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The city had been left desolate at the end of the world. Empty streets, perhaps some vicious mockery of what many innercity drivers wished for, one of the starkest contrasts of the warped city. Empty didn't mean there was no one living in it—or to speak of what new nightmares stalked the alleys and skyscrapers. Then there were the familiar haunts: people looking to make easy cash.[break][break]

If you traveled far enough south along the remnants of the bridges and highways you would find people who would pay well for ready-made steel, aluminum, copper, you name it. The metals that ran the world were difficult to smelt in a normal apocalypse. They were at an even greater premium with gamified mechanics turning mines into monster spawns or worse. Junker didn't think it was worth the effort with the shell of the old world still surrounding the new. He wasn't the only one to think that, apparently, as he noticed there seemed to be several other groups rifling around the bridges into the city along the shorter buildings circling the edges of the two rivers. Squat neighborhoods far from up or downtown and the suburban islands weren't exactly safe but had better sight lines and escape routes. All that and a handful of crews dragging whatever useful bits of metal they found to red wagons and shopping carts.[break][break]

Each of these groups had one thing in common: there was always one person whose job it was to watch the haul. Everyone else in the group would walk into collapsing boroughs, ramshackle town houses, and holey two-story single family homes, except for the one person whose job it was to play watchman. The worst job of doing nothing while having to be completely alert.[break][break]

Even if it was the worst job for a group of scavengers they created the great scent of opportunity, apparently. There was, after all, just one watchperson you had to get the past to enjoy all the hard work of some weary group of none-the-wiser salvagers. Just one dude was all they had to deal with to make a big and easy, no hassle, pay day. There was only the problem of finding the right person who was left with the worst job and then yoinking their cart and making a mad dash or, perhaps, more surreptitiously depriving them of the best pieces of scrap.[break][break]

"Yuuup. Just thaaat easy."[break][break]

Junker was already upset. Considering the first person he'd seen that day that wasn't his "friend" thought the skateboard he'd been pushing everywhere all day shouldn't belong to him. It all the rare bit of luck he'd have in the day to find a skateboard that he could even roll around and it was gone just like that. Instead of a dynamic ride he had to push a crappy cart with a wheel that wouldn't bend into line and was missing its gate. Every couple of steps he had to use his knees to push the one or two other pieces of okay looking metal that they'd just happened past back into the cart.[break][break]

"What about that one?" He said after a long stretch of cart pushing. He pointed down the fractured road to a large woman standing over a chain of foldable bucket carts. There wasn't a full haul yet in those carts but enough for Junker to feel satisfied for a day's stealing.

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