The next day, Leon woke up to purple-tinted skies.
The silver moon and the bioluminescent fog had retreated, and the distant neon storms were back in the sky. With the fog retreating, Leon could see further into the distance now.
There was a floating dust storm that lingered in the air, but with his enhanced perception as an Ascended, Leon could still see through it unlike the night fog.
Through it, he looked forward and saw life.
There was even more vegetation ahead, including tall rubber trees and other strange trees. Their barks dripped black resin.
As an engineer, the sight of the resin ignited his imagination. 'I feel like these resin can do more than just be used to make synthetic products'.
He was excited again. 'I can't wait to see what this world has to offer'.
He also noticed something else. The solid ground was so brown that it seemed metallic.
"Is everyone ok?" Talia asked as she stood up.
Daren looked around at everyone, then he chuckled. "No need to sound so uptight boss, no monster stole our souls during the night".
Kain and Rex glared at the Cyber Gladiator, and he chuckled again at their reaction. He got the exact reaction that he was aiming for.
"Then let's move". Talia said calmly.
The crew continued their trek as they navigated through the solid ground, vegetation, and trees with just as much caution as they traversed the wasteland with.
It didn't take them long. 30 minutes later, they finally reached the last ridge overlooking a massive valley.
Talia climbed the ridge first, and the others followed.
Leon climbed the ridge, looked into the distance, and froze.
Below him was a colossal, shifting ocean of silver dust and brown metallic ground. The silver dust rippled like a living organism, covering this world, but Leon still saw through it.
Majority of what he saw was tarpaulin tents, they clustered across this world like dome-shaped dunes of different colors.
Apart from the tents, he also saw metallic buildings built out of welded metal with tarpaulin curtains covering most parts of it, with old red rusted roofs that were also made of metal.
He also saw wooden houses.
Leon's eyes twitched. 'Wooden houses in a cyberpunk world?'
The buildings were in the minority, majority of everything in his vision were the tarpaulin tents, and then the cluster of humanoids filling this world.
Leon saw thousands, if not tens of thousands of humanoids at a single glance- Synths and Geneforms all living together.
Unlike Talia and the others, Leon could tell immediately that they were malnourished. Majority of them were thin and emaciated, even the Synths. They felt like old abandoned generators with no fuel, oil, or any source of power.
Leon could tell that most of them lived in the tarpaulin tents that were mostly tattered, but he also saw the homeless, and they were the majority.
They lived in the fringe of this economy- some directly laying down on the streets, others sleeping under car fossils, and Leon easily noticed 2 to 3 Geneforms who had no signs of life!
Yes, they were dead!
He felt a chill run down his spine as he stiffly stared at them. He could already see the signs of rot, yet no one came to dispose of the dead bodies. They were left there in the open, in a community were people lived!
Leon almost emptied his bowels as he stared in shock.
He threw a glance at his crewmates and none of them showed an extreme reaction; they were used to sights like this.
Leon's eyes widened slightly as he took a moment to calm down.
The first impression of this place that he got was that of a refugee camp- a gigantic, exaggerated refugee camp.
And then, a thought crossed his mind. 'The Wastes'.
Talia also called it the Lost Zones, but at this moment, Leon felt a more apt term for what he saw settling in his mind. 'A chaotic frontier'.
In a way, it was beautiful- the sight of so many tents of different colors clustered together, forming tiny streets in between to form a community.
The metal buildings, the wooden ones, it was beautiful.
But it was also terrifying, and endless, and alien.
"Welcome to the Wastes, Leon". Talia said with dark undertones in her voice before calmly leading the way forward.
The others also moved, following her.
Leon reacted late; he was finding it hard to accept what he had just seen. But he quickly recovered and followed them.
As he walked, his brain whirred. 'What? How can they let dead corpses lie in the streets? That's foolish. Are they not scared of diseases and infection?'
And then, he noticed the slight suffocation in the air that stifled the oxygen saturation in the atmosphere.
A thought entered his mind. 'ADE corruption'.
Even here, despite this not being the dangerous fringe where he woke up, there was still ADE corruption in the Wastes.
Leon almost froze again. '…it's not as severe as the fringe, but this is still corruption… it's like living in a community filled with radiation…'
He took another glance at the humanoids, and finally, he understood why they looked so weak and emaciated. He also understood why they didn't care about a dead body lying in the streets.
'The ADE corruption over time is a disease on its own, so they don't care contracting other diseases?'
He also had another thought. 'How many of these Synth lying on the streets are still alive?'
For a Geneform, he could tell if they're dead because they still retained basic biological processes, and their bodies could decay. But what of a Synth? What would indicate that they are dead?
He instinctively looked at Talia. 'Perhaps only a NetRunner can know. Maybe she can sense his consciousness to see if it's still there'.
Before Leon knew it, his expression became heavy. It was impossible to look at the streets the same way.
From what Talia and the others already told him, he had an expectation of what the Wastes looked like, but this still exceeded all his expectations.
And finally, he could understand why people here would engage in slave trade. 'To most people, a life like this is worse than slavery…' his expression turned grave as he followed his companions deeper into the streets.
As they walked, a beggar on the streets soon stumbled towards them holding an aluminum bowl. He wore tattered clothes.
Leon threw a glance at the beggar.
He was a Synth, but his mechanical body was nowhere as sleek and smooth as Kain and the others. His body was filled with dirty black oil, his movements were jerky like the neural connection between his body and brain was disjointed.
Leon winced slightly, then he thought. 'He needs money. Money… money… I've never even asked about the currency of this world'.
Clearly, none of them in the crew had any money though as they walked past the tramp without looking at him.
The deeper they walked, the angrier Leon's emotions got, but the more stoic his face became.
'There's literally a government, and people are left to live this way?' Leon wanted to instinctively blame Omnicore, but he wasn't sure who to blame.
He didn't want to jump into conclusions, so he masked his emotions and walked with the crew.
As they walked, his brain made calculations. '…this frontier should easily encompass a few dozen kilometers from what I've seen… that should be at least a few hundred thousand people from how congested it is…'
'They all seem like they're starving'. He was solemn as he calculated.
There was a clear demarcation here.
It seemed like everybody was starving, but the lowest, poorest, and weakest in this community were the homeless, then those who were able to live in tattered tarpaulin tents, then the wooden houses, and then the metallic buildings.
Most of the tarpaulin tents were almost 2 meters tall.
Leon had only seen about 5 metallic buildings so far. 'I wonder what the identity of the people who stay inside is'.
After some time, Leon also saw what seemed like an open market with sellers simply spreading their goods in open stalls. Some had tarpaulin covers that gave their goods shade, while the rest simply left them in the open.
He noticed stale bread for sale, fish that seemed like it was already getting bad, silk and cotton clothes, a few accessories, and there was even a stall whose seller sold daggers.
"Silk cloth straight from Canyon Hub! Small money, come buy before you hear sold out!"
"Fresh bread from Sprawl Delta's bakeries!"
Hearing these helped Leon better control his emotions, and this was when he started noticing other things that he previously ignored.
He noticed individual shops that were far away from the open market, including wooden public bathrooms. Geneforms lined up in front of the bathrooms, and someone stood in front of them, collecting something before letting them in.
'It's a pay to use bathroom?'
He also saw the signboard that stood in front of 2 of the 5 metallic buildings that he had seen.
[Henry's Inn]
[Cain's Synth Recharge House]
'Recharge house?'
'This is like a massage house, right? But for Synths'. He subconsciously looked at the thin and emaciated Synths around. 'Can they be recharged back to a healthy state if they pay to enter this recharge house?'
'It's logical. Afterall, Synths are mechanical lifeforms, so I won't be surprised to learn that they have batteries'.
'It's normal for batteries to weaken, so they obviously need recharge'.
Leon also noticed the chaotic nature of existence here.
Just like expected, in circumstances like this where life seemed to have no value, crime thrived. He saw a clearly malnourished Geneform teenager smoothly snatch a piece of stale bread from a tall female Geneform.
That was her only food for the day!
She screamed, calling for help but no one helped. She broke down into tears, lying on the ground like she was ready to die.
The tiny teenager escaped amid the ocean of people.
Leon's eyelids twitched.
He also noticed on another side a group of people comprising Synths and Geneforms that clearly looked menacing. They cornered a grown Geneform female, clearly harassing her.
Noticing where his stare was at, Talia said calmly. "Let's go".
She led the way into the metallic building with the signboard- [Henry's Inn].
Inside, the tarpaulin covers of the building hid them from the outside world. There was a simple rusted chandelier in the metallic ceiling above, from where a set of white and blue lightbulbs illuminated the inn.
A ceiling fan also gently blew above.
The bar area of the inn had 5 tables, with one in the middle and 4 others in the corner.
Inside was scanty, but the Synths and Geneforms inside were clearly in better conditions than those outside. Leon guessed that a few of them were Ascended.
Only now did he also notice that the inn had an upper floor, and this was where most of the inn's rooms were located.
As soon as they entered the inn, all eyes turned to look at them and Leon's face tightened instinctively.
Talia was unperturbed as she led them to the receptionist counter. "I need a single room, including food and drinks for 3 Synths and 4 Geneforms".
The receptionist, a towering Geneform with a stony face and a grizzled beard who was even taller than Brick nodded and briefly looked at the menu before glancing back at her.
He outstretched his rough palm. "2 pounds, 8 cents".
Talia calmly unsheathed her dagger before placing it on the receptionist desk. "I'm using it as collateral, I'll pay before evening".
The receptionist silently looked at her, then he suddenly flashed a smile and took the dagger. "Ok".
He stamped a receipt and handed it to her. "Room 4, second floor".
Talia nodded and took the receipt before leading her crew to the second floor. They opened the wooden door and entered.
Inside, there were two wooden double-bunked beds at the corner of the room, forming an L shape against the walls. There was also a wooden desk and a wooden wardrobe. The room also had a lightbulb and a ceiling fan.
Daren unceremoniously approached one of the bottom beds before plopping down. "Ahh! What a journey". He moaned in satisfaction, then turned his head to look at the others. "What are you waiting for?"
A few moments later after they all sat down, Leon suddenly said.
"I want a mechanic shop".