"Piss off!" a scraggly looking bum shouts at the impassive guards that had surrounded the motley collection of abandoned and half-demolished buildings. I covered my nose from the stench arising from the site, a disgusting odor that smelled like stale piss and shit, and quickly walked past. If the guards were feeling disgusted from the sights and smells that were in front of them, they were professional enough not to give any signs.

I had opted to spend my free time taking in the sights of the Six Trees District, the alleged source of the funding for Nicky's militia. While it seemed like a good idea in retrospect, getting to see things at the ground level, I was rapidly regretting my decision to come here. The source of my regret was the pigpen in front of me, known to the locals as The Squat. The irony of it all was that most of what I knew about The Squat came from chatting up the bartender at one of the local dives and generally playing tourist. There was really no need to subject my senses to the unpleasantness of it all.

As The Voice had told me earlier, Six Trees District was handed over to the Host for the purpose of redevelopment. The bartender I had pumped for information confirmed this piece of intelligence and added that the prime mover for this takeover was a petition launched by the residents of the District themselves. They had become unhappy with how the local gangs had entrenched themselves in the District and the generally low class of business and person those gangs brought with them. Dive bars, adult entertainment, shops dealing in merchandise of dubious legality and apparently nastier stuff was available at Six Trees District. You just needed to know where to find it.

The kings of this shit heap were the Matsui family, the crime family Delinquent belonged to. They controlled the District from the shadows. The council may reign, but as far as Six Trees District was concerned, the Matsuis ruled. The smaller gangs were basically their errand boys. As for the police and what they were doing about this situation, like everything else in The City, things were complicated.

Six Trees might have become a cesspit of human waste, but it served a vital function. It provided a place for the human waste to go. Not everyone could afford to send their children to Unity Academy. The City had attracted plenty of refugees and jobless demobbed soldiers in the early years. Not everyone could make it big. Scratch that, not everyone could get by. Plenty of those guys fell through the cracks and wound up in Six Trees, to the annoyance of the original residents.

This situation shaped how ORPO handled policing in Six Trees. ORPO would launch raids against the gangs to shut down the more exploitative rackets and generally slap them around to show who is really in charge. But there was no actual interest in taking the gangs out. As long as the Matsuis kept the shit from leaking out of their shit heap, ORPO generally allowed the Matsuis to play at being the rooster. The Matsuis were allowed strut around and make a nuisance of themselves, as long as they remembered that ORPO could send them to the chopping block anytime they became too inconvenient.

Contrary to popular belief, the Matsuis also had a fair amount of support in Six Trees as well. The rackets run by the Matsuis not only printed money for the gang, but also kept plenty of residents fed. The grotty rooms available for rent in the District allowed many people to have a roof over their head. And the relaxed attitude towards law enforcement in the District meant that it was a safe refuge for inhabitants with more colorful pasts.

To get around the resistance of the Matsuis and the people dependent on them, the original residents petitioned for the District to be handed over to the Host for the purpose of redevelopment. What made the Host bite was the fact that Six Trees was located really close to the base of Ascension Tower. The Host had been buying up land for the purpose of supporting their tower with additional buildings and for general property development. Ultimately, the Host intended for Ascension Tower become the focal point of an entire self-contained township that spanned multiple districts.

This made the land in Six Trees really valuable. The plan the original residents and the Council had agreed on was this. The Matsui territory, housing their businesses and assorted hangers on would be acquired by The City at a low price and handed over to the Host. The original residents would then be bought off with cash and new property to be built by the Host in the District. After all that was done, the entire place would be razed and the Host would add another few blocks of high end property to their growing township. Everyone goes home happy.

Everyone but the Matsuis and the unwashed masses of course. As far as the original residents were concerned, the Host was free to bulldoze those guys into the sea. The Matsuis naturally disagreed, and that was what led to the creation of The Squat. Originally a large collection of low rise buildings, when the District was handed over to the Host, the Host began evicting the locals and demolishing the neighborhood. The Matsuis didn't take kindly to that and began packing the place with their enforcers and all the other gangsters they could get their hands on. Scuffles began to take place between the Host and the Matsuis, but the demolition continued nevertheless.

From what the locals told me, things only got really ugly when some kind of agreement was reached between ORPO and the Matsuis. Bums and other assorted homeless guys began showing up in the neighborhood, clearly having been shipped in by some party. The bums kept showing up and ORPO turned a blind eye as the entire neighborhood became a giant colony for the homeless. The City had originally given the Host a free hand with the redevelopment, but the sight of literal angels beating up the homeless proved a bit too much to swallow. The redevelopment was halted until a solution to the bums could be found.

In the meantime, the Host had decided to cut electricity and water to the homeless colony, hoping that the discomfort would drive away the bum army occupying the land. The Host clearly had no idea what the homeless was willing to put up with and all they accomplished The Squat coming into being.

Moving on from The Squat, I look over the part of the site that had already been cleared out. The Host had wasted no time in leveling the area and were now in the process of new construction. A large hole had been excavated into the ground with a gentle sloping path cut into it meant for vehicles. Trucks carrying building materials arrive regularly at the site while forklifts accompanied by workers trundle into the hole bearing sealed crates. Were they laying infrastructure? Who knows.

My attention is drawn back to The Squat where a number of armored personnel carriers bearing the word "RAU" have pulled up next to it. Troops pile out of the carriers and assemble behind the guards the Host had posted. In response, the bums stop shouting and instead sit down en masse. Using a bull horn, the RAU troopers identify themselves as police and demand that the bums disperse to no avail. The guards and RAU then march into The Squat and begin trying to haul the bums away.

The bums on their part initially resist by refusing to get up from the ground. As the struggle between both sides goes on, more and more bums begin emerging from the buildings and they grab onto to the guys resisting eviction as well as each other, creating an unmovable morass. The guards and police battle futilely against the unmovable object before eventually giving up and returning to the perimeter of The Squat.

Just as I am about to leave, a limo drives up to The Squat and parks next to the APCs. A pair of figures disembark from the limo, a man and a woman, both of them fairly strong from their respective spiritual nimbus that I detect. Both figures walk up to what I presume to be the leader of the guards and begin an animated conversation with him. They're too far away for me to listen in though. Pity. Could have been interesting.

What gets my attention is the blond and curly haired man, or rather angel, as the sparkles around him attest. I had seen plenty of spiritual fields in my time on this world. Weak, strong and in between. This is however the first time that I have seen anyone who was one hundred percent nimbus. Its as if his physical body does not exist and was merely a magical projection generated by the field. Not that it seems to inconvenience this guy though. He interacts just fine with everyone around him, the projected body being no different from the real deal. A unique technique? Where was his physical body then? Does he even have one?

The woman idly looks around as the man converses with the guards, taking in The Squat. Again, she is too far away for me to make out her features, only that she is human, wears a pricey looking striped business suit and has her brown hair neatly tied in a ponytail. But I keep getting this nagging feeling that I have seen her somewhere before. That I should know who she is.

The woman's eyes sweep the area methodically and for a brief moment, we look directly at each other. She spazzes out like usual but quickly snaps out of it. A look of complete surprise forms on the woman's face, her mouth hanging open. She immediately begins to make her way towards my direction with urgent strides. Looks like I've been spotted. Better not take any chances.

I quickly blend into the crowd around me and allow them to carry me away from the woman. I take a glance backwards and see the woman struggling to catch up with me. She loses patience and begins shoving people out of her way in an effort to reduce the distance between us. Cries of protest rise up from behind me. I relentlessly press deeper into the crowd and soon reach the black cab waiting patiently by the side of the road.

Just in time. I get in and the cab takes me away.