The Emerald Locket

The city is starting to become dark as the sun had been hidden by the tall building for just over an hour. The neon lights and holographs are the only thing lighting up the garbage covered street and alleys. The sound of rats fighting over some food can be heard with distant gunshots echoing against the metal walls of the high rise buildings and apartments. The rare beam of sunlight reflecting off a satellite dish atop one of the towers bringing the only natural sunlight that can be found when the sun is not at its highest. Life is hard in the city. But that is where everybody lives now. Jobs are few and far between. The land doesn't grow produce like it used to in the past. Amongst the doorways and alleyways people are standing around smoking, talking, just trying to enjoy the few hours of light the sun offers. Their skin pale and clothes worn due to the high poverty in the lower levels of the city with a locket around their neck. Each locket different from the other as they are the identification of the person, they will tell everything about who you are, who your family is, your social status, as well as your job. Most everybody has a weapon of some kind as crime has become more and more rampant.

Rummaging through the trash in a dumpster is a young boy trying to find some food, an appliance that was discarded he could repair to sell for money, or a weapon he can trade for a bed to sleep in; something that will be of use to him as opposed to the usual bag or paper that is tossed in the bin. While digging he finds something unusual. Somebody's pendant. This one is in the shape of a heart with an emerald imbedded in the center. He starts to freak out a little as usually there is a body not too far from somebody's pendant. As he climbs out of the dumpster a man walks into the alley just as the boy climbs out. “Boy. You best get out of here.” The boy stops. Looks at the man, and throws a bottle at him before fleeing. He runs around the corner into the open courtyard of the surrounding buildings and ducks behind a couple discarded barrels. The man runs into the courtyard and stops. Scanning the area for the child. For being only an hour past high sun everything was empty. Not usual as most everybody was inside or on their way to work. “You better come out now if you know what is good for you!” He shouts. “I know exactly what you found and I want it back!” the boy's breathing is heavy as his heart begins to race. He begins to think to himself “Did this man kill somebody and hide their pendant? I know they are worth some money, but nothing more than a few credits” The man starts to walk around the empty courtyard looking behind pallets of wood, boxes and bags of trash, and pipes and dumpsters before deciding the child must have gone down one of the other alleys. After a moment the child finally comes out of his hiding place and runs back down the alleyway he came from.

After climbing up a seemingly never ending staircase the boy finally arrives to his floor in a mostly abandoned apartment. He opens the door to the dark room and crawls inside. “I swear every day gets harder and harder to climb up all those stairs” he thinks to himself. Its only been a week since they cut the power to the building due to structural damage from a car bomb the day prior. But it was what he knew as home. Ever since his parent's passed away from sickness he has been on his own. 2 years.

In the bedroom the boy lights a candle and checks to make sure the curtains were drawn tight so no light can shine through. The last thing he wanted was for somebody to know he was living here. The authorities didn't like people camping out in building that were supposed to stay abandoned since it made it harder to keep track of everybody, even with the pendants updating every time you moved somewhere it was harder to do when there wasn't any power for the system to verify occupancies... Once he was sure everything was secured he pulled out the heart shaped pendant and admired it closely. Keeping the flame a safe distance as to not cause any damage. Placing next to his own pendant there were some similarities, but many differences. His darker in color with no stone in the center. When opened his simply projected a faint blue hologram.

Name: Steven

Age: 11

Address: Unknown

Social Score: Unknown

Job Level: Student

While the other locket he found was bright and had a shine to it. With an emerald encrusted in the center. Something he had only seen from those with a high status. was full of information. Most of it he didn't really understand as there were really weird shapes and symbols. All he could really make out was a name. “Dr. Morell” He had no idea who this person was. But they were obviously somebody of important. Suddenly his concentration and the surrounding silence were broken but a loud knock at his door...