Two bystanders covered in identical one-piece suits watched an exchange in front of a cargo shuttle. They took a few sloshy steps up the slope and onto the main pedestrian drag, their boots caked up to the shaft with mud in various stages of wetness, like the belly of the shuttle prior to the searing heat of ascent.
“Who dey takin’?” One bystander said to the other, his swarthy complexion fusing into the deep shades of his paper-thin one-piece.
“Slaves, Lotta Cash. Juss bought, too.” He scraped his heel on the edge of the drag, removing extra grime weighing down his foot.
“Way a sec, Momo. Dat look like Soda Head.” He double checked. “I’ll be. It is.”
“Yep. High mugs. Dey grab ‘im at sunup, clean ‘im up real good, an’ sen’ ‘im off t’ da belts. Well, he be goin’ soon anyway.” Momo leaned from side to side, studying the exchange.
Three men stood dispassionately, their high-phased helmets resembling the brims of tall hats and cheek pieces that spiraled into hooks sidling their bristling beards. They dressed immaculately, their faces curled into bullish sneers examining Soda Man up and down. One lifted his arm and ran a diagnostic. He nodded, lifting a coin-sized unit between two fingers. The unit blinked. He smirked impassively, his brow unchanging.
“At leest, I think dey take ‘em to da belts,” Momo continued. “Cud be anywhea. But no matta da place, dey gonna send us too if we be like Soda Head.” He checked the elastic armlet wrapped around his left wrist, then gasped in relief.
“Yeea. Soda be gettin’ in trubba too much. Don’t like no work, now dey give ‘im reel work. How long ya think when we’s go up dere, Momo?” Lotta Cash nodded his chin towards the sky. Another carrier flew past the drag and over the landing pits, alighting somewhere in the mud flats beneath the droves of identical one-piece suits.
“Beats me. Hell, dey cud juss pick us apart an’ dump the resta us up dere in o’bit. Maybe furder. Who knows wit dem high mugs.”
“Dang, Momo. Hope not. I think pickin’ at floaty rocks betta dan dat. Ooh.” Lotta Cash leaned up on his toes. “Wut goin’ on now?”
Momo leaned to his right, looking past an armed guard brandishing a low-end projectile rifle. The trooper glowered at the curious, rolling crowds, either looking for a fight or expressing mild disgust at the ragged sea. He might have been frustrated at the cheap standard issue weapon used on savage worlds, preferring the more high-powered scorchers to better sear a chasm into the environing stock.
One of the merchants raised his hand and struck the newly purchased thrall, knocking him to the ground like dead weight. He tapped at his lip then pointed at Soda Head with a deep crinkle in his forehead. He eyed a guard who yanked the slave up by the loose folds of his suit. Soda Head tensed, hunching his shoulders and burying his chin into the pit of his neck. The other slaves looked on, then immediately darted their eyes beneath their sodden feet.
Lotta Cash shook his head in a chill. “Dat gotta hurt. Where dey get dem bang-bangs fum, Momo?” He squinted his eyes, studying the guard’s shoulder insignia.
“No idea. Can’t read. Don’t even know wut da colahs mean. Dey juss mean bidness, Lotta Cash. Bidness wit da high mugs.”
One of the merchants beamed at a passerby with spears in his eyes. The other shuddered and melted back into the crowds.
“Gonna miss Soda Head’s funny joke,” Lotta Cash said, his sights still lined with the exchange, careful to avoid the chances of eye contact, “like jumpin’ on tables durin’ mess houa. Always shoutin’ at evvybuddy like he puttin’ on a show.”
“Lotta good it do him. Like you say, always gettin’ in trubba. Look like they movin’ now.”
The third merchant tipped his brimmed helmet at the guard who followed them onto the apron and into the shuttle. The slaves shambled along, their gait hampered by their spell of sullenness. Soda Head trailed behind, dragging his feet, but the guard yanked his leash and shoved him through the hatch. The bay door shut.
“Sad day,” Lotta Cash remarked. “Nutha one go upstairs an’ don’t come back.”
“Dey neva do. Best dey work an’ please deir massas. De ol’ high mugs…dey as mean as dey come, an’ supa-strong too.”
“Dey crawlin’ all ova d’ stahs like roaches, Momo. I even see one climin’ ova ma foot. Watch dis.” Lotta Cash bent down, grabbed the insect, and crushed it in his hand. Then he licked his fingers stained with years of unwashed labor. “Tase good. Betta dan da mess dey give us.”
“Betta dan bein’ bought like food too,” Momo sagely added.
“Yeea. Dem high mugs got moe money dan da hole empia.”
“Dey are da empia, Lotta Cash. Juss hope one day sumbuddy, in a ‘nudda place, do da high mugs in…an’ free ah bubbas n’ sistas.”
“One day, Momo. One day…”
Both men checked their armlets. A strip running lengthwise shone in green, though one appeared more chartreuse in tone.
“Da greena, da betta,” Momo stated, observing Lotta Cash’s armlet. “Don’t wanna get too yellow, or dey may be lookin’ fo’ you at sunup too.”
The other trilled through his thick labial flaps and shook his head. Both turned and ambled down the drag, commingling with the drifting crowds of bondsmen, all of whom floundered over to the landing pits with picks, shovels, and hoes in hand.
The slave shuttle lifted, drawing a treacle of mud that pattered over the crowds. It spun in mid-air and rose out of sight, carrying Soda Head into orbit and far away. Momo wiped a spattering from his brow, his eyes sinking and glabella crinkling the more he gazed into the vault.
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