Cities in general are synonymous with opportunities. A place where one can rise from his place in society with enough motivation and cunning. With time and preparation, a street rat could become as rich as Croesus… if you believe the stories.

Alas, therein lie the problem. They are just that, stories.

If Night city taught me one thing, it's that your place on the social ladder won't change without luck or selling your soul. This ladder was not sold with the steps after all.

While most of night city lower class people were orphans, I had the fortune to know my parents before their untimely death. I cherish the few memories and possession I still had from them and I know how privileged I was compared to the rest.

My pa was a good if somewhat simple man from France, he fled the ravaged country as a stowaway and, lured by false promises, came to work in night city. He did not talk much about those times, the only thing he said was that night city was safer and now that I think about it, it's kind of scary to imagine somewhere more dangerous than night city.

My ma was, what I learnt later, called a street rat. A child that grew up in the streets of night city. She also did not speak of her past, before she met my dad. Her stare when I first asked her was enough of an answer.

They met in a bar and decided that life together was better than alone in the dangerous storm that was the life in night city. I was their happy little accident as mom liked to call her pregnancy.

With all the baggage they had, it's amazing how loving they were. I knew they were not perfect but they tried and honestly I could not have asked for better parents. They loved me, I loved them.

My childhood was not remarkable, if anything I could be used as a baseline for normal.

When I was twelve, they bought an old building in Watson and opened a small store. I sometime helped them and while my 'Pa took care of the most physical part of the shop, Ma took care of the expenses. They worked well together.

I can say today that I those were the happiest time in my life. I vividly remember my father playfully stroking my hairs, thanking me for stoking the shelves or my mother giving me juice when I finished helping her fill the easiest papers.

Good times indeed.

Sadly, like night city teach all of her children, life is a tragedy. On a cold morning, a thief decided to make a stop in our small shop. It was not the first time nor would it be the last. It was night city after all. This time though? He did not leave quietly. He was displeased at the few eddies we had and tried to have his way with my mother when he spotted her. My father went to stop him and the ganger opened fire on both. 'til this day, I still can't understand why he did it. While all this happened I hid myself as my mother told me to do.

When I mustered the courage to come out of my hiding place, I was scared. Both my parents were laying on the floor, blood pooling around them. I tried to wake them, I really tried, but fate is a cruel mistress and I was left orphaned at the tender age of twelve. After what felt like an eternity, The NCPD finally arrived, alerted by neighbours about a possible shooting. They did nothing but take my parents bodies for "evidences".

At the time, I expected them to take me in some kind of program and lose everything my parents built but luckily they did not care about me or anything really, they took a couple of pictures, asked for the cameras footages and left.

I was left to take care of a shop, barely a teenager, alone in the dark city that is night city.

The first few years were hard. I had to learn everything my parents did and did not have time to teach and use a gun.

I made a lot of mistake at first but like they said, experience is the cure to everything. Sending the commands, paying the invoices, filling taxes… I had so many things to take care of… I ended up paying children, read street rats, to help me with the front. It accomplished two things, first I had 'protection' from thieves in the form of my new friends and seconds, I got a nice reputation as someone who paid well and always gave a fair shake.

The gun training was harder in my opinion. One of the older street rat, an edgerunner helped me and even gave me an old Orverture he no longer used. God it had a mean recoil. In the end, I was good enough to protect myself but that was it.

Time passed, things more or less stayed the same with gangs fighting for territory and edgerunners trying to be next Morgan Blackhand.

It was a surprisingly peaceful time. Usually shop keeper live a short life as my parent's and many other fates would show yet I managed to reach my forties and my health was good enough to maybe live until my sixties.

This good fortune may also be attributed to the street rats protecting the place.

Apparently, few care to buy or sell to street rats. Add to that the fair lodging I provide and my place became some kind of neutral ground. As neutral as a place in night city can be really.

Also, much to my annoyance, the place I rented them became some kind of hangout for them. They transformed the cave in a movie room and the first floor did not become a bar. Sure they shared alcohol and people could pay to have more but I absolutely was not a bar. I would never admit it was, I knew nothing and I'd never buy the licence to make it 'legal'.

Amusingly, all those kids and people began to tell me rumours and stories of the happening in night city. I, a shop keeper, ended up knowing more about night city than anyone save the corpos but they are cheating with all their monitoring gadgets and spies.

Life was good.