No answer came back. Raimund leaned against the wall beside the door and looked up at the sky.
After ten minutes, a disposable credit stick silently slid out from the gap under the door.
The person on the other side whispered to Raimund.
"You made a good haul. How's it been lately?"
"This day and that day, you know how it goes."
A vague voice, impossible to tell if male or female.
Maybe they had a voice modulator implanted in their vocal cords, but Raimund could only guess.
He pocketed the precious credit stick.
"You could make more if you just went to the Economic District."
"I don't go. How would I know what I'd be doing there?"
"For someone like you, you don't seem interested in honest work in the commercial area either."
"I told you, even if I got a job, I'd starve until the first paycheck."
Raimund didn't like thieving.
If his limbs were intact, he could do any job with his body.
But the simple reason he didn't do "normal work" was obvious.
Where could someone like Raimund, with no education or background, get a job?
Could he live off the pay they gave? Could he get an advance?
No, would any insane shop owner even want to hire some guy living in Sector 5 for a normal job?
Maybe it was just his excuse.
If he thought harder, he might find a healthier, legal job.
But Raimund had to send 300 credits every week to the orphanage director as a 'pure token of gratitude,' besides his rent.
On top of that, a lot of money was needed to maintain the house, breaking down here and there due to aging.
What about the family? Hazel's meals? Fioni's shirts? Olive's painkillers don't just sprout from the ground.
Raimund shrugged and was about to end the conversation.
Then the voice spoke again.
"Is that so? Then you'll like this. Interested in doing a simple errand for pay?"
"An errand? What kind of errand?"
"I heard from a broker I know. Don't know details, but if you want, I can connect you to the client."
Ah, Raimund had an idea.
Crime naturally happened inside the British shelter too. Not petty theft or minor shoplifting, but serious, grave crimes.
He wasn't involved in that, but he'd heard sometimes outsiders were hired to evade surveillance.
They recruited unrelated civilians to deliver or act as contacts.
"I don't want to get deeply involved. Don't want to get noticed by the cops. If I get caught, my home gets redistributed."
"That might happen."
"How much's the pay that you're even bothering me?"
Raimund asked without much thought.
The voice hesitated a moment, then said.
"50,000 credits."
Hearing that, Raimund was shocked as if someone had struck the top of his head.
Fifty thousand? Fifty thousand credits?
That's about 25,000 pounds in old currency. An amount Raimund had never imagined.
That didn't sound like a simple errand.
Raimund asked suspiciously.
"You're looking for someone to do an errand, right? Not a healthy person missing a kidney or something?"
"The client was in such a hurry to find someone that the request reached me indirectly. If you don't want to, don't. If you do, I get a small brokerage fee. As a thank you, I might reduce your fee to exchange old currency and credits."
Raimund wasn't confident the job was safe. The pay was just too good.
It didn't seem to be just leaving something somewhere unknown.
If it had been about 5,000 credits, Raimund would've accepted without hesitation.
The amount was so large that it made him hesitate. Surely the risk matched the reward.
Raimund wanted to refuse.
He definitely planned to.
But at that moment, he couldn't help but recall the three-story house in Sector 2 he had seen today.
The beautiful house. The clean yard and spacious living room. The elegant house shining under the faint artificial sunlight.
With 50,000 credits, he could live comfortably for years.
He wouldn't have to steal anymore.
He could buy Fioni new shirts.
He could get Olive prosthetics or a wheelchair, or stronger painkillers.
Hazel? The child who stopped talking properly after being hit on the head by a bottle thrown by the director—if he could get professional treatment for her?
If he could create an environment where she could get an education fitting her level?
Hazel wouldn't have to grow up like him, as a petty thief.
Fioni, Olive, and he wouldn't have to live in the mud-filled Sector 5.
He could also plan a proper future, not one based on petty thievery.
A future fitting a nineteen-year-old.
Everything he had ever dreamed of, within his grasp.
If only this once, if only he could do well this one time.
Raimund answered the unknown broker on the other side of the door.
"I'll do it. What do I have to do?