Plans

This might be the 26th century, by many things are still the same as the 21st century he was from. That included food, though a few things in them have changed such as; the ingredients and tastes. The names still of many food and beverages still remain the same and they did their best to get the taste the same, but things change obviously.

That said, Hugo was stilling outside next to his bike leaning against a broken wall of a destroyed house finishing his breakfast. A lovely roll of soft pancakes, with crispy bacon and fluffy eggs in the center all in a wrapper. He had all three with a cup of hot coffee.

"Truly satisfying." Nodding his head as he washed down the last food with his coffee that was now no longer hot.

Wiping his hand and mouth, Hugo, stood up and got on his bike. He wanted to explore a bit and check out some spots he remembered in his memories. Because while eating an idea came to him and he was willing to have a look.

Leaving Iron city was all great and all, but it was very dangerous. He was nothing but a meat boy to basically anyone that had cybernetics. And his organs are worth a lot if he was captured by criminals out there in the Badlands before integrating with his powers. So he remembered that big cyborg, that little pawn that belonged to Nova, not Vector but Grewishka.

Just before the fight that tore Alita apart that she soon was in her Berserker body, Grewishka was doing his monologue like a third-rate villain. That monologue revealed some information, mentioning the underworld.

This made him think if he could find the paths and perhaps a map of the way down there he might just go deep enough and find a proper place where he could begin.

'That settles it then, am heading to the underworld. The chances of dying thereby being killed by a bounty are significantly less than down there. Of course, if I do get into an accident down there it might be front-falling trash and stuff. Luckily if that happens, my little package would unwrap itself and begin the process, so it seems having a boulder fall on me is better than being could by creeps that want my organs.' Mussing slightly at this Hugo finally decided on his plan of action.

First, he drove to his place and found the secret place where he hid all of his saved-up cash. It was useless to leave it anyway as the story about going to Zalem was a lie. And the only way up was in pieces, so it was better to spend the cash in a place that would develop him and his future.

Then he headed out after pocketing more than 200 000 credits, as he headed out to his bike, Hugo searched in his memories and that he might previously encounter that might have come from the underworld that was not bloodthirsty and deranged.

'There is that old guy by the Scrapyard, hmm, what is his name again, was it Sticky Joe or Steve Jonah? Eh! I'll stick with Sticky Joe. I have heard rumors that he also grew up down there. For an old guy like him, he must have tons of knowledge of that place.' With a clear idea, he rode off towards his destination.

It was still morning, the people still kept moving about, buying, selling, or just walking about from place to place. Soon he was in the areas of the Scrapyard. The populace had dropped greatly in these parts. From here he could see heaps of trash that had fallen from Zalem, and looking up, he was directly below the great sky city. And it was colossal, to say the least, it was just a marvel to behold.

'Sigh, if I had arrived here more than 300 years ago, I would have stopped that battle by handing over Nova's head to the URM. Just seeing this, the world must have been very beautiful back then and such wonders that I could have explored and enjoyed.' With that sad thought out of the way, Hugo parked his bike near a broken church close by the Scrapyard and dismounted.

Walking towards it, he saw a few people walking in and out of the place, he then got close enough that he heard the rumble of machines that were sorting out the heaps so as to arrange the trash into different heaps instead of a single huge one.

The other noise was from the vent, the large broken pipe in the center bottom of Zalem. Looking at it he saw pieces of trash fall out of it, this happened in the morning and afternoon, and different types of trash fell down every day.

'I wonder if I can find her, though I doubt it as she might be very deep in there, she was only found by Doc Ido by luck too. I'll try my luck after am done with my integration, with my Cosmic Awareness toned down I bet it will be large enough to cover this place and find her easily.'

Looking around, Hugo tried to locate either Sticky Joe himself or the regulars of this place. At the moment the ones he could see were the ones he was unfamiliar with, so he walked deeper and carried on. About 15 minutes of searching he was able to find some of the people that he was acquainted with, and after asking them about Sticky's location he was soon headed deeper following their directions.

After a couple of turns here and there past a few trash heaps, he saw the back of the old man, he had a dusty old coat that lost its original color, some patched up pants that covered one leg as one of his legs was a mismatch of parts that made up is cyber leg and a pair of worn-out boots. And lastly a wool hat, in the same condition as the rest of his clothing.

It seemed like he was busy diving through the trash to notice Hugo, as Hugo just stood there for a minute watching him, not knowing exactly how to approach the old man. But that didn't matter anymore.

"Well, kid how long are you going to be standing there watching me. I got nothing on me that you can take that is valuable. So if you are not going to say anything, get lost." An old hoarse voice called out and broke Hugo out of his deep thoughts.

He looked in surprise at the old man and wondered how he could have noticed him from this distance of 30 m, but he placed that to cybernetic enhancements or perhaps experience. Otherwise, how would he have lived for so long in this dog-eat-dog world.

"Ah, sorry there it's just that I have been looking to meet you all day and wondered if I could take your time and ask you something," Hugo said as he walked closer to the old man with boy's hands stretched out to show that he had no weapon or meant harm.

To his reply, the old man turned around and Hugo saw his face like in the memories, both eyes had been replaced with cyber parts, making him look like he had aviator goggles. A dusty and dirty white beard covered the rest of his face, and there was a scar that ran from one cheek to the other and above his nose.

"Oh yeah? What might it be that you want to know from this old man kid?" Sticky Joe asked harshly as his yellow and green teeth bared at the youth in front of him.

"You see; I have been very curious about the underworld, it intrigued me, to be honest, and thought that I might as well ask around about it, so I came to a conclusion that it was best to ask the ones that have knowledge about the place, and you came into mind," Hugo replied, more truth than lies.

This made the old man frown deeply, causing his face that was already misshapen to look even worse. Perhaps the memories of the place, or just him looking so when he was in deep thought.

But either way, Hugo had to press and convince the old man, there weren't other people that he could go and search around for, as the longer, he wasted time the more he was in danger of losing his life. This place looked harmless, life people were just living their lives on the daily to meet ends meet. But for one who watched the movie, he knew that there were undercurrents that could sweep the current meat bag him away.

"Look, how about you give me something, anything that you have about the underworld and I pay you, a simple transaction. What do you say?" Hugo quickly threw in the mention of money to the old man and see what his reaction would be.