The lines that formed in front of the Food Assistance Center were full of pitiful, haggard faces, their heads covered with hoodies and cerebral helmets even though the city was always warm. Transhumans, at least the ones who lived on the streets, were vilified as “scumbags” and “gangbangers” for their procurement of cheaper, less-stable implants. “Do they really think those helmets are going to give them any advantage?” Tyrius nodded at them, leaning back on the alley wall. “Not like they can compete with a neural enhancement.”

Clerents wanted to tell his friend that any kind of affordable mental enhancement was better than nothing, especially when the system was trying to keep them down by creating all kinds of new laws that prevented the poor from getting any leg up in the community. Instead Clerents decided to side with Tyrius, “Yeah, why do normies always reject trans upgrades? Some of these kids would be able to get out of this crappy neighborhood if they could get hamstring implants or iris optics.”

“Yeah,” Tyrius made a sour face and looked down for a moment. Clerents couldn’t decide if he was hungry or angry, or both.

“Let’s go find another place. Jocunda got any food stamps?”

“Nah.” said Tyrius. “She has three kids. She can barely keep them fed.”

It had become almost instinctual to see a discarded can on the ground and wonder if there were any morsels inside. But thanks to the recent layoffs there were too many cans and loose trash on the street to keep track of which ones they had checked. Clerents was conditioned to think of empty food containers as a food source. He was conditioned to dream of pastimes, on Earth when poverty and division weren’t so widespread, or had it? He couldn’t remember. Maybe things had always been the same. And maybe things would never change.

But it didn’t matter. They had to focus on food before they passed out. A man stepped out of the entrance of the Assistance Center, dressed better than the people waiting in line. “Over there.” Clerents nodded toward the man and ducked back into the alley. The man was walking fast, holding something under his arm.

Tyrius saw the normie and almost licked his lips. “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”

“He’s got some digital food tokens on him. Maybe that’s a distributer device he’s carrying.”

Tyrius already put his hood up and activated his tracking optics, his eyes turning red. “We’ll follow him to a quiet place. Jump him there.”

Clerents hesitated and thought about what his father would think if he knew his only son was considering attacking a Sector worker. How he would feel, being locked up for unauthorized implants, to know that Clerents would also be locked up, feeling alone, abandoned by society, and wrongfully charged with implants that were easily acquired by the rich. But it wasn’t entirely his fault for wanting food. Clerents had to do something if he wanted to survive. And that’s why he trailed slowly behind Tyrius, who had started following the worker.

The curvature of the Ringhorn space station made it difficult to follow the man without being seen but the two had visual distorting clothes and skin that allowed them to walk the squalid streets in shimmering camouflage. The worker was approaching 7th Street, where the transport tubes would take him back to uptown in Sector A.

“We take him now.” Tyrius whispered.

Clerents forgot he was invisible and nodded. He followed the shimmering, opaque shape in front of him, his friend, and watched as the worker was pulled into the alley between two buildings. The worker was tossed, by an invisible hand, into a pile of cans and ration containers. He reacted by throwing a rectangular device at his attackers.

“Who…?” shouted the worker.

“Relax, old man.” said Tyrius, still camo’d. “Sign over some of those food stamps and there won’t be any trouble.”

Clerents paced back and forth, looking over his shoulder. There was no one else around. He remembered one of the lines from his favorite rap song, “I try, I try to hide my pride. I keep it inside and stay on my stride. Cuz if I don’t, I might be denied my right to daylight. It’s none of my business, I ain’t no witness.” He rolled the words of Outsider-N-SD around his head, dwelling on what the rapper meant. Even though he was popular Outsider never really made it out of the gutters of Sector D. Clerents considered that maybe this was how it was supposed to be. That he was meant to be a criminal, that he was meant to starve, and suffer, and never afford good implants, and never be safe from crime or the involvement of it. That was indeed, none of his business.

He decided that he wasn’t going to be anything other than what he was born into. The thought made him want to rage. As Tyrius was shouting over the worker Clerents activated his hamstring implant through his iris interface and stomped the man in his chest.

The worker coughed up saliva and threw up his hands. He was clearly woozy with his eyes rolling back. “Stop. I thought all of you were supposed to be arrested.”

“What you say?” asked Tyrius.

“N-noth…” The worker’s head slumped back. He was struggling to stay alert. “The Transhuman Rights Act. You didn’t know? Anyone with implants that wasn’t sanctioned by Securoco is a criminal. Your criminals, whoever you are.”

“Not like they didn’t already label us criminals. They decided we were criminals before we even had implants, before the Ringhorn was even built. The line was drawn a long time ago.” Clerents could hear the anger in his own voice but he wasn’t sorry.

The worker, who seemed to have come out of his stupor and was about to stand, smiled a response, “You’re not the only one with implants, except mine are legal and called the police a few minutes ago.”

A shockwave went through Clerents’ body and his skin sporadically started to reappear. He gritted his teeth as the electricity of police stun guns pulsed and drove him to his knees, rendering him unconscious.

He awoke later in the back of a padded transport, happy to see his friend sitting next to him. But then the realization started setting in, that he was in serious trouble, and likely so were the others that were staring at him, all familiar faces. They were all from his block, they were all men. Generally, they were good men. Clerents saw Jay and nodded in recognition. Jay had never done a bad deed in his life but he did have muscle implants, cheap ones, to help with food supply trucks that donated to the food banks. He loved the community but Clerents assumed that wasn’t good enough for the rich and powerful, for the ones who made the laws.

The door to the padded wagon opened in the light of the street. Voices of shouting men and women could be heard in a deafening roar. Clerents saw the crowds of lined men and women being prodded through metal barricades. The hundreds of illegal transhumans were being led into a warehouse where they were presumably being booked. Their final destination would be prison and he knew he would be among them. At least he wouldn’t be alone.

He saw the worn expressions and saw what the automated security bots couldn’t, that they were tired, sickly and weak, their thin frames and empty eyes were no threat.

“So, this is it, huh? They divide us so they can round us up and put us in cages.” said Tyrius as they were led from the transports by bipedal bots.

But it wasn’t about division, was it? Clerents remembered Outsider, his lyrics and voice were imbued with the power of cheap vocal mods and neural enhancements. The people in charge, the lawmakers and the rich, could never achieve such talent or art without going through hard times, without suffering. They weren’t hateful, they were jealous. They wanted to have a monopoly on making money and now they finally found a way to do it, by seeding out the poor from the rich and removing them completely from society.

Tyrius’ expression went cold like it had in the alley while looking at the food stamp lines. He was going through a similar revelation and probably realized that it was helpless. He also saw what they were doing and how they did in the name of progress and law and order. But really, they were doing it for the same reason they do everything, why everyone does anything, for money and for the fear that others might make more of it.

Clerents and the others joined the line leading to the warehouses, their shoulders and necks down. What were they supposed to do? Fight? Run? This wasn’t their fight to win. The fight would need to come from within the rich and powerful. Only a change in their minds could affect change in the weak and powerless, in their struggles and segregation. Their entire perception of what was right and wrong had to change. Clerents watched his feet as they stepped forward and slowly started to give into despair. This was how it was supposed to be. The powerful needed to retain the status quo. For order. For peace. Forever and ever. Into the future, dictated from the past. As much as humans evolve, they will always stay the same.