Criminal she'd escaped Lupa dodging charges

... maybe in some trouble with the law. I don't think she told my dad much about it"

"Ya, that's what the records say, look rats tend to get involved in crime. She was a dime a dozen petty thief. Most kin just assume you guys are thieves on sight, probably unfair or something but you're going to get treated like shit and your family history isn't going to help if I were you I'd just go home."

"But my University admission"

"Not a lot of rats in higher learning not much chance for you missy, but whatever prove people wrong I guess. Just telling you how it is." He dismissively tosses you back your passport, "you don't really need that now you're a citizen with clan affiliation since the change but that's a rat bureaucracy issue not mine, so getouta here"

You make your way back on the bus for the short trip across the bridge into the city of Munu. The bus depot seems to be under repair so the coach stop is just a random down town corner. The towering skyscrapers are quite impressive despite being a provincial capital it's more than the capital of your home nation. The history of trade down the rivers that intersect near this delta concentrated large amounts of wealth here. And of course crime.

As your getting off the bus and struggling with your luggage due to your now diminutive frame a rat man come barking amount the corner and knocks you over onto some of the other luggage. He tumbles over you then shuffles around before getting back up

"Oh shit sorry doll, hey thanks for this" then he bolts down the street. Thanks for what. A second later to canine looking cops charge amount the corner.

"Fucking rat, hey you, rat slut you see one of your kin run by"

"Uh ya he knocked into me"

Sniffing heavily one of the cops that has doberman looking features starts shifting through your bags, then tearing one open.

"Well we lost one but we caught another," pulling a tape covered brick out of your bag he wags it in the direction of the other cop.

"Huh good enough for quota let's drag her down"

"Wait that's not mine" you yell "I don't even know what that is!"

"Don't waste our time bitch" the large man easily grabs your arms and lifts you from behind.

"The can be legal, I have rights,"

"Rights listen to this one thinks she's a clan lawyer ha!"

Your carried around the corner to a waiting squad car and tossed inside. "Please this is a mistake"

The cop in the front slams against the divider "back the fuck up unless you want cuffs on, I don't need to listen to this shit"

And with that you driven off to the station.

---

Sitting in the holding cell you watch the others in here with you, whores, drug dealers, crazies all different types of beast folk. A couple scantily clad rat woman whores are beating each other up in the middle of the cell and a rather menacing looking goat man looks on smoking a smuggled in cigarette. You stay quite still stunned by the events and total lack of consideration. You have your legs tucked up under your now massively oversized shirt feet up on the bench trying to be as small as possible.

After what fells like days but is almost certainly hours your brought to a small room with just a desk and a few chairs.

On one side is a rat man with a rather large stack of files quickly flipping through them at a rapid pace. "Please sit I have ten more of us to process and if I'm not fast that number gets bigger" you sit across from him and he begins a prepared speech.

"My name is Ralph 1207 from Gama block I'm the representative of the clan in your case, we've managed to reach a settlement and a standard work release plan for your infraction. Smuggling is quite the multiplier in drug charges so the cost to the clan was approximately 130,456 dollars plus the legal defense fees and arbitration costs. You'll be on a self employment schedule unless you miss a payment in that case you'll be forced into a labour bid arrangement until such time that you are positive again and may pick your method of work once more. It seems you were on some sort of scholarship and from out of country, that's quite unusual unfortunately that is no longer being offered by the university due to morality clauses along with your unenrollment in the university itself. You've been assigned a clan housing block Zeta it seems. You'll get a designation number when you check in. Needless to say further criminal behavior will result in much more severe outcomes so please avoid that. Now a bus should be by to pick you and the other clan members convicted today in an hour or so you should take that to the warren blocks and sign in before evening." He closes the file in front of him and moves it to a large stack of files on his right.

"What, what do you mean?! Where is my lawyer l, I didn't do it when can I see a judge what the hell are you talking about"

"I am the clan lawyer who negotiated your pleading, there just isn't enough time or resources for the clan to bring your case to trail this is how all cases of this type are handled between the rat clan and the state."

"This is crazy I'll represent myself you can't just decide for me that I'm guilty"

"Well I'm afraid when dealing with the state body the clan does decide how you plead"

"I'm not even from here I'm a Commonwealth citizen they won't put up with this."

"If you weren't kin you would likely be extradited, but you are kin so the rat clan law applies to you and the covenant between the clans and the state are clear on the rat clans ability to plead quickly and on mass for it's clan members, we are only permitted a small quota compared to our population of trials within the courts and it's doubtful to me that you would know anyone who might get you such a trial" as he goes on a cop comes in with a stack of three more files and drops them on the pile to the left.

"Three more for you ratty" the cop says and leaves.

Looking at you angrily the bespectacled rat man grumbles "now look you've pushed me well behind schedule, I'll be here all day at this rate. This just is how it is, I'm sorry for you but there is no recourse other than what I've lined out. Officer could you guide this young woman to loading she's heading home."

"Wait no this is crazy you can't" but you're towed off by a large buffalo looking man who doesn't register your complaints or concerns at all.

You're brought to a desk where an officer pulls out a small plastic strap a small beat up black box in the center of the of the strap, its about the size and dimensions of a bulky watch. The officer pulls your arm, its awkward with the high desk and your small stature and she over powers you easily. The bulky hyena woman doesn't care about the discomfort it causes you as she pulls the strap tight around your wrist and uses something to lock the ends together. Still holding your arm tight she waves a baton of some sort across it before letting go.

"Transponders on, you can get it wet, you won't get it off till the fines covered, your curfew is 11:30pm in the Warrens complexes or you're in violation of work release. Try and take it off its a violation, you need to come in six months to replace it or its a violation. Ok get her out of here." she waves you on and when you stand there stunned trying to process what she said another officer walks up behind you and drags you on.

He deposits you outside near a set of benches in a parking lot enclosed in fences you look around to see where you can go when a huge bear headed officer watching the people sitting on the bench yells "SIT DOWN RAT"

You find a spot on the bench next to a worn down looking rat woman smoking something awful smelling. You curl up under your shirt again feat up for a while until the woman next to you decides to start talking.

"What did they get you for"

"nn... nothing I didn't do anything"

"Ya that never matters, where you from? Your acting like they've never picked you up before. Country rat?"

"No no i'm from the Commonwealth I came here for school" you start tearing up a little. You were never one to cry much but this is all too much and you're in a very different body that seems to have very different emotional thresholds.

"Oh shit a foreigner? You part of a smuggling ring? I heard one of those got busted today. The old man was complaining all morning about his investments in that going bad."

"No no I was just going here for university some one stuck some drugs in my bag"

"Well that's why they caught you, what rat clan is going to uni" she laughs "you guys deserved to gt caught"

You feel your face flush with rage and feel your ratty whiskers shift up as you glare at her then you stuff your face under the opening of your oversized shirt to hide your tears.

"Aww baby everyone gets caught at some point don't sweat it, you just need to get in with a better gang. My old man always looking for girls."

"I'm not looking for a pimp, and if he's so cleaver why are you here" you glare at the chatty prostitute

"Oh this" she waves dismissively "getting my monitor replaced" she gestures at at a strap on her wrist matching yours, "got it from trouble I got in before I got in with him, and a little bit of business, a lieutenant here is really into rat girls" She drags the smelly smokeable for a while, "getting in with the right guys, thats all a girl can do. So your from out of the country huh, where you living then?"

"I don't know, the shitty lawyer said somthing about a warren, Zeta something?"

"Hmm hear that complex is ok water is not great but the gangs aren't a big problem there, I'm in Eta sub 50 its not that far I'm Jessie 5408"

"I'm James Heart whats with the numbers, don;t you have last names"

"Nah some big shots can use their title but you just get a name and number at birth the bureaucrats just reassign the name when someone bites it and assigns it to a new kid."

"Sounds dehumanizing"

"Standard practice with rat kin," She finally puts out the stinky stick on the bench as an ugly old bus pulls up to the curb,

---

The trip to the Warrens takes forty minutes. You get a little more info about this place from your new prostitute friend. The vast unwashed masses of rat folk generally live in a rat clan owned mega complex upriver from the down town and adjacent to the city docks. The brutality concrete spires of the mega structure are distinct in comparison to the more delicate looking glass clad skyscrapers that define the down town of Munu.

Jessie explains that they go down deeper than they rise up huge pits digging down and lined with hallways of apartments and all manner of commercial complexes all focused on services for the inhabitants. The checker board of towers and pits bleed into several massive industrial complexes that exist at the edge of the city all off which run on the labour of the rat people.

The bus stops at several towers unloading rat people convicts to there business. Eventually a large Z painted on the concrete bus shelter marks your designated stop. Jessie tells you to find her at her complex if you need work, an offer you have no interest in for obvious reasons. Walking through the concrete courtyard leading to the building you can look over the edge of the huge square pit that gives light to the under stories. Rat people move back and forth constantly, work gangs march in small packs across the court to transport hubs, rat women pop out of little enclosures that bring fire stairs to the surface, small gangs of rat teens seem to cluster together and glare at passers by.

You try to make your way through without drawing attention, you'd think your slovenly looking oversized clothes would draw some attention but much stranger characters mill around the base of the massive warren towers. Entering one of the several portals at the base of the building you follow the beaten up plastic signs that point to administration on the second floor. Large banks of elevators service the complex at the centre but several seem out of order and the rats jostle aggressively getting of and on, so you opt to use some of the over sized stairs leasing to the second floor mezzanine level. There are line up at the desks, angry tenants bicker with the bureaucrats at the desk about payments and utilities breaking. You see a placard above one of the desks that says registration and think that probably applies to you and line up their. The wait is short and you reach the desk.

"Name number, Id card and where your transferring from," the bespectacled rat bureaucrat doesn't even look up as he taps at an extremely old monitor, a off colour white only achievable by decades of cheep plastic decaying.

"James Heart, I'm from the Commonwealth the police picked me up and told me I needed to live here as part of my release. I don't have an Id card."

"Uh dual citizen annoying to put in the system, show me your monitor." you hold out your wrist and he moves your hand over a little black pad on the desk. "Ok I see, normal work release. Quite a bill for a first offender not sure how you're going to manage that. Let me find you an id" he opens a file cabinet behind the desk labelled deceased and rummages around. Looking at you for a second he picks a thick white plastic card out of the slaps it on the desk. It has etched in it by some cheap printing device is a photo of a middle aged rat woman, an address, and the name Sandy 6329.

"Please stand in front of that line and look at the square on the wall" he directs you and you follow, a click sounds and he ushers you back to the desk.

He places the thick card under some device on the desk and after buzzing for a second and the smell of burnt plastic he pulls it out and on the card is now your rat girl face in black and white. "This is you now Sandy. Card opens your apartment you can see the address on the card tapping it on a working kiosk should bring up a map and directory to what your looking for. Anywhere you're permitted on clan property this should let you in. The woman who's Id your recycling probably hasn't had her stuff collected from her room so it's yours now. Your clan bank account is also accessible you can check your debt and access funds though it so set a pin at a kiosk first thing ad please don't lose it. Since you're a convict you'll need to make payments at the admin desk here both for your settlement debt and rent. If your out working past your curfew activating the card at a registered work place will keep you out of trouble. Ok welcome to Zeta stay out of trouble. Next."

You're pushed aside by a fat rat woman carrying a child. Walk slowly away rubbing your finger along the card there is a distinct depression over the photo like its been etched away several times. How many Sandys have there been before you. You follow the bureaucrats instructions and find a free kiosk on the mezzanine. The cracked screen prompts you to enter a new pin with clear instructions to not use your id number or address. A display shows a list of options on one side including maps and banking. Banking shows an empty checking account and two expected payments of five hundred for rent and a two thousand minimum payment for your criminal charges both due in thirty days. That seems doable but at that rate covering he minimum on your debt will only see you out from under it in over five years.

You place your forehead on the edge of the machine, panicking. Can dad help? No dad has no money that's why that scholarship was so exciting. How are you going to tell him you lost it. Tears hit the polished exposed aggregate flooring bellow you. You're so tired the stress of this would be unbearable before but in your shrunken body you feel like it could break you. No wonder your mom left this hell for somewhere people might treat her like a person.