I pulled on my jacket and pushed the glass doors of Violet's apartment complex open. I walked outside and took in the smell of pollution-filtered air and the dry, bitter, taste the process left behind. I stepped onto the pavement and it illuminated under my feet some ten metres in either directions. It was all so familiar but at the same time, I couldn't quite match the names to what I was seeing. The road markings glowed a dull white under the fading light of the early night where a dense fog settled in the narrow street, forced in between the towering apartment blocks. I gazed down the street, tracing the outline of the interrupting building with my eyes as it silhouetted itself against the soft light of the city centre. The soft whistle of a distant highway filled the otherwise deathly still street. “Roland, what the hell do you think you're doing?” Violet asked, pulling a coat on as she stepped out into the cold, night air. “What do you mean?” I asked. “What do you mean, what do I mean? Curfew is enforced rather… Heavily in these parts of town,” she said, glancing around the strangely empty street. “Scared of a few cops?” I joked, “Come on. We'll slip by on the subway, get into the city center in no time. There's no curfew there, right?” “What for? You've been out of bed all of twelve hours, get some sleep and we'll go wherever it is you want to go in the morning.” She dug her hands deep into her coat pockets and spun around, beginning her walk back into the apartment complex. “La Republique isn't open during the day.” I said, butchering the French, “I'm not making you come with.” She turned back around, pulling down hard with her hand pocketed hands as she conceded defeat, “Alright, fine. But I'm only coming with you because, A, you will probably pass out on the way there and B, you'll get picked up by a drone before you cross the street without me.” she pulled a small black box out of her pocket and threw it at me. I caught it, “What is it?” “It's a bit of hardware I threw together, it'll convince the drone's RFID that you are James Webb, Ekida software technician and you have priority rights to be out on the streets at night.” “What about you, and how do you even know it'll work?” she looked at me, almost insulted that I would dare doubt her. “You do know who I work for, right? I wrote half the software those drones are running. Back doors don't come cheap though, you owe me one… Or five.” But I didn't know that, I barely knew who she was. All I had was her word on the matter and the fact I woke up in her house. Quadcopter drones buzzed through the cramped city streets of the central business district, occasionally stopping to scan passersby. Steam wafted up from the drains, now an antiquated holdover from a bygone era. The streets were crowded with the poor and those with just enough money to keep up the facade that they didn't struggle for rent week to week. I had only a vaguest idea of where Republique was located, and the weaving streets flanked by towering high rises only confounded matters. “Do you even know where you're going?” Violet finally said after our second lap of the same parking garage. “Not entirely, do you?” “Of course not, you know I don't get involved with your business.” There it was again, 'you know', but I don't know. I really couldn't remember a thing past my name and the general state of affairs in this sorry city. “Business?” I asked, acting as if I knew what she meant by it. “Well, you know,” she glanced around, fixing her gaze on a nearby hovering drone. I looked at it and for a moment, locking eyes with the blacked out camera dome. I turned back around, dismissing it with a wave of my hand and it seemed satisfied, buzzing off to harass the next bystander. “You don't remember?” Violet asked, stepping closer and throwing another glance to the drone, “You don't… remember much, do you?” “No,” I admitted, “not really.” “Now really isn't the time or place to be filling in memories, especially on the topic of the not-at-all-legal.” she looked around again, this time eyeing off a nearby parked car, attempting to look through the blacked out windows. “Do you know how to get to this place or not?” “Potentially, I'm fairly confident it's down one of these alleys.” “Fairly confident,” she repeated sarcastically. “Give us a break, I was in a coma for some days.” “Weeks.” Violet quickly corrected. “Weeks?” “You were out for several weeks, well, months...” “Months! When were you going to tell me that?” “I figured you could read the date on a newspaper!” she cried out in defence. “I can, it's just you might have the decency to tell me something like that!” I snapped back. She looked at me apologetically. “Let's just find the place, right?” I said finally, taking a step forwards to see the same building I had passed a few minutes earlier. I turned around and was faced with a similar sight. “Damn it,” I cursed. I looked up at the wall of concrete that formed the front of one of the many archaic skyscrapers. Blazing red neon hit me in the face as the lights on the side of the building etched out the word La Republique.