“My life is over…” Cedric mumbled, head resting on the break room table with his hands gripped tightly on his hair. It had been two days since he had received his eviction notice from the hotel clerk. In that time, no progress had been made to finding either a new place to stay or a second job. It wasn’t for lack of trying either considering that every potential job listing in the daily newspaper before him was marked out in red marker.

  Every place that Cedric had contacted either had enough hired help for the summer or simply weren’t interested in hiring a teenager like him. He couldn’t blame them for the latter part either; he had little job experience. The only other work experiences- besides waiting on customers- that he had was in child care and cashiering at a local supermarket; both jobs were very short lived.

  Finding a new place was just as he feared it would be. Every hotel and motel in range was fully booked for the summer. No vacancies would be available for a long time. In other words, he was going to be homeless.

  Resigned, he let out a long drawn sigh. What was he going to do now?

  “Hey Hydee-rick!” Cedric internally groaned at the mispronunciation of his last name. “Break time’s over! We’re swamped today!”

  “Heidrich…” Cedric mumbled as he glanced over at his coworker. Like that made any difference. Judging by the impatient look on their face, he knew they weren’t joking about being swamped. Letting out one last sigh Cedric dusted off his slacks, straightened his tie and stood up, ready to handle the rush once again.

  The lunch rush hadn’t been a bad one today. In fact, it was the most peaceful day that the restaurant ever had in ages. Or at least, since Cedric started working there anyway. He was able to relax as he jotted down orders from customers. Normally the wait staff would also be serving said orders to their customers, but since Cedric kept his hair down- to cover his prosthetic eye- he wasn’t allowed to. He didn’t mind though; Cedric enjoyed talking with the customers and often checked up on them until their food arrived.

  The tips weren’t too bad either. Already, he had earned $34 just from tips alone. Despite the setbacks for the past couple of days, things were beginning to look up.

  “HEY YOU!!! GET OUT OF HERE!!”

  Cedric, along with the rest of the wait staff and customers, flinched upon hearing the manager’s rage filled exclamation. Just when he thought the day was getting better…

  Stunned, Cedric turned away from his work just in time to see the manager storm towards the front of the restaurant with a heated look on his normally professional face. At first, the young waiter thought that he was yelling at a banned customer who somehow snuck in. But instead of a table, the manager was heading for… the door?

  The owner, Carl Radford, slammed the door open, screaming profanities at someone outside. Cedric turned toward the window, the one closest to the door, confused. The window he looked out of was on the left hand side of Carl’s Cuisine, just enough to see the jewelry store across the street. But from the angle he was at, Cedric could just barely see who Mr. Radford was yelling at.

  Was it a tagger? In this part of the city? The law enforcement in this district was pretty good at keeping the troublemakers at bay, so it couldn’t be that… could it?

  “Not again…” said one of the waitresses, a year his senior. Cedric wasn’t sure what she meant by that at first; it was the first time he had seen his manager so irate, after all. He maneuvered closer to the window to get a better look. It wasn’t long before everybody close to the windows began looking out as well, confused and a bit frightened at what was happening right now.

  It didn’t take long for Cedric to realize what was going on.

  “Didn’t you hear me?! I said GET OUT you damn animal!!”

  Standing in front of the restaurant by the right side window, plastic tape dispenser in one hand flyer in the other was a lean, well-toned lioness, one of many Animalia that lived within Techno City. Her golden fur shone against the sunlight, a mop of brown hair casually flowing down past her shoulders. From what Cedric could tell just by looking at the fur coloration, this lioness was young; height wise, possibly an adolescent.

  Cedric had met several Animalia in his life, but since arriving on Techbeat Island he had never come across one that was so exotic. Then again, he didn’t really have a lot of time to socialize outside of work and even then most interactions with people were minimal at best. He didn’t often get chances to see wildcat Animalia like this; he needed a better look.

  After making sure no one was paying attention, Cedric carefully pushed his bangs aside letting his robotic eye become visible to see. He closed his left eye as the vision in the right eye zoomed in on the lioness.

  Back outside, said lioness stared at Mr. Radford, a pointed look on her face. Removing the strip of tape from her mouth, she said, “That really the best insult you can come up with?” She scoffed, almost amused. “I’ve been called much worse than that.”

  “Did you also ‘conveniently’,” Mr. Radford barked, air quoting ‘conveniently’. “Forget that this is a human district? You don’t belong here, so scram!”

  “What is it now illegal to put up posters here?” The lioness glared, obviously not taking him seriously.

  Mr. Radford fumed, grinding his teeth in frustration as he marched up to her.

  “Listen here, animal!” he seethed. “If I find you near my restaurant one more time…” He ripped off the flyer the lioness had just put up on the window earlier. “I will call the police on you for trespassing!”

  The lioness threw her hands up, visibly frustrated with this man’s verbal abuse towards her but also knowing he wasn’t worth the time of day. This was a battle she wasn’t going to ever win… at least not against this guy.

  “Fine!” she exclaimed. “I’ll go!” Without any further confrontation, she adjusted the flyers under her arm purposefully allowing a few to fall in the process before walking past the restaurant owner. But under her breath, out of earshot, the lioness muttered to herself, “Prick.”

  As the manager was telling the Animalia off, Cedric just watched in complete awe. Given her build, she could’ve knocked Mr. Radford out in a heartbeat. But this was obviously not her first altercation with him either, given the familiar animosity they both shared with one another. The ferocity in her eyes was intense, so much so that Cedric was worried about a fight breaking out. That obviously wasn’t the case.

  Once the lioness started walking away, Cedric quickly backed away from the window, zooming his vision back in as he let his bangs fall over his eye. Last thing he needed was someone thinking he was snooping. As soon as she was gone, Mr. Radford walked back in, papers in hand ready to throw away. He stopped as everyone just stared at him, cleared his throat to regain his composure, and said, “Sorry for the disturbance.”

  With that said, business resumed as usual. Save for the now tense atmosphere that lasted throughout the rest of the afternoon shift.

                                                    ------------------

  Things became a lot calmer once the night shift started. While Cedric usually left around this time, tonight the night shift was short handed. He was working overtime for the next two hours. Right now he was assigned to cleanup duty, bussing empty tables and so forth.

  He didn’t mind most of the time. It gave him something to do until he needed to leave. But knowing that tonight was the night he had to leave the hotel room didn’t ease anything one bit. It was all Cedric could think about.

  “Did you hear about what happened this afternoon?” Cedric knew he shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but considering the people were right behind him while he was bussing a very messy table close by he couldn’t help but listen.

  “You mean about the Animalia that came by earlier? Yeah, I heard the manager made a fuss again.”

  The table consisted of an elder woman with two middle-aged women who looked dressed for a casual night out. The younger of the two listened as the elder spoke up again.

  “I don’t understand why she continues to stop by here. She knows that this district is humans only.”

  “Must be getting desperate or something. Have you seen the flyers she’s been putting up?”

  The second middle-aged woman spoke up at that point, “She may be an Animalia but for a teenager to even try running a business? Poor thing probably went over her head this time.”

  “Could be worse. She could’ve been a Shifter trying to run a business!”

  “Agreed.”

  Cedric sighed, finishing up his work before walking over to the next table. But their discussion, admittedly, made him curious. It was true that the city had segregated districts, so why did this one lioness in particular keep coming here? Was she really that desperate like those old women said? They did mention that she was running a business earlier.

  Was she looking for hired help? Was she just simply advertising her business?

  A soft crumple reached his ears, snapping him out of his thoughts. Looking down, Cedric noticed from under one of the unoccupied tables, peeking out from underneath his foot was the corner of a flyer. Manager must’ve dropped one earlier, he thought as he gingerly lifted the paper off the floor. Making sure no one was watching, he folded it up and put it in his pocket to look at later.

  If this was what he thought it was, then maybe there was hope for his situation after all.