Praise the Ancient Ones for the sun. I thought as I lay in the grass on a hillside by the docks.
The rain had stopped about two hours ago and the ground had already dried. I watched the boats move in and out of the docks picking up and dropping off their cargo. I had nothing better to do, since I didn’t have a meeting with Crystal and Chrida until later on that afternoon. I got up to stretch when I noticed a medium sized ship coming into the harbor. It had tall metal walls with one red word painted on its side; PRISON.
That was the sort of ship that took most of the Nothings here. Most of them didn’t commit any crimes; they were placed here because they couldn’t afford the other Partitions, were crazy, or rebels, and were forced to relocate. I am one of the odd ones. I came here by choice. I want to help the poor and starving of the Nothingness, and see to it that the unfair system of laws is eradicated. I do that by helping the rebel group, The Guardians, supplying them with the names of the new arrivals, and to see if there are any rebels among the new arrivals. I don’t want to risk the Guardians being disbanded, or worse, killed: so I can’t tell anyone, not even my best friends, about my association with the Guardians. Along with my true name, it is a secret that I will take to the grave. I took the name from some rich kid that I had robbed years ago.
I walked over to where the prison ship had weighed anchor and stopped. There was only one person by the boat when I came over: a dim-witted security guard named Dave Fodder. He was an acquaintance of mine who I could talk into revealing what the ships had brought in without much effort on my part. He was from Portex, but he worked here, in the Nothingness, Keeping track of who came in and who came out of the docks. He made my job so much easier.
I tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped. He pulled out his gun and turned around.
I put my hands in the air. “Dave, it’s me, Alko”
"Oh! Hi, Alko" he said, putting his gun away. “You can put your arms down, Alko.”
I lowered my arms and gave a slight sigh.
"You don't know what's coming in today, do you?" I asked feigning innocence.
"Nothing much," He said with a slight chuckle. "Just a couple of minor criminals and dissidents; No one too dangerous" He added with a wink.
"That's a little hard to believe when almost everyone that comes here is either dangerous or insane." I said, shrugging my shoulders.
A youngish messenger wearing a scarlet uniform red-tinted sunglass, and a black messenger bag walked close to where we were standing.
"See you later, Dave." I said, waving goodbye.
"Yeah... See ya Alko." he said, walking over to the messenger.
I tried to hear what they were talking about. Dave went over to the ship when the messenger had finished talking to him. I was walking up the hill to the forest boundary when the Messenger spoke:
“Are you the one called Alko?” he asked. His voice had the Portexian accent.
“Yes.” I said. Have I been found out? I wondered. “What do you want?”
He walked closer to me, within an arm’s reach of me.
“I have heard much about you, Alko. Probably more than you think I know.”
