Old town was the oldest part of Aeroae, and also the poorest. When the city was founded all those years ago, the bulk of the labor was done by the poor and homeless vagrants that came from the mainland. They were forced away from the ocean to make more room for the wealthy to settle. This resulted in them being pushed farther and farther from the water and closer to the bare wilderness at their backs. Old Town was the home to every element of the city that couldn’t bare being seen. The poor, disenfranchised, and weak.

It was Gram’s home. Once upon a time.

He was looking for someone, a child in particular. In this part of town it wasn’t always easy to navigate the streets, whether because they were flooded, or because a building had fallen over due to the storms. Children were tasked by the various elements to navigate the remnants for the sake of delivering messages. He knew this was the case because he was one in his youth.

The ones willing and capable of delivering messages distinguished themselves with distinct flashes of red on their person. A handkerchief, a mostly intact red shirt, sometimes they just painted lines on their face using whatever they could find. As kids often did, they gave themselves a name. Rattlers. Named for the sound they made climbing through the fallen buildings.

He got lucky when he saw one group of kids playing cards under an old café covering that hadn’t fallen over yet. The other kids scattered like rats into the buildings surrounding them when they caught sight of him. The Rattler, a young boy with an old paint tipped rag wrapped around his arm, stayed put and waited for Gram to approach.

“Whadya need old man?” The kid asked. Despite his look, Gram could tell from his voice he wasn’t even ten.

“I need to set up a meeting with the Gallery Crowd, tell them it’s Gram.” Gram said.

“What makes you think you can just walk in here from up town and ask me anything?” The kid asked. Gram reached into his coat and tossed a gold coin on the table in front of him.

“One right now, and two more if you can get them here in less than an hour.” Gram said. The kid stared down at the table in shock and looked back at him.

“Clocks ticking kid, are you fast enough?” Gram said. The moment he spoke, the kid was already halfway up the shear surface of an old building, soon after sprinting across the rooftops.

The only thing that got the kids moving quicker than a tip was a challenge. It took a bit of a competitive edge to be a Rattler. He was glad to see that hadn’t changed.

In the meantime, Gram took the kid's spot and waited. It didn’t take more than a few minutes before he heard the sounds of Old Town kick back to life. Kids would cross and weave through the pothole-filled streets, roving toughs and their lackeys would walk by broken windows to intimidate the other toughs that were sitting around, he even caught the rare sight of a Blink.

Kids had a tendency to grow up if they lived through being a Rattler, and the good ones got noticed pretty quickly regardless. The various crowds took these kids in and paid them well to exclusively deliver their messages. If they lived long enough to grow up, they get an unofficial promotion to a Blink. Named after what you shouldn’t do if you want to catch a glimpse of one.

It was already likely that half of Old Town knew he was sitting there, not that they made that information known. So it didn’t surprise him that within a few minutes the streets cleared and became silent. A group of three young men exited one of the few buildings along the street that still had intact windows and came toward him.

“Hey, old timer! What’s got you slinking around our turf?” The apparent leader said, a young man, twenty-something, smelled as bad as he looked.

“Minding my own business. Try it out sometime.” Gram said.

It was a rule in Old Town that you should never be alone. Even the hardest of thugs can’t often take three young toughs in a fight, and the ones that can are often left alone for that very reason. These kids were born long after Gram took off out of Old Town, so they had no idea who he was. The only solution he had was to speak the language of Old Town, shit talk.

“What was that? You got a death wish or something, Gramps?” The tough said.

This caught him by surprise, just a little. Normally, these toughs would fold like a deck of cards when challenged like that. This outfit must have had something up their sleeves if they persisted, that, or they were stupid.

“Look kid, I don’t need to make a second trip to the cleaners today, so beat it.” Gram said.

Overwhelming bravado wasn’t just something that you wanted in Old Town, it was needed. At any given time, there were likely ten more people within ear shot than you saw with your eyes. Getting back talked like that would harm the reputation of anyone enough for them to back off, only the incredibly stupid or brave would contest it. The tough slammed his hand down on the table, his two buddies just behind him staring daggers through him.

“The only trip you're gonna take is in a shallow ditch.” He said.

Gram shook his head and slowly stood up from the old chair he was stooped in. As he rose, his head came over the top of the young tough. He slowly took his coat off and placed it down in the seat behind him. Revealing a white shirt and vest with the sleeves rolled up. His scarred and solid arms open to the air.

“I don’t hate your guts kid, but-” He said, then he slouched over until his face was just a few inches away from his. “You won’t be the last to try.”

The already silent street practically froze at his word. Only punctuated by the sound of the young tough sucking air through his butthole. His two buddies already made themselves scarce, so when he tried to find reassurance from them, he lost what little confidence he had left and took off as well. Only one empty threat in an attempt to salvage the last bit of his ego that he left in a puddle on the ground. That little display was enough to get him some peace for the remainder of the hour.

A little while later, the kid came back, out of breath and shaking, a couple scrapes and scratches on his arms and legs.

“They told me to tell you that they’ll be waiting for you in the gallery.” The kid said.

It had been exactly one hour and two minutes since he left.

“You didn’t make the time.” Gram said. The kid looked away, Rattlers were a proud bunch, and they didn’t like being chastised.

“You paid up front, that’s all I cared about.” The kid pouted. Gram put his coat back on and reached into his pocket once more. Five more coins flew out and landed on the table. The kid stared at him, unsure of the intent.

“When I was a kid, I could do the line from here to the gallery in an hour. But that was thirty years ago. You’re better than I was.” He said.

Then he walked away, he waited for the kid to take a step then stopped.

“By the way, don’t spend a single bit of that until you can do the line in an hour.” He turned away again. “I’ll know.”

The kid ran off without so much as a word, he knew that the kid wouldn’t spend anymore than he needed. The empty threat was just so that he improved. With any luck, he’d be a blink before he was a man.

-----

It took Gram a few hours to find a path through the fallen buildings and collapsed streets to get to the gallery. Some of his old instincts from his days as a Rattler came back to him and he almost tried to climb up for a better vantage point, but his aged rational went against it.

Contrary to the look of it, Old Town wasn’t all collapsed slums and broken glass. There were two sections of Old Town, that being “The Heights” and “The Lows”. The Heights were the part of the town where the crowds put a lot of time and effort keeping it intact, whereas The Lows were everything else.

This wasn’t in an attempt to create a walled garden for the relatively rich, but as a neutral zone for the crowds. A place where children can go for a warm bed and meal, or where the mothers could raise the babies before they were forced to risk the lows. Sometimes men would come down sick and the ones who weren’t too brave would rest a night in the spare rooms. It was a place where people could breathe.

Though all the Crowds looked after The Heights, the Gallery was the crowd that did the most heavy lifting. They were the ones that moved coin from the rest of Aeroae to Old Town. In a sense, they were the unofficial leaders of Old Town. A request from the Gallery was just as likely to get things done as the mayor.

The Gallery were based out of an abandoned gallery not far from The Heights. It was the largest building in all of Old Town and even decades after being abandoned was still a marvel to behold. As he understood it, the part of old town it was in was Aeroae’s old entertainment district. So it made sense.

He reached the outer parameter of the gallery and was stopped by two men. Members of The Gallery. Identified by their clean looks contrasted with their primitive weapons.

“Identify yourself.” One man said.

“Expected guest, let me through.” Gram said. It didn’t matter if you were talking to a child or an armed guard, being polite was a quick way to let the other person know you’re not supposed to be there.

“Real funny, tough guy, now cough up a name before you cough up a lung.” The man said.

“Gram.” He said.

The two looked at each other for a moment, slightly confused.

“Never heard of ya.” The other man said. Gram rolled his eyes at this.

In Old Town, telling people your name was dangerous, because you never knew who would hear it and connect the dots about who you knew, and who you cared about. So usually people took a nickname. The name itself rarely mattered, it was the reputation that you built with it.

“Grey.” Gram said.

Hearing the name shocked both men.

“Right, get in there.” The first man said.

The gallery was just as he remembered. The kind of place that in any other corner of the world would be described as “Unfit for human occupation”, but for the area was almost a mansion. Working lights, mostly clean and repaired floors, no visible broken windows (though there was still a draft all these years later).

He was greeted a few feet from the door by an old man in a coat and glasses. He was short even considering his age and looked like a toad, not literally of course.

“Grey, my boy, still alive I see?” The man said.

“I’m not a boy anymore, Cane. You can call me Gram.” Gram said.

“Ah yeah, you got out of the game. It’s all comin’ back to me.” Cane said. “Anyway, what’s brought ya back to us?”

“It’s complicated, and we can’t talk about it here. I need an actual meeting with the crowd.” Gram said, Cane’s wrinkled features curled as can only be done with age.

“We aren’t so close anymore, that’s gonna take some time. Lot of bad blood over the years.” Cane said. Gram shook his head.

“No, this needs to be done soon” Gram said, then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. He covertly waved it toward Cane so he could see, and his eyes went wide.

“Where did you get this?” Cane said, fighting every instinct in his body to swipe it.

“I have my foot in it, and this is part of it.” Gram said, He waved the call order once more. “I need a meeting, and I don’t want to use this. I know it will be hard, but trust me, it's important.”

Cane was still, the lines of his face curled in thought. Gram had known this man for nearly his entire life, but never once did he see this face.

“Fine, but you owe me one. We’ll set up in the usual spot. I don’t have to remind you, but this is serious what you’re asking me to do.” Cane said.

“Just make sure they’re here and willing to listen.” Gram said.

“They will, I won’t croak just yet.” Cane said.

While both men would have liked to speak longer, they were met with massive tasks before them. Gram took off to The Heights and Cane took to making the impossible a reality. Both hoping things would work out.