The After Market bustled to life at dusk in the wake of the usual trade day, stretching like a cat. Skittish like one, too, always skulking around the underbellies of cities with both eyes peeled. Sandwiched between the dreary hours of dusk and witching hour. In daylight, the degrading cities were pocked with markets and passing caravans. Civilians and merchants traded amongst each other. Food, clothes, trinkets, medicines, passed from hand to hand. But things got used up or worn down, and there were precious few people left with the skills to make new supplies. More now than there had been at the peak of the starvation years, but not sufficient to keep up with demand, yet.

That was where scavengers and the After Market vendors came in. They went places no one else was willing to go, they took things no one else was willing to take, and as long as they were quiet about it, nobody turned up any noses when fresh material appeared in the trade stream.

Almost nobody.

True narrowed their eyes at a medic symbol, the sign of the Red Faction, spray-painted to the face of a crumbled garden wall. The red paint had drooled down the brick in places, whoever had plastered it there had held the spray can too close to the surface. Those things were getting uncomfortably close to the After Market.

All are welcome. Read a line of oozy paint under the symbol.

Except scavengers, True corrected it in their head as they passed by. A factioneer would sooner catch black lung than offer their medical service to a scavenger.

It was less of a rumour and more of an open secret that the Red Faction abhorred scavenging and thought everyone else should, too. It was dirty. Yeah, well, the dead weren't complaining and there were way more corpses than factioneers to defend them. Though Faction presence had been infiltrating deeper into the prairies the past few months. Deeper into True's territory.

Must be nice, True thought, to have the food and clothing to consider the After Market optional.

Five blocks later, they ducked down a narrow alley and emerged in a tiny paracosm of dozens of ramshackle merchant stalls. Sickly kerosene lights offered the bare minimum visibility, the tiny flames wavering in anticipation of being extinguished at the first sign of trouble. True's shoe sole sk-flped carelessly in the wind. Their loot bag, now retrieved from deep inside their pack and fastened to their belt, bounced on their thigh. Hushed conversation hummed in the air, a dull buzz in True's ear. Most people tried to keep the noise down, what with it being a secret black market and all, but there were simply too many people for it to be quiet.

After an age and a half sk-flping though the lean After Market crowd, they made it to the vendor they'd come for. Finally. They crouched, and, popping back up, strode to the makeshift counter. Their boots hit the pressboard with a resounding thunk, mud flaked off onto the tired cloth. Before the last flake had drifted to its resting place, the vendor had peeked once, twice, her beady eyes locked onto them, at once gleaming with fury.

"You get those mucky atrocities off my table, True." She descended on them with a hawkish sneer, shoving the boots off. True snagged them before they hit dirt. They paused while the scavengers the vendor had been chatting up figured out how to shut their gaping maws.

"I need new ones," they said, dropping the boots back on the counter.

"Too bad," the vendor snapped, spittle flying from her gummy mouth. Fixing them with a glower, she pushed the boots off and turned back to rescue her conversation with her other patrons. Unfazed, True drew the dentures from their sack and set them on the counter, hard. The fake teeth clacked. It worked like a charm. The vendor's ears practically twitched. True lifted their hand, giving her a good look at their prize, and waited out her routine feigning of disinterest. She sucked her lone, grey front tooth, producing a sort of squeaky wet fart noise as any part of her lip not supported by the tooth flapped. Then, continued her conversation. But True saw the way her check quivered from the effort of not snatching up those shiny new teeth.

"Galya," they said. She pointedly ignored them and gummed the inside of her hollow cheek. True smirked. They had her. Pocketing the dentures, they waited for the other customers to wander away with their own goods traded and pocketed.

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You're a shit barterer, True."

"I get what I need," True replied. Knocking their old boots, they grumbled, "hurry up, it's too cold for bare feet."

It was Galya's turn to snicker. Thin lips stretched into a shrewish pretense of a grin.

"Gimme those chompers."

"Boots first."

Her withered head ducked under the counter, where she made a show of shuffling her crates of junk around. As if size ten shoes were hard to find.

Fog began to roll in, choking out the flickering lamps. A pair strolled by, scavengers, judging by the size of their packs. One too tall, too pale, and with a delicate bone structure at odds with their enormous muscled stature. The other scavenger was more compact, with darker colouring and a streak of white sprouting from her forehead. It could have been the dim, unreliable light, but both scavengers looked clean. A revelation that made True take a second gander. Sure, they both had limp, greasy hair and stained clothes, but where was the permadirt that outlined every crease on everyone else?

The shorter one scanned True once and again with suspicious eyes. Lingering first on their bare feet, then on their bandana. True let her catch their glare and held it until she leaned into her partner and muttered something. Nosy bastards. They adjusted their bandana.

"Pay up." Galya dropped her ware on the counter, rattling the unstable construct. Dismayed, True picked up the lone, brown work boot by its frayed laces.

"Where's the other?"

"That's all I have." She splayed her fingers, palms up, as if to say 'what can ya do.'

"Bull," True grumbled, "the dentures are worth more than a pair. I'm giving you the best trade you'll get all month and you're ripping me off,"

Galya scoffed. Fuming, True flung the boot at her and stalked away. She invariably found a way to take advantage of them.

"Where ya goin' in bare feet, nutbag?" Galya shouted after them.

"To trade with a hag who won't cheat me!"

"Nobody else wants your dirty stolen dentures."

"Wanna bet?" They stuck a middle finger high for her to see. Of course, they kept finding reasons to wander through her city. She never stared, she didn't flirt, and she'd been a vendor as long as True had been a scavenger, which was to say, long enough to be familiar. They made it a few more good strides before Galya called again.

"I'll give you licorice."

True slowed to a stop. They tongued the point of their canine, daring to waffle. The crowd creeped in on their unmoving body.

"I got a whole bag," crowed Galya.

A few stomps later and they were back at her counter.

"At least give me one that matches my other boot."

Galya pulled an old, crumpled chip bag from the depths of her bottomless apron pockets and laid it on the cloth beside the boot.

"Don't got any others in your size," she said. Swiping the licorice, True tossed the dentures overhand.

"This is extortion."

Galya snatched the dentures from the air. "Pick words you can pronounce."

"Bitch."

"Yeah, like that one."

Yanking on their newly mismatched boots, True tromped off into the fog and unwashed bodies to trade the rest of their harvest to someone who would afford them the usual ogling and pinched lips instead of Galya's overfamiliar bullying. She never failed to ruffle their feathers, like they were a damn chicken. Stupid extortionist vendor.

"True!"

They ignored her.

"You look skinny, eh? Come back more often so I know you don't starve."

They turned back one last time to touch their fingertips to their head. That stupid extortionist vendor also happened to be the closest thing to a friend True had left.

No more sk-flp at least.