Jahn stumbled into his room and began stripping the dirt and sweat soaked work coveralls from his body, tossing them into the hamper. New sets would be waiting for he and his roomates in the morning. When that was finished, he stumbled into the sanisteam. He stood there for few minutes letting the heat soak into his sore muscles and stared at his hands. They were torn and raw from the brutally hard manual labor he'd been engaged in for the past week. Apparently whatever his former life had involved, it hadn't been manual labor.
Although his muscles were sore, he had really expected them to be much worse. After spending so long in the hospital he had expected them to have atrophied to some extent, but judging by how they seemed to be adapting to the hard work, and the muscled physique he saw in he mirror, he was evidently a firm believer in calisthenics.
When he finally stepped out of the sanisteam, all Jahn really wanted to do was flop on his bunk and sleep, yet that just wasn't on the schedule just yet. It was the weekend, and instead of the usual eleven hour work day that he'd been working for the last seven days, they had only worked seven. Tomorrow it would be the start of the work week again and back to eleven hour days, but for the evening, he had some extra time off, and he had plans.
Jael had invited him over for the evening meal, extensibly to give him a check up and maybe work on trying to get his memory back, but he didn't care much about that at the moment. It would just be nice to relax for a bit and talk.
As he walked out of the barracks and down the steet, he kept thinking that someone should be trying to stop him from leaving, but no one seemed to pay any attention. The fact was that it wasn't a prison. There was nothing really from stopping him from leaving, except that they had implanted a sub-dermal tracking device, or at least that's what they told him.
He wasn't sure exactly what to believe. There was such a mixture of high and low technology that it was often confusing. On one hand, all transactions on the planet were conducted through the tracking chips, and debtors couln't buy a thing for themselves as there was no curency, but on the other hand people in the streets rode horses or drove horse or nerf drawn wagons, or noisey, polluted fossil-fuel powered, motorized vehicles on wheels. There were no air or land speeders, except a few belonging to the uber wealthy.
And everyone carried slug-throwing weapons. Jahn had yet to see a single energy weapon. He couldn't remember specifics, but he was pretty sure none of this would be considered normal where ever he was from.
He finally arrived at the address which Jael had given him over the comm, and it turned out to be an apartment building in a decent neighborhood, yet even here the doors weren't automatic. He looked around for a comm switch, but there was none. Finally he just tried the door and it swung inward with a quick turn of the knob.
In the small foyer he saw a list of last names next to apartment numbers and as he ran his finger down the list, stopping at "Thracen 4F," he caught himself whistling a tune his co-workers were fond of singing. It was some ballad they seemed to sing often; the story of someone named Jayne Cobb.
Apparently sometime in the past someone had tried to stand up to the system, robbing and stealing from the elite only to give it to the debtors. Jahn suspected there was probably a lot of information that the ballad left out, but as of now the song was all that was left of the incident. Still, the tune was not only catchy, but addicting as well.
Jael opened the door to his knock and he was stunned. She seemed even more beautiful than he remembered, even though it had been only a week since he'd seen her. "Oh, man, I missed you," he said a bit breathlessly.
She smiled demurely, then hugged him and gave him a small kiss on his cheek. "It's good to see you too, Jahn."
Supper was already prepared and laid out on the table, and everything smelled delicious. "This smells and tastes so much better than the stuff the Mudders eat," he told her as they began the meal.
"Mudders?" she asked.
"Yeah, that's what the debtors call themselves... I guess it stems from being covered in so much dirt and sweat after a long day," Jahn explained.
They talked quietly throughout the meal, mostly Jahn explaining what he had gone through so far. Finally she commented, "You look to be in pretty good shape for all the poor food and hard work."
"It's getting easier. I think it's this nasty grog they drink... they call it 'Mudder's Milk,'" he told her. "It supposedly has all the protein, vitamins and carbs of your grandma’s best tarkle dinner, plus 15 percent alcohol. Tastes like Hell, but it's satisfying and helps you sleep easy."
After supper they sat and talked for a while, sitting together on the couch. She went over some mental exercises that were supposed to help him bring his memory back, but finally he stopped her. "I'm not sure I want my memories back, Jael."
"I'm not sure I want your memories back either."
Jahn pulled her in close and kissed her deeply. When they finally parted, she whispered in his ear. "You don't have to go."
"I don't want to, but I have to," he said sadly. Every fiber told him to stay, but he stood up to leave. "The work day starts early for a Mudder."
She walked him to the door. "I wish I could pay off your debt, Jahn."
"If you tried, you'd only end up in there with me."
----------------
The work day did come early, and as usual, the day was hot and dry and the work itself was back-breaking and brutal. They were in the middle of building a large earthen dam, but most of the work was being done by hand.
It was mid-afternoon and Jahn was sweaty and tired. He'd been shoveling dirt all day into wheel barrows and as one was pushed off to it's destination, the next one was arrving to be filled with little break time inbetween.
Suddenly a shovelful of dirt hit him square in the back. He paused and looked over at the guy who had tossed it. He was a huge hulk of a man, standing almost 25 to 30 centimeters taller than Jahn and his shoulders were even broader. The man's shirt was tied around his waist and Jahn could see the man's chest and arms had several knife blade scars on them. Exactly how he knew they were from blades, Jahn couldn't say, but he knew what they were. He went back to work deciding that it wasn't worth making an issue of it.
As soon as he did, another shovelful of dirt hit him in the back. "Hey man, watch where you're throwing that," Jahn said and went back to work, only to have a third shovelful hit him. "You dig like an animal," he said.
He stood up and the man had a look in his eyes that Jahn recognized. Instantly he knew this would only end one way.
"Oh, so I'm an animal, eh?" the hulk said to him, throwing the shovel to the ground and heading in Jahn's direction.
"No, I said you dig like one, or do you have dirt in your ears?"
"And I'm deaf too, eh?"
"No, I just think you're too stupid to realize the mistake you're about to make." Jahn didn't know what prompted him to say that, but prepared for what was now inevitable.
The big man swung a long, lazy, looping punch aimed for Jahn's head. Jahn ducked and struck hard and fast, landing two punches into the man's rib cage causing the brute to exhale.
"You hit hard, little-" a fist slammed into the brute's mouth, staggering him. Jahn had no intention of standing around and talking. Instead he followed up with hard blows to the body.
The brute swung a kick for Jahn's groin. He dodged the kick, but not the fist that came after. It caught him on the side of the head, and lights exploded. He shook his head and backed up, trying to clear the cobwebs and focus.
It was the opening the brute was looking for and he moved in swinging away with haymakers and uppercuts. Jahn tried to dodge most of them, but several landed indirectly. Glancing blows they may have been, but they still hurt, and he went down under the onslaught.
The man kicked his ribs and pain shot through him. The big brute reached down and grabbed Jahn by his shirt front, clearly intending to finish this fight once and for all, but something had clicked inside Jahn.
He didn't know what it was, but time seemed to slow down, clarity returned and he felt and exhilerhating, raw power surge through his body, re-energizing him.
Jahn sprang to life and to his feet, out of reach of the brute. He began throwing puches. The brute tried to counter, but Jahn was too quick, bobbing and weaving in and out of his reach and under and around blows, all the while landing fist after fist.
Finally he swung his leg, kicking the brute in the side of the knee and sending the beast to the ground. Jahn was on him in an instant, continuing his rain of fierce blows.
Suddenly he felt hands trying to pull him backward, up and off the brute. Jahn allowed them to pick him up, but shook them off when he had made it to his feet.
Jahn stood there over the unconscious body, his fists dripping with the brute's blood and barely recognizing the bloody pulp of flesh that was once the bully's face.
"You nearly killed him," a voice came from the silent crowd that had gathered, stunned to silence by the violence they had just witnessed.
"No... I didn't do that," Jahn said, breathing hard as his senses started to return to normal. "The foolish and the weak will always find a way to destroy themselves."
Suddenly the crowd parted and a pudgey man dressed richly, escorted by two big men made their way toward Jahn.
"That was quite an impressive display of skill... Jahn Doh, is it?" the pudgey rich man asked.
"Who're you?" Jahn asked. Somehow he knew he'd regret the answer.
"Why, my name is Eli Dipsatch... and I'm the guy who just paid off your debt."
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