Morning came not with light, but with the familiar, low hum of the residential block's aging ventilation system cycling on.
Ryu's body protested with a symphony of aches as he rolled off the cot. The gnawing emptiness in his stomach was a more effective alarm than any chrono-device. He had to find work. Any work.
The docks were his best and worst option. They always needed muscle to load and unload the massive cargo freighters that drifted in from the orbital stations. The pay was pathetic, the work back-breaking, but it was immediate.
He joined the silent, shuffling line of hopefuls near the foreman's kiosk, a collection of gaunt faces and weary eyes.
The foreman, a heavyset man with a perpetually sour expression, looked them over with the disinterest of a farmer inspecting cattle.
"You, you, and you," he grunted, pointing a thick finger.
Ryu wasn't chosen. He never was on the first pass. He waited, his hope dwindling with each selection.
Finally, with only the most grueling jobs left, the foreman's gaze landed on him.
"Fine. You. Crate duty. Bay 7. Don't break anything."
Crate duty was hell. The containers were heavy, filled with dense machine parts destined for the Core Sector's factories.
The work was designed for laborers with minor cybernetic enhancements or the baseline strength of a low-tier clan member.
For a dust-rat like Ryu, it was a slow-motion act of self-destruction. He paired with two other men, their faces etched with the same grim determination.
Together, they strained to lift a single crate onto an automated pallet, their muscles screaming in protest. The metal edges dug into his raw fingers.
An hour into the shift, a commotion broke out nearby. A member of the Azure Dragons clan, identifiable by the swirling blue dragon emblem on his jacket, had arrived to collect a personal shipment.
He was young, probably not much older than Ryu, but he walked with an effortless confidence that seemed to warp the very air around him.
The foreman, who had been barking at Ryu moments earlier, was now a bowing, scraping sycophant.
"Right this way, sir. Everything is in order."
The clan member nodded curtly, then gestured to a crate identical to the ones Ryu and his team were struggling with.
With a casual, one-handed lift, he hoisted the container as if it were filled with air and placed it on his personal transport.
He didn't even grunt. The display was so casual, so utterly dismissive of the physics that governed Ryu's world, that it felt more insulting than any punch Grak had ever thrown.
As the day wore on, the physical toll mounted. Ryu's back was a knot of fire, his arms trembled with fatigue.
He focused on the promise of payment, the thought of a hot meal, the simple luxury of not being hungry for a single night.
When the final whistle blew, he stumbled back to the foreman's kiosk, his body a single, throbbing bruise.
The foreman counted out a few credits into his hand, far less than what was promised.
"Damage deduction," the man grumbled without looking at him. "One of your team scuffed a container."
Ryu knew it was a lie. He opened his mouth to protest, but the words died in his throat.
He saw the cold, dismissive look in the foreman's eyes and the hulking, cybernetically-enhanced guards flanking the kiosk.
A protest would earn him a beating and a ban from the docks.
Worthless.
The word echoed in his mind. He was worthless here, too.
Defeated, he turned away, the meager credits feeling like worthless metal in his palm.
He found a quiet corner in the shadow of a colossal freighter, the despair a heavy shroud.
Just as he was about to give in to the crushing weight of it all, a small, wrinkled hand appeared in front of him, holding a piece of coarse, dark bread.
He looked up to see an old woman, one of the dock cleaners, her face a roadmap of a hard-lived life.
"You look like you need it more than I do, boy," she rasped, pushing the bread into his hand before shuffling away into the gloom.
Ryu stared at the offering, a small, unexpected act of kindness in a world built on power and contempt.
For the first time that day, the burning in his eyes wasn't from shame.