Neon District: Redux

Part Two Chapter Three: Baring Witness

       Once him and Zoo arrived at the Syndicate Shanties, Sam's stomach dropped when he came face to face with Cathra. He hadn't seen her since the time they had to make their grand getaway from Manzo's cult ceremony where Yuka got arrested and Cathra abandoned him in the rain. Of course, back then Sam didn't care about Cathra and went to go find Yuka instead.

       "When Zoo said he was going to pick someone up and bring them here I wasn't expecting it to be you, of all people," Cathra snarled as she peered Sam up and down as if she was displeased with the meal that the waiter brought out at a restaurant.

       "You asked me to recruit somebody we can trust and you should've known that there aren't many of those people around like that anymore," Zoo explained before he headed off to an old bank teller with a collection of weaponry behind its gates. 

       That left Sam standing alone with Cathra, who was still sizing him up. 

       Glancing around the vast empty space, he noticed that there were not many people in here: only a woman sitting at a chess board atop some wooden crates, a one legged man, Zoo, Cathra, and himself. Cathra seemed to have noticed what he was going ask and answered him before he asked about it: "Ever since you made Yuka leave we lost the trust in the others, so they all left."

       "I didn't know she was one of you, so don't go blaming all of this on me," Sam retorted, having more of a voice for himself than he did before, "I didn't ask for her to jump ship along with the rest of you."

       "I never blamed you for it, it's just that you were the one that accidently kicked the first domino that made the rest fall." Finally taking her eyes off of him, her eyes wandered off at Zoo behind him, "if only your boss wasn't an ass, maybe you wouldn't have had to go pick pocket off of a certain someone." Then she went off towards an old vending machine that appeared  to have been recently restocked. 

       Sam stood there a moment thinking about what Cathra just told him: sure he may have caused Yuka to go join up with Mr. Propaganda or whatever, but he had no way of knowing that. Cathra sounded as if she were calling him an innocent bystander in all of this. But with how things were starting to turn out, he believed he'll eventually be used as a sacrifice or maybe he'll be forced to make himself out to be a martyr.

       Glancing to the right, he noticed the woman sitting at the chess board as she stared at the board like she was about to win a one-sided match against nobody. He approached the woman who wore a pine green beanie on her head and sat on the wooden crate across from her. She didn't seemed to notice him until she finished moving her Bishop diagonally across the board, taking out the invisible opponent's Rook.

       "Who're you?" she simply asked as if she wasn't just eavesdropping on his conversation a moment ago.

       He took a seat on a crate across from her. "Sam, and you?"

       "Abby," the woman, Abby, told him softly.

       "Mind if I join you?" he asked, motioning his hand at the board.

       Abby only shrugged and began to reset her pieces on the board as Sam followed suit.

       "Just to warn you: I never lost a match," was all Abby said.

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       Eight years ago felt like an adventure: Sam just finishing high school, his little sister Kindy being born, and his entire family moving over to the Neon District. His mother got a job opportunity somewhere in the District, but he never paid attention to her when she talked about it constantly. He was always too focused on playing chess online with strangers, too focused as he clicked the Knight and clicked another square an L shape away, too focused to pay attention to his mother's worries.