002 - No Fair
“I- I'll get you the money I promise I just need a few more-”
“No, no, no, no,” Howard took a long drag from his cigar before blowing out so hard Daven could smell it from where he stood nearly twenty feet away. “I am not goin' to let ya off so easy this time. Hell, kid, ya owe me nearly three months rent at this point.”
Daven didn't say anything, just stared at Howard as he took another drag from his cigar. He had to do something. He thought about making a run for it but heard a sound from behind him. He turned his head just enough to see two men walking slowly toward him, one of them was tall with spiked-up hair and the other one was medium height with a buzz cut and a scar that ran from his nose to the end of his chin. It was an ugly thing.
He knew these two, the tall one's name was Tim and the buzz-cut guy was named Smith. At least, that was the names they used when they collected his rent. Though, they were always at ease when Daven usually gave the two his money, this time around they looked tense, ready for anything.
Shit, come on there's gotta be a way out.
“Whatcha got, kid,” Howard said, pointing at Daven's hyperflux driveshaft.
“Nothing,” He replied, holding the piece of metal close to his chest.
“Come on, Tim saw you buying it, looked like it was worth quite a bit of credits. Let us have that and maybe we can let you go for one more month.”
Daven knew that he was getting a damn good deal at the moment. But even so, he couldn't let these thugs have it without a fight. He shook his head. “No.”
Howard sighed. “Get 'em.”
The footsteps on the mildewy gravel sped up into a run as Tim and Smith ran for him. In reaction, he swung the driveshaft out, pivoting his feet to face the two men. The metal piece connected with Smith on the right shoulder, forcing his body to turn and hit the ground next to Daven's feet. Before Daven could change the direction of his swing toward Tim, however, the man grabbed the driveshaft. Daven tried to hold on but then the man’s knee collided into his stomach.
Daven hit the ground, the air knocked out of him. He tried to scramble his way to his feet but a foot hit him hard in the back. Another kick came and hit him in the leg, and another in the shoulder. Both men were now kicking him, the blows came one after another and he tried his best to block them with his arms and legs but each one still hurt.
He saw a foot coming for his head and he forced his head just far back enough to not have it connect and grabbed it with his hands. He pulled on the leg and saw the man go down, it was Tim. The tall man's body fell and he grunted in pain.
Smith was still kicking but somehow he found a way to get to his feet. Just when he was about to make a run for it, though, Smith ran into him. Pushing him into the side of his apartment building as the man's whole body rammed into him. Just when he thought he was catching his breath, the air was knocked out of him for a second time. He managed to stay on his feet but now instead of legs it was fists. Smith hit him multiple times in the stomach and Daven had no energy to block them.
“Alright knock it,” Howard began. Smith's fist smashed into Daven's nose, he heard a snap and a sharp, dull pain as his head hit the brick behind him. He descended onto the ground again, catching himself with an elbow. “Off.”
The pain in his face was steadily increasing and he now had one hell of a headache, but he tried his best to not let it show. Instead, he looked at Howard as he strolled toward him.
“I gotta hand it to ya, you've got guts, kid,” He said taking a long drag from his cigar. “Tell me what that thing of scrap was ya got from the yard.”
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Daven tried to speak but found blood, he spit it out onto the ground. “It's nothing.”
Howard gave a long, toothy grin before turning to Tim who was just now getting up from the ground. “What was it?”
Tim looked at the metal piece, “Looks like a hyperflux driveshaft, vintage by the looks of the thing.”
Howard gave a slight chuckle and turned back to Daven. “That’ll sell for a pretty penny I think. I'll take it off ya hands, kid, that plus the beatin' will make us even, sound fair?”
Daven stayed silent and just stared at the big man once more.
Howard nodded and put the cigar out on the side of the building. “Let's call it fair,” He flicked the used butt onto Daven. “See ya next month, kid.”
He watched as the three men slowly made their way out of the alley into another of the many in this maze of a city. He felt tears swell up in his eyes and felt the wetness touch his cheeks. He wiped it away and got slowly up with the help of the brick wall. Everything pulsed with pain, his arms, his legs, his stomach, and especially his head. Slowly, he stumbled his way toward the apartment entrance and went inside. The guard at the front desk just gave a passing glance as Daven made his way to the stairs.
It wasn't fair. None of this was fair. Every day, he had to wake up and scrounge up any credits he could find by any means necessary just to scrape by while others like Howard lorded it over all like the slum lord he was. No, he was worse than that, Howard was merely the one that ran collections. He was just a middleman who would beat the ones who couldn't pay yet he had more money than anyone who paid him rent would ever see. If he had even a fraction Howard had, he'd be able to never lift a finger again in this hell hole.
But even then, what would he do? Live a simple life, wasting away on a couch trying to not get on the empire's bad side? Perhaps that was something everyone else dreamed of doing, but he wanted more. He demanded more. And he was close to it. He just had to persevere, he just had to get the damn machine working.
He was now at his door and went inside. He went to the restroom and looked at himself in the mirror. His nose was bleeding but as he looked closer it didn't seem broken. Most likely just a fracture.
He washed the blood on his hands and tried to wash his face as best he could too. Looking in the mirror, it didn't do much. His right eye was already developing a black eye and when he lifted his shirt he saw bruises forming on his chest and stomach area too.
Well, if I have internal bleeding then none of what I do matters much anyway I suppose.
What was he going to do?
He was going to make sure his life was a little bit more fair. He just had to pull off the plan he had been cooking in his mind for a long time. The driveshaft being taken had thrown a wrench into the mix but he knew where he worked.
He grasped his hands onto the sides of the mirror on the wall and carefully shifted it off of the embedded screw and set it on the ground. Where the mirror had been was a square hole that went five feet into the wall. An old drug hole, probably was there before Howard even owned the place. Inside was a piece of paper at the entrance and in the back several scrap parts he had bought from the scrapyard. Perhaps his plan would've gone faster if he had just stolen the parts but that came with a whole list of risks that weren't worth taking.
He took the piece of paper in the hole and looked at the plan he had stenciled out. It read:
1. Fix up ship.
2. Fly out of here.
He took a pencil out of a cabinet and added:
3. Break into Howard’s place and steal part.
If I can hire a crew mate, the first thing I'm doing is getting someone who can make an actual plan.
But the bullet points were not really for him to formulate a plan, it was to remind him of his task. Just like the pieces of junk in the back did. Every night, just before he went to bed, he would look at the pieces and reaffirm his belief in something better for himself. He didn't know quite why, but he knew that this must be true. Ever since he could remember, when he was strolling the streets as a homeless kid with no parents to remember him by, he knew that he was built for something great.
And he wouldn't let an opportunity slip him by. He was done waiting, he would make his dream a reality. He was going to break in, repair the ship, and steal it. He was going to make a great pirate, he just knew it.