Rudy was...stuck.  In a bit of a bad way.  And things had seemed so promising, too...picking up a degree from the local university (it helped when it wasn't all that expensive to begin with, you got a discount because your Dad worked for the university, and the extra bells and whistles that people often tried to stick on were a flat 'no'), and while the housing market crashing did hurt a lot of people's job prospects, Rudy was young enough that he had still been in high school when it happened, and figured the market would sort itself out by the time he had graduated.  And it did...sort of.  The problem with the recovery was that it was sluggish (reasons he heard varied, needless to say, they all involved the blame of the action or inaction of other parties), and hadn't quite reached his city (too big to be a town, not big enough to be a metropolis) by the time he had graduated.<br/><br/>So he'd taken a job as a clerk in Shipping and Receiving at one of those Big-Box Stores (which now seemed to be struggling more than ever, what with the advent of Amazon and home delivery services), and had waited for an opportunity to break out.  Which had never come.  Rudy just...there was no opportunity for him to make it out of his situation.  Not without having to move back into the basement and thus earn the ire of his parents who<em>really</em>didn't understand a damn thing about the world today.  Still, you had to take your perks where you could get them, right?  And being one of the late-day guys (let's face it, deliveries<em>never</em>get there before noon), when he was done for the day, he could go to any of the places nearby and have a coffee and sandwich before going home.<br/><br/>Looking out the window of the tiny coffeeshop he was sitting in, he noticed something strange.  A girl in one of those steampunk-y dresses, with an umbrella to nearly match.  Sure, he knew of it, and Rudy was a little surprised at seeing her, but it was a sort of dull surprise.  No, what really got his attention was that she saw him...and then started running.  What?  Running?  From him?  They'd never met before, not as far as he knew...well, these were already paid for, so Rudy got up from his seat, headed out the door, and started to chase after her...