For a while, Christian studied them. He studied how far apart his arms needed to be, what his legs should do, and he even looked at a few variations. Finally, he tried it himself. The cold, concrete floor seemed to recognize what was happening and dug into his skin. Christian's body struggled to even maintain the position. Still, he pushed down. Though it seemed like the weight of the world was on his shoulders, nearly causing him to fall flat on his face, he pushed back up.
Nobody paid attention to him, as it was a frequent sight. Skinny good-for-nothings that found their way into a jail cell trying to improve themselves were a dime a dozen, until they were shipped off to whatever punishing biome the company found appropriate. The only permanent residents of the prison were either war criminals, smugglers or mining slaves who got a little too powerful on the planets.
"Hey bud, what're you in for?" An elderly man whispered through a crack in the wall, grabbing Christian's attention.
A few seconds passed without Christian's response, so the elderly man spoke lightheartedly, "I know you're in there. I saw you comin' in like a deer in headlights, lead by that guard. Least, that's the phrase the stories say."
This caught the attention of Christian, "What stories? I don't remember a phrase like that in my Growth House library."
Hesitating, the elder told him, "Well.. I was born outside of the company. We foreign-adjacent, as the company likes to call us, usually grew up in small communities that had the mercy of not being corrupted and conquered. Due to the executive's preference of slowly and securely capitalizing our upstart homelands, we were able to create vast information networks which eventually culminated in our expanded community trying to learn more about our species' history before the company."
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Awestruck, Christian savored every new puzzle piece that came with this elder's story. There were times when he had to stop himself from asking what certain words meant, as so much of the vocabulary used was unknown. One thing was for sure though, Christian's world had expanded to a galaxy, that galaxy was ripe for adventure.
The idea of a resistance, or at least sovereign groups that weren't small space militias, fueled Christian's determination to get stronger.
An awkward silence was building as Christian monologued in his head, causing the living history in front of him to talk again.
"Are you still with me?"
...
Christian inhaled, "Amazing. So that's how the first escapees formed a colony." he paused for a second, "How did they get the ships to run away with? Also, why didn't the company go after them?"
Tired after hours of telling stories and answering Christian's questions, the old man coughed, "Connections can get you far. By the time the operation was already in motion, they had found a pilot on the inside to provide them with a ship. The pilot in question was still a new contact, so they didn't know if he was a spy or not, but if he was then we wouldn't be here talking."
"What about my second question?"
"I'm racking my brain, kid. All I know is that the company is an emotionless machine only capable of logical thought. It could've been that the cost for a mission like that would be too much, or they didn't see them as a threat. I mean, here we are right now, flapping our mouths back and forth about history most wouldn't know of or care about, yet you don't see us getting killed. The company only deals in logic, so it has no understanding of things like hope, motivation or bravery. That's why even if ten percent of the population knew, it wouldn't matter. Oh, and the warden's taking a nap."