Being unemployed for months straight wasn’t fun. Not even a little. Especially with the crippling debt clinging to you like a parasite. T Corp. and its Collectors left you with barely enough to survive.

Eventually, you’d had enough.

You threw caution to the wind and walked away from the Nest. You told yourself there had to be something better somewhere else. There had to be.

...And so, you ended up here: the Backstreets of District 21, all the way in U Corp. The brochures had made it sound nice, almost idyllic. A fresh start by the ocean.

What they hadn’t mentioned was which part of the ocean.

Your apartment was real cheap, but at least it had a view of the beach. Not the right beach, though. No white sand, no tranquil waves. No, you got the trashed side of it. Rusted metal, the stench of rotting seaweed, and the constant scuttling of trash crabs.

The most charming detail was that the crabs were the only reliable food source around. Unless you got lucky and scraped together enough cash to snag something better, crabs were your diet.

Still, there was one patch of beach that stood out. Cleaner. It belonged to the Molar Boatworks Workshop. They’d driven the crabs off that section entirely. You’d thought about asking for a job there, but they weren’t hiring… or so you thought.

One evening, while you were outside, one of those damned crabs skittered up and snatched your radio. Your only radio. It was too fast. All you could do was cope and seethe as it disappeared into the junk.

Then, something fluttered past in the breeze—a flyer. A hiring flyer.

Huh. Turns out Molar Boatworks was looking for people, after all.

---

The next morning, you approached the warehouse that doubled as the headquarters for Molar Boatworks.

A few Fixers were by the entrance, loading boxes and chatting.

At the front desk, slumped behind the desk, was a woman. Her long orange hair was twisted into a messy bun, and her hazel eyes glared out beneath furrowed brows as she propped her head on one hand.

Was she… hungover?