Days after the trip through town Rat was sitting on the roof with Billy watching people come home from work. Wings and Soc were out on a job and everyone else was busy so the two of them sat watching. It would be dark soon, they knew the Tainted who battled at night would be out robbing high end people who braved the streets and fighting the silent gang wars that were going on. Rat had always been careful to be inside before dark but Billy had once lived in the dark and fought the war.
“What’s it like?” Rat asked. Billy glanced over at the man next to him then back to the pothole covered street below.
“What?” he asked knowing what Rat was asking but unsure of how to answer.
“Night, what’s it like to be out in the night?” He hadn’t been out in the dark since he’d been in college and had no plans to venture out in it.
“Scary, exciting, the most freeing yet terrifying part of my life so far. I know I seem like an all around good guy but at night, then in that time I was a different person. I didn’t do it cause someone made me either,” he looked remembering the nights he went out, the guards he shot, the Tainted he killed to save himself. “The only thing about it is, if you look like you got something someone wants you’re bound to either get bothered by the guards or killed by the Tainted who live there.”
Rat thought about that for a moment. He hadn’t thought about the Tainted that lived during the day. The ones that seem respectable on the surface but in reality were just as Tainted or more so than the people who ran around killing people and robbing people at night. These were the truly Tainted. The corrupt business owners, the gangsters that ran large operations behind the guise of a normal business. The loan sharks that would then send their men at night to kill or take the money a person couldn’t pay back. Rat had seen a couple of his old neighbors get visits from them in the middle of the night. He said nothing knowing the guard wouldn’t bother protecting him and just use his tip to stir up trouble and get him killed. There was a lot of problems in the city but the people at night were only a small portion of the real sickness.
Billy checked his watch and stood up.
“Well Rat it’s time I head off to work. You don’t get in any trouble while I’m gone,” Billy felt responsible for him just like everyone else in the building. Rat smiled and nodded and Billy ran off to work leaving Rat alone with his thoughts.
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