Nico let out a small gasp as he felt something pierce his hand, sharp pain traveled throughout his body, it took a few seconds and multiple shaky breaths escaping his mouth for the pain to subside.

  “The fuck was that” Nico whined in pain, he still didn’t take his hand out of the machine, eyeing the man standing behind him with apprehension.

  The man behind the machine looked at a few readouts the machine was printing out to him and had a slight awkward tilt to his lips, he looked at Nico with slight hints of an apology in his eyes, but overall didn’t seem to really care.

  The printout from the machine kept pooling into the man’s lap, his eyes swiped from left to right rapidly as it moved down the list. Pausing at certain points and then jumping back a few times to re-read, sometimes even rubbing his eyes a few times, as if to confirm what he was seeing was real.

  Eventually the printout stopped coming out, a few drops of sweat dropped from the man’s pale forehead onto the paper from the sheer amount of stress he seemed to be under.

  With a slight tremble in his hands he began folding the long printout into his pockets, the paper crinkled and folded as it was eventually tucked safely in the mans pockets.

  The man got up in a hurry, knocking the chair he was sitting on to the back, he rushed around the desk, crashing his foot against the desk, he let out a groan but didn’t stop his mad dash.

  Taking a moment to think he stopped hid mad dash and gestured to the man who was standing behind Nico, who had moments ago, kicked Nico in the ribs, they both walked out of the tiny building and closed the door.

  After a wait of a few minutes the door opened and the man who had kicked Nico stepped back in, he looked to be in a better mood this time around.

  “Take your arm out. Here” The man pulled out a chair for him, he seemed to have become much kinder and happier. Still looking at the man with a bit of fear in his eyes, Nico sat down on the chair offered by the man.

  The man moved Nico and the chair to a corner of the room and stood beside him as the next D1 entered the room along with a man in a blue uniform.

  The man didn’t spare Nico or his guard a glance and sat behind the machine after setting the chair that had been knocked down upright. There was no more fuss as one after the other all the D1’s finished putting their arms in the machine and then took it out with a gasp.

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  None of them got a long printout, at most the machine spit out a sentence or so for each. All of them were lead out of the small building and soon everything was quiet.

  Nico and his guard stood in the corner and looked on as all this happened, he wasn’t sure what they were waiting for but as the seconds went by the man’s exciting and happiness seemed only to be increasing.

  Soon the door flew upon, revealing the man that had used the machine on Nico and following him, what Nico would tentatively call spec-ops, they looked just like the ones he used to see on holo-vids on the streets.

  Some silent agreement seemed to pass between Nico’s guard and the spec-ops guys that had just entered the room. “Follow me” his guard told him with perceptible excitement.

  Nico walked behind him as the the spec-ops fell into place around them, they exited the rusty building back into the incredible heat of the Great Nothing.

  Walking along the empty streets, surrounded by a team of spec-ops and lead by who Nico considered his guard at this point, they arrived at the grey building Nico had seen from the sky earlier.

  Walking into it from a side entrance, Nico and his guard were left by the spec-ops only to be surrounded by some other guys in blue camo.

  They were lead through twisting and turning corridors until they reached a fancy looking door. Nico and his guard were lead inside and told sit on two chairs.

  In front of the chairs there was an ornate wooden table, real wood, the smell of it was very refreshing for Nico. He sat down on the chair, but his guard went to a shelf in the corner and began searching through it, opening and closing the drawers with care.

  He found what he wanted after a while and brought it back, a huge stack of paper. Dropping the stack onto the desk he sat beside Nico. The door, not the one that Nico had entered through but the door opposite to it, elegantly opened.

  Through it a man in a suit with glasses stepped in. Adjusting his glasses with his right hand he sat down in the chair in front of Nico.

  “How are you Nico.” This was the first person in a long while other that Uncle Mikhail who had used his name.

  “I see here that you have been hired as a D1, Hmm” The bespectacled man flipped through the documents that Nico’s guard had dropped on the desk earlier.

  “We’ll get that fixed, hmm , that too, yes yes ” The talked to himself and nodded as he went through the entire stack. The other two sat in the room in silence as they waited for the bespectacled man.

  The silence was really beginning to grind on Nico’s nerves, gathering up the courage he had lost from the hectic events he began opening his mouth to start asking a few questions.

  “Soo Nico, Here’s the gist, currently you are a D1, essentially you get zero net salary, all of your money goes to repaying your debt, you also get zero benefits or retirement stuff, yada yada” The man interrupted Nico.

  “What I’m offering you is, employment under the M-I employee classification, all around better treatment, way better treatment, believe me, just sign these forms. Alright” the man gave a cheesy smile.

  Is Nico going to sign ?