â€œOf course,â€  Karr grinned widely, glad to be finally able to offer something decent to his newfound guest. â€œI've got bottled waterâ€”here you goâ€”but I think you'll like this better.â€<br/><br/>He sprang out of his seat and disappeared behind one of the massive boilers for a few moments.  When he returned, he carried two mismatched tin cups of steaming water.  He set them down carefully on the box, the cleaner cup in front of Lillith, and rummaged in his rations tin briefly.  He emerged with several brown paper packets labeled only in numbers.<br/><br/>â€œThis one's chocolate,â€  He passed it to her, â€œand this is orange.  I thinkâ€”I always get the orange and the herb one mixed up.  You just open them, like soâ€”â€œ  He pulled a plastic tab to demonstrate, â€œand dump in the contents.  It looks funny now, but it'll be really good in a minute.â€<br/><br/>He watched, a bit apprehensively, as she took her first sip of the concoction.<br/><br/>â€œProbably not what you're used to...â€  He felt the vague need to apologize, rubbing his hands on his trousers absently, â€œbut things are different here.  Of course, you've noticed...â€<br/><br/>He blanched a little at her tirade of questions, mentally trying to sort out his own thoughts.<br/><br/>â€œWell, I guess I ought to start at the beginning...  If you're from the same place as your Uncle, you probably don't knowâ€”what I'm trying to say, is you're in a different place now.  A different world.  Your Uncle came through years ago.  I met him the day he arrived.  I was just a kid at the time.  That was right before...â€  He paused uncertainly, eyes darting to the city through the glass, still glowing faintly with the echoes of the vanished sun.  â€œBefore the leaders got a hold of me.â€<br/><br/>Reaching down,  Karr tugged absently at his baggy shirt, pulling his left sleeve down over his wrist to hide the telltale brand that was all that remained from his last encounter with the guard.  Face reddening with shame, he hurried on.<br/><br/>â€œAs for the cyborgs... That's kind of where the trouble started.  The guards started using the facial replication technology first...  it gives the robots the ability to look like humans, but that's just the AI at work to mess with our heads.  They can look like anyoneâ€”one of us, one of them.  They used these cyborgs to put down anyone who dared to speak against them.  They started making rules, enforcing them more severely.  The city was already in a bad way, and when the cyborgs started thinking on their own... it turned into a warzone.  We don't know when it started.  It could have been at any point, reallyâ€”they looked like the leaders, the guards.  They were leaving on their own.  By the time we recognized the danger, the city was in chaos.â€<br/><br/>Karr turned regretful eyes to the windows once more, where the skeletal frames of the once-mighty high-rises cast eerie shadows against the sky.<br/><br/>â€œEdisonâ€”your Uncleâ€”he saw it coming, of course.  He tried to tell us, and some of us were prepared.  I was, as much as I could have been, I guess.  But most of the people here thought he was being paranoid.  Irrational.â€<br/><br/>Turning for the first time to gauge Lillith's reaction to everything he was telling her, Karr hesitated.  â€œHow much exactly<span style="font-style: italic">do</span>you know about your Uncle?â€