The Edge of Hell

It had been countless days trekking across some of the most forsaken territory Mars had until they'd reached Oracle. It'd taken everything they'd scavenged from town before leaving to barter just information from people on where to go. Jantar Cross was used to a barter economy back at the mining camp but everyone she met insisted on credits, scanned or hard currency - of which she had neither.

But they'd survived, barely. Had they not managed to catch a few wild critters along the way - whatever they were - they'd surely of died from starvation. They'd drank the last of their water 2 days ago and could feel the effects hitting them already. They knew to enter from the north, in the slums, since they didn't have papers or credits to bribe passage into the city proper.

And so here they were, looking at squalor as far as the eye could see. People lived in shacks worse than even the poorest she'd ever seen back at the camp. She saw people digging through garbage and not looking much different than the garbage they were digging through. She immediately began to regret the decision to come to Oracle. But what other options did they have?

The camp was in ruins. They were outcasts and not likely to get hired on at any other camp and she didn't want that sort of life for the two of them anymore anyway. Oh... the two of them...

She looked over at her brother who stood staring, gawking more correctly, at everything he saw. You'd think he was a kid watching a prompter of some mindless animation and not staring at dilapidated shacks and human excrement. Tars was a sweet kid. She always had to think of him that way even though he wasn't much younger than she was. He was though a good 9 inches taller and 75 pounds of pure muscle heavier. But inside all that muscle was the mind of a child. A child she had to protect.

First things first... survival. Water, shelter, food, and jobs... in that order.