Railen was louder than Ashe had anticipated. That was the first thing that struck her, even before the smell or the overwhelming amount of visual detail that came to her from every direction. Voices mixed with the sound of mechanisms she couldn't always see, but could feel through the noise around her. She moved through it slowly, careful not to obstruct the busy activity all around her.
The place could only be described as a kind of market. Tents stretched out in rows, each one patched with different materials and illuminated by lighting of different shades. Between them, stalls occupied almost all available space, with goods scattered in an unorganized manner.
People moved through them without much care, rushing toward their next destination, haggling over goods or calling out to one another across the noise. It was just another busy day for them. Their clothing was similar to what she had seen on the scavengers near the facility a while back. Layered fabrics, worn close to the body and fixed in place with a combination of belts and bands. Some of the faces in the crowd had elaborate markings in the form of dark geometric lines along the cheekbones or across the bridge of the nose, others had strange haircuts that made them stand out in Ashe's mind, although she was fairly certain they were quite ordinary here.
She watched them because she had nothing else to compare herself against. That was what she was really doing, she realized, as she moved between the stalls without any particular destination. She was searching. She was studying every face, every piece of clothing and every sound she encountered, hoping that something, anything at all, might make her remember.
Fragments of conversation drifted past her. Names of places she didn't know. Complaints about supply, about weather, about someone who hadn't shown up when they were supposed to. Ordinary things.
But then, through all that noise, the word "drip" surfaced. She remembered the scavengers back at the facility using it as well just before they had beaten her and taken the capsules from the back of her suit. The word clearly referenced something that had currency here.
As she followed the trail of the conversation, her gaze settled on a partially lit gap between two buildings set slightly under the shadows of a terrace. Three men stood there at close range trying to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. By the looks of it, an exchange was taking place. She could see the faint blue glow of the items passing between them before they disappeared into one of the coats. And she recognized that glow without any difficulty at all. It was similar to the glow emitted by the capsules retrieved from her suit. Ashe knew they couldn't have been the same items, but she was still drawn to understand what they were.
By the time she had registered all of this, it was already over. The three men separated and moved in different directions, absorbed back into the crowd within seconds.
She followed the one who had received the items, not with any clear plan in mind, maybe only hoping that proximity might at least give her a better look. Suddenly though, he turned abruptly and before she could react at all, he walked straight into her shoulder. He didn't stop. He turned his head slightly and snapped, "Hey, watch it!" then vanished into the crowd without waiting for a response.
Ashe stood still for a moment and watched the area where he had been. She was beginning to understand the nature of this place.
Then something else pulled her attention sideways. It was a shop, smaller than those around it, set slightly backwards from the main row. It had only an opening that exposed its contents to whoever happened to walk past. Most of what sat inside was mechanical. They were pieces of dismantled equipment arranged across several surfaces, tubes, coils of wire, small metal placards engraved with markings Ashe couldn't read.
She almost didn't see it at first among all those trinkets, but partially buried under a coil of cable, something was moving. As she stepped closer and looked, she immediately recognized the branching filaments which occupied what appeared to be a sealed compartment built into a device. The filaments were moving slowly but they were unmistakable to her who had seen a walker's core for the first time that very same day. They were dimmer here compared to the ones aboard the walker, and the structure itself looked damaged in several places, but the glow in them was still alive and remarkable.
She reached out slowly, drawn to them in a way she couldn't explain. The filaments responded before her fingers made any contact at all, drifting gently toward her and glowing through some of the nodes.
"You interested in that?"
Ashe drew her hand back suddenly and turned. A heavy man was crossing the floor of the shop toward her, wearing the wide smile of a merchant who had just spotted a customer.
"Old piece of junk, but it still runs," he announced with much confidence. "Yours for ten units. What do you say?"
Ashe took a step back.
"Eight," he said immediately, reading her movement as a commercial tactic rather than an actual retreat.
"No, thank you," she said, and turned, pressing herself back into the crowd before he could respond at all. She did hear him behind her beginning a new sentence, but the noise swallowed it quickly and she was glad to let it.
She moved without a particular direction for a while after that, letting the crowd carry her along its path. At some point someone bumped into her as they passed and a voice said "Get out of the way, girl!" but she never saw who it belonged to. She moved aside automatically, pulled back into the current of people moving until she eventually found a place beside the wall of a building nearby. She lowered herself against it until she was crouching, then pressed her palms over her ears. The noise didn't disappear entirely but it became more manageable that way. She watched the people moving past and let herself breathe.
Then, suddenly, she saw something. Someone.
He was on the other side of the path, which meant there were people walking between them at all times, creating a moving wave that made seeing anything through it very difficult. But through those gaps she could indeed distinguish the shape of a boy. He looked to be around ten years old, perhaps a little younger, standing without moving in the middle of a space that everyone around him seemed to move through without difficulty. He was looking directly at her. His hair was white, almost the same shade as her own, and his clothes were unlike those of everyone around him. They were simpler but somehow more sophisticated at the same time. He didn't carry anything, his hands were visible at his sides, and his posture was very calm.
Ashe looked at him directly until he finally smiled at her. The smile was small and gentle and it lingered for what felt like half a minute. During that time she found herself trying to understand it, trying to decide how to respond, but before she could do any of that, he turned away and started walking.
"Hey!" Ashe shouted as she realized she was about to lose him in the crowd. "Wait!"