[Slaveless]

Thought I abanadon you? Nope, I didn't. Here's what you all were waiting for.



Chapter 4: The Journey’s Prologue

Drat Head Quarters: Vikay’s Office 7:02 a.m.

Vikay sat in his seat throwing darts at the wanted posters, all over the room. He was bored and displeased. To explain is displeasure, he first was angered that the drats haven’t returned from their hunting sessions and his wolvark assistant, Bacon, hasn’t reported anything. He was mainly displeased because glukkons haven’t given their full trust in Kivay. Bacon often told him their was ships being sent to hunt own their own, but no sign of the ships has been seen.

Vikay rubbed his scar on his upper eyebrow and sighed. He didn’t have any outlaw clothing, just very, very dark blue, stripped business suits. In fact, the crudity of the outlaw clothing gave him disappointment in how low went his species went. Without the business suits, he looked like the Lootin Duke.

He got up from his rolling chair to see what the desert had in store for him. From the last 20 minutes. The telescope curled in all forms and had several lens. In fact, all of them went in all angles and directions. No one could escape his sight. A few lens even saw the entire room of his office. He saw the old Greta machines the sligs used before Abe’s appearance.

"A bunch of crappy radiation machines. It takes so much damn time to power the thing." Vikay whispered in a barley audible voice. He even tried to use the machines. There was many reasons why he despised the machines. First, the machines’ seats were awfully small for the drats and the things couldn’t leave anything behind when they shot. You would have to move the thing at least a meter away from what you shot to have it’s corpse to still be visible. But at that moment, he believed that one of the crude monsters budged. He reached for the zoom button on his control pad, that was connected to the wall. He typed in with cigar to push the certain len, but before he see a better view, Bacon came in.

Before Bacon could say anything, Vikay turned around and faced Bacon. He said , annoyed at the same time, "Sit down Bacon"

Bacon was a quirky, neat, well mannered, wolvark. He had one eye glass for seeing and a brown suit with black pants. He even wore a tie. Kivay personally cared nothing for ties, but in case he wanted to choke him to death with the tie, it was important in the dress code.

Bacon stumbled to his seat. Bacon shook in fear and said, "Uh, sir? The dra-drats are back. Would you li-like to uh, make the um, packaging machines be turned on, uh, sir?" The shaking of Bacon made Kivay annoyed.

"First of all, stop quivering and stand your ground man! Second, make the machines shift to grind first. Third of all, instruct Leak that he must expand his night shift tonight and bring 2 of his best men with him." Leak was a valuable drat employee. Before Bacon said anything that Vikay didn’t want to hear, he begged "Oh and use your ring this time. OK?"

Bacon replied as fast as he could saying "Yes sir." Bacon touched his red diamond ring and clumsily headed out the door. Vikay smirked to himself. His life was getting a lot easier now.

Grubb Base, Curtis’s hut 7:09 a.m.

Curtis packed his bags carefully. He tried to think of all the problems that could come across the adventure, but not try to over pack. He brought his spear, water bottle, fish net, and walkie talkie. He couldn’t think of anything more to add to his supply of necessities. He was join Teo in the big walk, but someone was standing in the door. The Grubb stood there as a shadow, as if it desired to find him for a long time. The figure walked towards Curtis to reveal the identity of the grubb. Curtis gasped as he saw weeping Jessie that eyes could just look at him and her mouth didn’t need to say any words for Curtis to understand. The look she gave said to him "Don’t go".

She then flung herself at him and hugged him so tightly that he couldn’t budge. He enjoyed his time with her, but he was puzzled. What was she upset about? Had he done something wrong?

Jessie looked back into Curtis’s eyes and said "Really! Don’t go! I’m-I’m afraid that I might lose Will and I couldn’t stand having another loved one die and..." She stopped talking and sat in the corner and wept some more. Curtis figured this all out now. She was afraid of losing the leader’s son. It hurt him to see her cry. Losing another was too devastating for her. And he had remembered the other time she lost another once.

You see, Jessie was sent by her parents to go with her brother Nathan, off with the group escaping Sekto’s wrath. Nathan had no time to build a house with the others, so since Curtis’s parents was generous, the couple let the youngsters stay in their apartment. That’s how Curtis meet Jessie. But rather later in time, Nathan, while teaching Curtis is fishing skills, died of a scrab. Curtis also felt a little responsible for Nathan’s death.

Curtis went to the corner and shrunk down with Jessie and tried to pat her back, but before he could even attempt to do so, Jessie looked up and said while crying, "Ever since Nathan died, you were like a brother to me. And then Will came into my life. I know you never liked him, but he cared for me like Nathan did. And I have a bad feeling about this mission and if go..."

Curtis finished her sentence by saying " We both never see you again." Jessie once again wailed and put her head in her knees. Curtis knew what he had to do. He reached for her hidden chin and said in a stern voice "Jessie, we’re doing this for the future of the village you live in. If I don’t go, we may never see the daylight again. Do you understand?" She tried to look at Curtis’s gaze, but couldn’t stop crying. Curtis sighed and got up, picked up his bag and stepped very slowly to his door. He took a breath before making his final words to her. "You know, Will and I have something in common. We both want to protect you from any harm." The weeping stopped. Unexplainably, she starting laughing.

She said "That’s the only thing you 2 will ever have in common." Curtis smirked and went on ahead to join Teo.