Sigma/Star: Aftermath

Chapter 143: Alto Sterling

Alto Sterling was dedicated to its port. Roads found a way to snake through the city to bring you to the ocean, no matter which one you took. For locals around the city, it was rumoured to be able to swallow you up. You could enter any way you wanted, but you could only leave by the sea, because nothing else was going to take you out.

Its buildings were low and wide so they could store shipping containers without having to stack them vertically forever. They would be too heavy to make it cost effective, so instead the city had an enormous footprint. It was a far cry from the glass towers Porter had gotten used to everywhere else in Dalarcya and he praised it at first. Sometimes, he could see over a building, if the angle was right. He didn't feel like everything was staring down at him. And nobody could be hiding on a rooftop, spying on him. They would be spotted instantly.

But directions in Alto Sterling had changed everything. Getting here had been easy and uneventful. The countryside between cities in Dalarcya was extremely sparse and unpopulated. There would be the odd ghost town with a handful of people living in it, but that was it. The design decisions Dalarcya had made in its past had pushed everyone into its super cities, and left the gaps in between as barren husks. So Porter and Sigma found it incredibly convenient once they were outside cities, wandering without any blockers on their way to their next destination. Alto Sterling, on the other hand, was a sprawling mass of madness. Instructions were given by blocks and blocks were as long as the buildings within them and that could change for every unique edifice. Sometimes, one block was a five minute walk. Sometimes it took an hour to get past a warehouse. Distance was impossible to measure.

Sigma had split off to try and pursue some leads of his own, which meant Porter no longer had his location systems to rely on. When someone told him it was only two blocks away, Porter couldn't turn to Sigma to be told if that would take him a couple minutes or a couple hours.

Not long into Porter's search, he realized what everyone told him was right: he was at the ports, staring out at the ocean. There were enormous cargo ships docked all along the shoreline, loading or unloading with massive crates. The water in the distance glittered in the sunlight; the water at the edge of the city was murky and swirled with a mixture of garbage and seaweed. It was an impressive moment, but it wasn't where Porter needed to be. Someone had told him that they had seen a guy matching Ardwen's description over in the northwest corridor of the city, and yet here were the ports on the eastern coast.

"Figures," Porter muttered, tossing up his hands. His eyes roamed around the portlands until he found a small coffee shop. A charming couple were sitting on the patio out front, giggling and sipping at their drinks. Porter scowled and reconsidered visiting the shop but his desire for coffee pushed him on anyways.

It had been a strange experience first finding the beverage. It wasn't available outside Dalarcya, as they controlled the production apparently and any other crops around the world had been destroyed as it was seen as a foreign drink with foreign influence. Porter had heard about it once or twice, and had gotten a lecture on foreign customs that had included a warning about it. It was a brainwashing serum, it was a neurotoxin, it was every evil thing there was. For Porter, it was just a cup of coffee. It was bitter and strange but it smelled really good and he kept drinking it even though he didn't like it that much and he couldn't really explain why. He had mentioned it to someone local and they had only laughed.

The interior of the shop was nothing but the pungent smell of coffee. As soon as Porter caught a whiff, his senses started to buzz. He had to have some coffee now. This presented a whole new issue though: Porter lacked money. It was Sigma's job to hack into local systems and procure any capital they might need to get by, or at least fudge some numbers in their system. But with him not around, it was time for Porter to stoop. And he was entirely willing to when he was stuck with these cravings for coffee.