Cold seeped into Nico’s arm, he shuddered awake. The clinking sound of metal against metal reached his ears. Looking towards the cold he had felt earlier, he saw a handcuff connecting him to the bed he was laying on.

  Looking around the room, it was still the same as it had been before his escape attempt, the holo-term sat right in front of him, its logo still occasionally pulsing.

  Nico turned his head towards what he had thought was the window earlier, he could still see farmland stretching on and on and the forest in the distance.

  Though after concentrating on the window for a while, trying to find any reason that what he was seeing through it wasn’t real, he was unable to come up with anything.

  The rhythmic tapping sound of a person walking in heels echoed through the hallway, the sound kept coming closer and closer to his room.

  The door was gracefully opened and a very beautiful woman, wearing a black suit stepped in, her glossy blonde hair rested on the small of her back and she wore matching black shoes.

  “Good evening” her angelic voice seemed to reverberate through Nico’s room, the room that had earlier felt large now felt suffocatingly small.

  “Hahahah” a gruff laugh broke the spell Nico had been under. The woman doubled over in laughter and wiped a few tears from her eyes.

  “Should’ve seen your face kid”, In place of the angelic woman now stood a the bulky figure of a dirty blonde haired, tan skinned man.

  Nico laid back on his bed and let out a sigh, “You been getting up to trouble without me I see” Uncle Mikhail said as he chuckled.

  “Do you even know how many strings I had to pull and people I had to kill to get here kid”, his tone didn’t feel serious though. Nico looked up at Uncle Mikhail questioningly.

  “None. Hah, you aren’t that important for the Ash health services board. Mostly due to them not knowing who you are”, Uncle Mikhail then looked at Nico seriously, Nico unconsciously straightened his back, Uncle Mikhail seemed to prefer this strategy, first make a few jokes, relax the person and then BAM drop some serious news on them.

  “You always manage to get into incredibly fucked up situations don’t you kid, a few months past your 19th birthday and already in debt”, Uncle Mikhail took a deep breath in.

  “When you tried to escape earlier, you were marked as a felon, a debt felon to be specific and not a small one either, the care package that the gang boss selected for you was the costliest and most top of the line package he could find”.

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  After a brief pause Uncle Mikhail went on again “In conclusion you are royally fucked and there is nothing I can do about it, I’m here as your debt agent, or that woman was, lets see here”.

  Uncle Mikhail began ruffling through the documents he had carried in here in the form of the woman, “Not this . . Hmmm maybe. No. Huh.” He shuffled through the documents for a while.

  Nico peeked at the documents that Uncle Mikhail was skimming through. “Nico, I’m sadly going to have to be very quick about all this, you don’t have a lot of time right now”. Uncle Mikhail finally took out a document from the pile of paper in front of him.

  “You have been legally categorized as a debt slave or class D1 employee as most corporations would kindly call you, the only doubt left is for how long and to what intensity this will affect you” Uncle Mikhail looked into Nico’s eyes, it felt like he was staring straight through into his soul.

  “I’ve done my best to change the time requirement into a repayment of the amount owed or 100 years of service, The only thing regarding intensity I’ve been able to change is to let you retain your personality and thoughts ” Uncle Mikhail looked at Nico with sadness.

  “This is all I can do for you kid, I’ve done what I can to reduce the penalties, best of luck. You wont be seeing me for a while, try to keep low alright” With a wave of his hand the space around Uncle Mikhail reflected light like a broken mirror and in his place the blond haired woman from earlier appeared.

  With the tapping sound of heels, she walked out of the room, leaving behind only an ominous document. Without a moments gap after she or Uncle Mikhail Nico supposed, left, a droid entered the room.

  “You have been marked as a class D1 employee, kindly sign the employment agreements immediately, failure to comply will result in an alternate method for recovery of creds, which is likely to end in your termination ” The droid spoke in a robotic tone.

  Nico took the papers while shaking, a pen appeared from inside the droid and it threw the pen to Nico, the pen smacked his cheek and landed on the bed.

  Picking the pen up, Nico held it above the document for a while until the droid beeped and warned him once again. Nico signed the document and gave both the pen and document to the droid.

  “Your temporary manager will soon be here to assist you” The droid floated away with a whirring sound.

  The droid floated toward the door and reached to open it. The door flew open, smashing the droid towards the side with a dying beep from it.

  In marched a man in blue military camo, he marched towards Nico’s bed, head held high and then unlocked his handcuffs, without another word he began pulling Nico up by his hand and through the winding hallways towards the roof top.

  There a cargo helicopter sat along with a few other people sitting in it, most were hand cuffed while the few who were not, wore the same uniform as Nico’s “manager”.

  Pulling him into the helicopter and setting him down besides the others in handcuffs, the man went and sat on the opposite side along with the other men in blue camo.

  The man that had brought Nico here had sat to the right end of the group of men, a man sitting in the center showed some hand signals to the pilot who then started the helicopter, a strange hum echoed through the helicopter as they lifted into the skies.

  Nico looked down at the city that got smaller and smaller every second. None of their “temporary managers” seemed interested in conversing with them.

  Nico sat there and watched the city shrinking into a pinprick as a large grey building appeared on the horizon. His heart beat with nervousness.