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fun).
    It was my first encounter with anyone close to King Silas, and it was the day I realized that there was some authority in this vast greywastes and that it did indeed affect my life. I guess before the Mercer came I had been pretty well shielded from that sort of thing. I had always known he existed, we liked blaming him for things and I had heard stories about him from Skyfall refugees. But I had never had anyone under his influence in my life, or my territory besides seeing the occasional soldier.
    I followed Killian from a distance as he made his way to the house he now lived alone in. He was half a block up from me, on a quiet cul-de-sac, about five minutes away. A big three bedroom two story house that was much too big for him to stay in alone, but he seemed to want to remain there. Memories and all that I guess. Though Leo had told me the place had been a horror house before his parents had been taken to quarantine. Maggots and body fluid everywhere. The kid had been trying to take care of them himself. We were all shocked he hadn’t ended up dead with them.
I watched as he went inside, and listened to make sure he locked the door behind him. My mind started to wander, like it most often did. As I sat myself down on top of an abandoned car a few feet from Killian’s house, I remembered back to the day two years ago. The day I first encountered the Mercer, the day of the census.
    It’s a long story, but it was an important moment in my life. Part of me wished I could be inside telling the story to Killian over a beer or something, but I shrugged off that idea as quickly as it popped into my head. One day maybe, but for now... I was comfortable lurking in the shadows.
I leaned back against the top of the abandoned car, and lit myself another quil, I inhaled deeply, and as I looked up at the clouded sky, night was starting to fall, but I felt compelled to stay outside of Killian’s house for a little while longer.
I inhaled again, and with the warmth of the opiates seeping into my veins, I slipped into my own head.
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 3
     
    Reaver
     
    Two Years Previous
     
     
     
     
    The ever present background music that played throughout most of the populated parts of Aras cut out with a crackle and was replaced with static. I had been napping against a stack of supply crates on top of a shed when the disruptive pop jolted me out of my light sleep. I opened my eyes for a few moments to gage my surroundings, and once I judged that there was no immediate harm to myself, had closed my eyes again; just as Greyson’s voice crackled in the speakers.
“Block meeting, attendance mandatory.” Greyson’s deep voice could be heard. “Five minutes to gather. Once again. Block meeting, attendance mandatory, five minutes. That is all.”
I stretched a bit and decided that it was pointless to try and get back to sleep. The town was going to be full of residence in several moments and I had enough trouble sleeping under normal circumstances.
    I opened my eyes and stretched with a yawn, feeling my bones crack and pop. When I was limbered up I got up and shifted a few crates around to make myself a crate throne, before I sat on top and waited for the people to gather.
    The square was nothing special. It was a cleared area in the center of town, with shops and alleyways surrounding it. The shops which looked like they might have had some beauty at one point had boarded up windows and doors. The paint had long since peeled away and the exposed brick was cracked and crumbling with the mortar almost completely gone.
    All the brick houses and shops were like this, but they were still one of the more favourable shelters. The brick may have been ugly but it was durable, and kept the weather from coming indoors. Most of the residences lived in either brick houses, communal living in a modified factory since the metal was solid, or in one of the two livable apartment buildings we had in Aras.
    My house was brick and off to