The Gand lowered the weapon with short lived patience, and then continued running through the slowly walking mass of pedestrians on the street. Truz took his time getting up, rubbing the bulges on the back of his head with his hand. He was puzzled about the Gand, and he was puzzled as to why he was in such a hurry. But foremost, he was tired and hungry and would soon forget the incident.

He continued walking left, the crowd shifting about him. The brushing and closeness of the bodies around him made Truz feel awkward, it was nothing like Rodia. He flung his sack over his right shoulder again, and looked at the ground as he walked to avoid eye contact with the pedestrians.

Eventually, there was a turn street. And as Truz lifted his head to see the street, he noticed it was a dead end. He would have to get used to this sight, because it had become home. At the end of the street was a dark cylindrical building, perhaps twenty levels high, the dim blurry reflections of the many neon lights painted its sides. To its sides, lesser buildings stood, clad in their own neon advertisements and slogans.

After standing for a moment in observation, Truz began to slowly approach the dreadfully average edifice. His Rodian eyes couldn't properly portray the suspicion in his glancing observations. He stopped for a moment, removed his blaster from his sack, put it at his wait and returned his sack over his shoulder. He knew he only had three shots left, but he began to believe he might be using all three soon. He started to panic inside, but kept telling himself "I'm going to have to get used to this place."

He reached the door without being shot, maimed, mugged, or otherwise harmed. To Truz, it was a miracle. He entered the front door into a circular room. The elevator was in the center of the room, and around it, like a ring, were doors. The panels were a light blue sheen, however the corners where the walls met the ceiling or the floor were outlined with rust and crud. It was the beginning of the end for the aesthetic sense of the building.

There was nobody in the corridor, except for a hunched over Skrilling with a large cleaning device. He was stout, his skin a grayish blue tone. His many snouts were somewhat swollen, but this was common for Skrillings. His bald head and small, beady black eyes gave the illusion that he was anatomically spherical. Below the neck, this illusion was disproved by his stocky frame and bulky figure. He was wearing an aging olive colored suit with a sickly orange lining. The device he was carrying was a primitive scrubbing and polishing device, designed to be operated by a life form and not a droid. It was an archaic machine.

The apparatus was making a screaming mechanical noise, which was tearing into Truz' ears. When the Skrilling noticed Truz' presence, however, he turned the machine off and a calming silence fell onto Truz like a refreshing splash of water after a hunt on Rodia. The Skrilling asking in a bubbly, raspy voice "Traz, right?"

"Yes, I'm Truz. From Rodia, I am sorry I came late, you see I had to catch this shuttle and…"

"Fine, fine, Traz, whatever you say. You should talk to the boss. Go ahead and take the elevator up to the top floor. I'm sure he's prepared to have you. No worries"

Truz had met his new understanding of hospitality. It wasn't home yet, but he knew in time he would be able to appreciate such greetings. Truz approached the circular elevator, and before entering it, turned back for a moment, and looked back at the Skrilling. "Oh, and then who are you?"

"Pilt Tropskun," he said with a light grin. "Nice to meet you."

His tone and accent of basic made Truz' seem like another language. Perhaps the lingual bringger of unity of the galaxy wasn't such a great idea. It was audible, though, and he seemed to understand Truz fine.

Truz turned back and entered the elevator. It was a tight space, surely unable to carry more than three average sized bodies in it. The elevator was archaic, it could easily pass for twice the age of the building. On the side, lined in basic, were the numers of the floors with their corresponding buttons, one through eighteen. The button for the ninth floor has seemed to have fallen out, and been replaced by a protruding white peg. Truz hit the button for the eighteenth floor.

When he arrived, the elevator opened into a cluttered office with a desk in the center, covered with papers. Behind the desk was a Skakoan who seemed to be preoccupied with sorting his desk. His body was covered by a body pressure suit, to allow him to survive in this atmosphere. His eyes were covered by lenses, his body by chrome shells that seemed divide his body into a trapezoidal head, cubic body, and cone shaped leggings. The pressure suit seemed to be of poorer quality than those of the Skakoans who Truz had heard about that were part of the CIS. No, this skakoan was nearly as ornate but rather quite average.

The Skakoan turned a dial on his chest while emitting a squaling, high pitched sound. Truz cringed from the noise and stepped back a bit, holding his arms up as if they could block the noise. Shortly after the moment's screech, the figure asking in a deep, metallic tone "Is this tone alright?"

"Yes, yes it's fine," replied Truz. "You must be Ordo Ves. You're the one I spoke to on the communicator, right?"

"Indeed. In a gang?"

"Excuse me?"

"Are you in a gang. It is a simple question that expects a simple answer, are you part of a gang?"

"Oh, no. Should I be?"

"No. Just making sure. I do not allow gang members in these apartments. Too much fuss, those gang members. Always making noise, making a mess, killing tenants. You know, there are gang wars going on in this neighborhood. Be warned, it isn't safe outside. It isn't even safe for my business"

"Oh, well, thank you, I suppose. So, do I pay you now? Or…"

"Yes, please. Put your credits down on that end of the desk. Your room is 903, down on the ninth floor. Here is your keycard."

Truz took the keycard and back into the elevator. He slowly pushed the broken, white pin with the suction cup at the end of his finger, and stepping back in apprehension. To his surprise, the makeshift replacement worked. The doors closed, and the elevator took him down onto the ninth floor.

As the doors opened, he noticed a hallway much like the one on the basement floor, however this one had not been scrubbed in a long while. The door directly in front of him read "901". He used intuition to move two doors down, to "903". Inserting his keycard, the door opened and Truz waited in anticipation to see his new home.

There it was. An empty space, boldly lined with a scorched brown mold. The light was dim, and there was a leak in the corner of the ceiling, dripping down making a trail of dirty water from the corner to the door. And that was it. In disappointment, Truz turned around and planned to walk outside until he was so tired he actually wanted to sleep on the cold ground of his tiny apartment.

As he turned back he knocked into a Quarren who had just walked out of his apartment. The Quarren pulled out his blaster, exclaiming "Watch where you walk, bug face!"

Déjà vu.