
 
Dana arrives back to Brother Luca’s building safe and sound, as she always does. She is on the highest floor of this block. The quickest way down to Luca’s floor is to go along the outside of the building. For this moment, she is grateful to Baby for replacing her hands, which up until recently were one analog cybernetic and one flesh, with the skin deteriorating from constant chemical interaction from her old pit diver job. She grasps onto each divet made into the building, going down fifty stories. She enters straight into his window, the moon light shining down the chasm, lighting her silhouette.
 
Luca was already at the edge of sleep, with the lights in his ocular systems slowly changing to a light blue color. Dana sits down next to him on the floor, taking the materials one by one out of her chest cavity. She takes the needle and administers the medication. She sees his body un-tense as the medicine enters his bloodstream, and she sighs in relief. She collects the materials and places them neatly in the corner, returning back to the main square.
 
When Dana arrives in the square, Bear is there, waving at her. Bear is another person who works for Baby. He usually is the liaison who communicates between people in these districts to Baby, his legs replaced with one of the more recent replacement models. He ushers her over to him, handing her a chip.
 
“Message for you, Dana! It’s from Baby of course.” He smiles, his hair falling over his shoulder.
 
Dana takes the chip and inserts it into her wrist. The message begins to play inside of her brain.
 
“Hello, Dana. This is a message to remind you of your upcoming analysis. Please arrive at the provided location in District 19, named Pyrgos, within the time frame of 4 and 6 PM tomorrow for your next testing. Before you are to receive your next dosage and your next mission, you are to complete this test. Please make any preparations you need. Signed, Baby. 3:37PM.”
 
She returns the chip to Bear, who nods to her and leaves. Dana rushes to her resting spot, grabs her things, and makes her way to the 19th District. It is a long but relatively quiet and solemn trek. When he asks for her to arrive between 4 and 6, it usually is an assessment of her mental wellbeing after a mission. About an 18 hour travel time, depending on delays and if she can take any trains. It’s good to get a head start.
 
She begins her trek to “Pyrgos”, unsure of how this assessment will go. She will be sent to District 3 shortly after this assessment. Byzantium.