Update 1: Better Left Forgotten:
Pika Mikaere stood at the entrance to the building, eyeing the streets warily. Strong and rich he may be, but the police were hardly going to accept a bribe for the betting he was doing. Not that they didn't have bigger problems, of course, but he didn't want them to come down upon his own type of gambling - a type of streetfighting.
As he glanced down the road, something else caught his eye. A man, probably in his early twenties, wearing a jacket that looked not just clean, but new. Mikaere blinked. He didn't even think someone like Alessandri could get their hands on something like that. This man must be rich, indeed.
As the man stepped closer, he began to adress Mikaere. Mikaere blinked. His accent wasn't remotely familiar, he couldn't think of anyone in Core who spoke like that.
Not that it was relevant. If he could speak, he probably could understand, too.
Pika stepped out, and adressed the man:
"Zakal ajchyo?"
When the man stared blankly, Pika nodded his head towards the two current fighters. As with everyone else in the vicinity, the two were Bruíké-speakers, and were engaged in a bizarre sort of combat. Each was equipped with a short blade, and made jerking, irregular movements. This was Asyik, a bizarre sort of game, in which the two fighters - clearly drugged, on only God knows what - would attack each other - and probably everyone around them - until one or the other died. Then, those who bet on the winners would get their money, whether it be from losing gamblers or somebody hit in the fight.
The man with the new clothes and funny accent stared blankly. Did the man not speak Bruíké?
The possibility hit Mikaere with a ton of bricks. Calling over to the betters, he grinned.
"Kyjnaiy Bruíké! Zakal michkayak!"
As the crowd approached, the strange man frowned. Pika drew a knife...
And promptly found himself on the ground. The oddly dressed opponent was unbelievably fast, and managed to take out several combatants before fleeing.
As Pika stood up, he noticed something nearby - a camera, with a red light, following his every move.
Now where the hell had that come from? the fighter wondered.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Giustino Alessandri reclined in his seat, and took in the scene. There were exactly four functioning cameras left under his control and six left in the city. All were set up at points of his interest: The harbor. What he believed to be the entrance to the rumored Catacombs of Core. The police headquarters. And here, at this Bruíké club, where he recruited most of his new employees.
But tonight, he wasn't interested in the fighters, but the man who had approached them, speaking a supposedly dead dialect of French.
Alessandri closed his eyes for a moment, then pointed to his screen, and turned to his companion.
"Could it be him?"
His companion frowned.
"It certainly looks like it could be him, seven years later, I suppose. And, as far as anyone knew, only his famil spoke with that accent. But Jean died along with his parents, many years ago. He had to have done so. Nobody can just dissapear for that long, especially not with the kind of coverage his story recieved."
Alessandri leaned forwards, and frowned.
"Close. Nobody can dissapear without a trace in Core either. You know as well as I - the police keep books. Everyone who is born, goes into a book. When you die, it gets put in that book. Everyone is in one of those books. They may not figure out when you die, or how, but even with as many places to hide as Core has, nobody vanishes without a trace for more than a year. They eventually find you - or your body."
His companion looked dubious.
And with fair right. Jean Sïmone was supposed to have died over seven years ago. His parents had, but he and his younger sister had somehow dissapeared.
Alessandri frowned, and looked down at his hands. He had killed Sïmone's parents for an event that had happened twenty years ago.
Twenty years before, on this very day, the last lights in Core had gone dark. Not tiny contraband electronics like he or Viktor had, not the occasional whirring gadget that had been picked up on the street, but full-scale lights. Sïmone's great-grandfather had been the original inhabitant of Core. His father had been the mayor, his mother, an anesthesiologist at the last hospital in the city. Twenty years ago, that hospital had gone dark. Jean's father knew, of course, that the last generator was about to run dry, and brought Jean and his infant sister with him to speak with his mother about the imminent blackout.
Alessandri had been there with them when it happened. The lights went out, and the screams of hundreds - maybe thousands - were heard. Some had gone peacefully, when a respirator had stopped running, or a machine supporting a comatose patient droppwed off the edge. Others - like Alessandri's father - had been on the operating table when it happened. The screams of patients endured for days, as people woke from anesthesia, had machines die mid-surgery, were unable to be re-stitched in the darker rooms, and died. Alice Sïmone had been his father's anesthesiologist when it happened. She had killed him - "to prevent suffering", she said. Because he was mafia, Alessandri knew. He might have survived, but the oh-so-fortunate opportunity presented itself.
Thirteen years later, he killed both of them, in the dark of night. What had happened to the children, he did not know, but the investigations had uncovered nothing in the seven years since.
"Maybe the ships are real. Maybe there is a way out. And maybe young Jean has found it..."
RP 
