1 The Way The New World Works
["'Hey kid... look. '"] Standing up while holding a box of metals and drenched in sweat, I turned to the runway where a company was heading back from a two month expedition. ["'We've been here for eight whole 'frigging months and we still have no idea what the hell is tearing us up out there... '"]
Tilting my head, my eyes lowered just by the small size of what was left of a fully armored company. Two tankers, four light vehicles, and a small dozen men were walking through the front gate that rarely ever opened. A high voltage fence surrounded all around.
["'You've only been here what, two weeks? Man, I don't know what the brothers higher up are thinking of sending out a new makeshift company every other week when they keep coming back like this... Makes me wonder if they even care about us grunts at all?' "
Shifting my gaze, I continued forward as the faces of those men will never be seen again as they will most likely retire with a big payoff just for making it back alive.
Having been confined in an air right bubble-like military compound, we could only see what was all around the base through reflectors that penetrated several layers of thick glass all around for ten miles straight along with an electrified metallic fence.
Even the large, tube like runway that was still under construction was separated from the rest of the military base as dozens of offworld workers came from Earth to this world for an honest and generous pay.
I was no different as my citizenship was poor and my reputation was trash. Being in and out of juvenile detention centers all my life. After I was released the last time, I quit school all together when I turned fifteen. It wasn't until reality kicked in that my submissive mother got sick and my deadbeat dad ran off that we didn't have the money to pay for her treatments. I had a few underground connections and managed to get myself signed myself up for a 'one-way' job to a new planet just so I could pay for her medical expenses.
Since I was not bound by Earth's laws and treaties out in space, I was able to get a fake ID without proof of who I was and boarded a dozen packed busses with other desperate workers looking for the benefits of the pay.
Headed into the desert for several hours, we eventually arrived at a remote area in the desert within the US and were immediately at a military like base with a dozen shuttle launches being performed every few hours.
When I registered for a 'worker ID', I was then taken to a shuttle that looked abnormally futuristic. After the launch, there were hundreds of us were taken into space and arrived on the new planet a full day later. The underground corporate people were in a rush to send people into space before the UN could reach a sensible decision regarding the new laws and regulations for interplanetary travel onto the new planet that abruptly appeared relatively close to Earth.
Since I arrived on this planet two weeks ago, shuttles had completely stopped arriving in the past day alone. It was confirmed that several unauthorized shuttle launches from Earth were shot down and destroyed before leaving the atmosphere after an announcement over an encrypted digital notice over the East side of the glass wall.
For those of us that made it, we knew the risks of being here yet, to see what the world government was doing, even the toughest of us held a deep rooted fear of what might happen to us.
Since we threw away our citizenship with Earth and traded for the new one, we were then presented with the option to get a job as a soldier and go on these 'expeditions' if we wanted a better pay. Most of us made up new inexperienced companies of several dozen people.
The other half of those people are now either missing or died out on the unknown land on this planet.
I kept my head down as the base was always busy with new projects and construction on the hour every hour. We were paid as much as we wanted to work for as many hours as possible. When I got here, I worked twelve straight hours as the sun almost never goes completely down.
There were many people who fainted from fatigue and exhaustion while others died on the job while the more veteran workers think nothing of it. Regardless of what happened, it was mainly everyone for themselves as it came with the job.
Not having anyone to speak, there was one guy who always hung around me every now and then. He was annoyingly persistent in getting me to join his group.
I witnessed soon after arriving at how groups of people working on the planet often recruited new workers to exploit. Many groups, some big as much as a dozen people all the way down to pairs. They always hung around the shuttle landing areas ready to poach new workers who had something to offer them.
It was all without merit as a particular group stood above the rest. People who gave themselves the role to police everyone else stood supreme in both number and strength. They conducted their own inspections and safety for the other workers.
A full fraction of everyone was within that group and more often than enough, more people joined up while deserting or leaving their own groups. The guy who was annoyingly persistent is a member of that group as well.
After I arrived in my shuttle, I had an incident that put a target on my back. The people who immediately began approaching us the moment we entered the compound were trying to make us join them by force.
I alone ignored them until one large man grabbed my shoulder. Immediately knocking him down on a swift manner which, despite my average size, he fell hard as his body mass was twice my own size.
After knocking him unconscious, I continued on my way as the top group leaders kept an eye on every move I made then on.
My self-imposed punishment that was given to me by the top tier group worked in my favor as I preferred isolation than being with people I didn't trust. I often slept for a few minutes during daybreak as it was the only time everyone took a rest for a few hours or so.
In truth, I was actually born deaf and couldn't hear what the big guy was saying when first arrived. I was then segregated and was abruptly put into my own group as my calm and quiet demeanor spooked everyone.
In this, I spent most of my life in a sort of isolation and constant unparalleled predicaments as it stood why I liked being alone I felt I was truly at peace.
All my life, fights were started due to that reason and growing up, I had developed a bad reputation and eventually gave in to the rumors as I portrayed exactly what I was called, a 'Two-faced Demon'.
My self-proclaimed title only warranted a from delinquents and thugs. I often through hell for several days on end every day of every month. My fighting skills and drive to survive gave me an unprecedented experience in combat.
However, I learned to have a keen understanding of facial expressions to a point where I could practically tell what the other person was thinking.
The guy who hung around me was often easy to read as he was cleverly cunning as he was persistent. Keeping to myself, I worked long hours and put on weight in muscle. Still my short 160cm, my body had toned down to adjust to the gravity which was slightly stronger than on Earth.
I continued working all around and was under constant observation by the group leaders. Not that I was anyone special, the leaders believed I would chose to team up and join some group at some point. It was then when I discovered they schemed with one another to poach, buy off and exploit especially strong workers.
In our Compound alone, I would say there were 1,000+ workers who left behind their lives on Earth for the pay or benefits this job offered. None of us had yet even met our employers as we were sent to work straight away.
We were all given a chance to communicate with Earth via encrypted channels to ensure our pay was getting to our destined location. I went a step further and smiled as I paid a hefty sum for a trusted undercover female PI or private investigator to keep an eye on my mother's health.
Often seeing pictures of her every other week when it was my turn to use the long distance comms, I was glad to risk my all coming here. Logging off as I pulled my workers ID from the panel, I stood up and let the building. Passing a long line half a mile wide and almost never ending, my focus was on getting more money to ensure my mom will never have to depend on deadbeats ever again.
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