Criminal Silhouette CDM23

The city was waking as Abhdu wound his way through the streets half in a dream, to work. The distant sounds of hoppers overhead and stray dogs fighting over scraps cut through the Mumbad smog; it was going to be a hot one today. He had been up for hours watching clips about the Twenty Three Seconds fallout on Smokes' netcast but with no great interest; he just couldn't sleep. It was hard to put in perspective the amount of creds Smoke talked about and this vexed him.

His route to work took him next to his old school, recently converted into soulless condos for novjawan born with silver spoons in their mouths. It would take Abhdu years to save for the deposit they were asking for but he noted that the neon billboard still claimed that 'only 73 units remaining, and selling fast!'. It had been stuck on that number a few weeks now and the showroom was boarded up.

As he turned into Swahili square he could see a few figures gathered around the entrance to his office, and as he neared them he made out two of the other cleaners, Pedro and Jyoti, and the supervisor Hamesh who looked agitated. ‘Usne sub bhand kiya ….ham to bina kaam pade!’ blurted out Hamesh to Abdhu when he saw him.

Well that sucks, thought Abdhu as he trudged off to find himself a synthi-chai