“That’s not fair.”
“Ha! Nothing’s fair here. S’why ya gotta look out fer yerself. No one else will. Speakin’ o’ which, I need ta get movin’ if I wanna carve out a little break fer myself today. Enjoy yer easy gig. It’ll change soon enough.”
With that Azros left him to his work. Work that Bodok found easy, but managed to make look far harder and more time consuming than it actually was. And just as his new friend had said, no one said a word when he stopped for a little break in an alleyway out of sight of the general public.
For the next several days he followed the same basic pattern. He would wake, eat, and set to work, taking a small break about halfway through the morning and another between lunch and the end of his work shift. They were short breaks, but he successfully sniffed out a few well-hidden spots where he could sit, rest, and think about his situation at his leisure.
The best of them was a storage container that had apparently been dropped off by a Luzurkian cargo consortium some time ago. While the cargo had been cleared out, removal of the container had been an oversight on the part of the shipping coordinator. As a result, with no return cargo scheduled to be loaded up and shipped the other direction, the container had become something of a local eyesore.
Eventually it was moved out of the main depot to a smaller lot just off one of the smaller walkways. Very little foot traffic passed by in that area, and it now went unnoticed for the most part. Just a piece of the scenery there so long that no one really thought about it.
To the newcomer, on the other hand, it presented a fascinating bit of potential.
He forced the locking mechanism quite easily—there was nothing stored inside, so no real care was placed in securing it. As a result, it was only the flimsiest of locking mechanisms that kept it closed.
“This will work,” Bodok mused when he first stepped inside the empty container, noting its walls deadened the sound of outside noise nicely. “This will work just fine.”
He longed for a private place—trulyprivate—where he could sit in silence and justbe. Sharing a barracks was a noisy affair, and he longed for some peace and quiet.
It was on his third day of work that he was told he would be shifted to hard labor the following morning. He didn’t know what to expect. As it turned out, while the parcels were heavier and the distances he had to carry them farther, it really wasn’t bad at all.
Of course, after a few years of wear and tear on the body, this wouldn’t be nearly as easy, and it was entirely possible he would be forced to work much more difficult situations in that period.
Perhaps it was because he was new and hadn’t gotten on the overseer’s bad side that his transition was so smooth. Whatever the reason, he was not about to take it for granted.
Just because the overseer wasn’t actively making his life hell didn’t mean he wouldn’t throw verbal barbs from time to time. It was of no matter though. Bodok made a point to quietly take the verbal abuse flung his way.
He would not argue. He would not talk back.
When the overseer abused him he simply took it in silence until the petty little man grew bored of it. This prisoner, despite his size, was a pushover, it seemed. And that was little fun for the man. As a result, when he lined up to begin his workday he was generally given his tasks and sent on his way without a second thought.
Bodok carried his cargo across the city, weaving between buildings, learning the layout of the area better with every outing. In just a few days he was familiar enough with it to confidently sneak off to his storage container hideaway somewhat regularly for a taste of respite from the day’s labors.
Of course, some days he would be sent in an entirely different direction and was unable to take as easy advantage of the flex time he had worked into his delivery timetable.
He was becoming accustomed to the routine, the labor and toil, but in his moments to himself, his mind always found its way back to the human woman who had captured his attention. The one his body longed for. The one he feared he might never see again.
And then, amazingly, a week later he caught a glimpse of her familiar form across a busy roadway.
Bodok was in a nicer part of town walking back from his most recent assignment of delivering several heavy packs of fabric to one of the high-end tailor shops the elites frequented when he saw her.
His heart sang at the sight of the woman walking with an ornately clothed Mondarian, following obediently a few paces behind, carrying a large bag of purchases in one hand.
He froze in place, staring. Maureen’s body language shifted, as if she sensed his eyes locked on her. Her pace did not falter, but she looked up, scanning the crowded street.
Bodok felt a visceral tug in his chest when her eyes met his. A pull that reached all the way into his core. It was intense. So much so that before he realized what he was doing his feet had carried him across the street.
His senses returned in a flash. He could not afford to draw attention to himself. Not now. Not now that he had found her. He had to be careful how he acted next.
He gauged the time. He had learned quickly in his short time on this job and had made his delivery slightly ahead of schedule, but that had been with his taking a much slower route, extending his walk so he might run the clock and buy himself more downtime on the return trip. That meant he was in no rush.
He could afford a detour.
Bodok did not look directly at her as they drew closer, nor did he so much as glance at the woman Maureen was following. Clearly, judging by her attire, this was one of the Mondarian elites, and to have a lower-class male—a prison laborer, no less—make any sort of eye contact with her would be inviting disaster.
He kept his gaze aimed at the ground as she passed. It wasn’t hard, though. All of his peripheral attention was straining toward the human walking behind her.
He could feel Maureen’s presence as she approached. His eyes darted, noting the ink she now possessed, the patterns clear on her bare arms. The Skrizzit had done their work, it seemed, and from what he caught in his glimpse, they had done a very good job.
