Gold Or Gone

Chapter 7 | Leaving

(Note : Micheal and Mercury are the same person. Micheal is a nickname.)

After a day of driving they were finally able to arrive at the port of Qami, The capital. This port city was responsible for about 70% of the economy. Spanning from the mountains on the right to the river of the left. It housed 30% of the total population.Micheal And his friends had arrived in that city dated March 13, 1964. 

The equitorial heat had turned the harbor into a flinching pot of boiling water. Like the air, their patience also was running thin. The rubber slippers and coarse clothing made the situation worse.

"Hey, at least tell us your plan, it's not like we dont trust you but asking us to blindly follow you is too much." finally said Leah, her expression rotten from walking in the scorching heat.

"We gain nothing from staying in this country any longer. Never ending famines and blood soaking wars will never end.", answered Micheal. 

Leah had no argument to the statement, the awkward silence resumed. 

"Look for ships, recruiting labor for the west, Quebria serves as a labor supplier to the west, there should be enough of them".

AK and Leah looked at mike's back with a worried gaze. "Fine, meet me at this crossroad at 6pm sharp", replied AK as he went south of the city and disappeared in the crowd.

Leah took for west and mercury went east. 

There were many ships anchored to the dock, a huge crowd of skinny men flocked each one of them. I went and asked around to acquire information. The ships were headed west to a bouquet of countries. Some even sailed south. 

It made him realize that he lacked intel. A vital tool. It made no sense for this many people to sail for labor. 

"Just why are there this many?" micheal thought to himself, questioning the legitimacy of such schemes and went straight to a library located at the center of the city. 

He grabbed with a world map and a book about the history of the world by some eastern author and began identifying the countries where the ships were heading to. Carefully analyzing he made a ranking considering the best employment conditions as well as future prospects in the said nations. The top three of them included the superpowers Terra and Paxi as well as a lesser known and less advanced Zenon. 

Mercury Pov:

Even though Zenon was an isolated island nation in the south, it played a crucial role in the first world war that had just ended. of course, we didn't even realize that a world war had been raging on. Anyways, the war was between the oppressive west and the newly free south. The east part of the world did not participate. Zenon with the combined forces had lost the war while losing its subsidiary islands and was in a desperate need of post war reconstruction. The east signed a pact with the south after the war to lend labor and resources for the reconstruction in exchange for the technological advancements that the south carried as a result of abandoned resources by the advance countries in the west. 

Paxi was the past dominant of the west world. They used to freely control the slave trade that had been abolished some time ago as well as acted as a middle ground for the east and the west. It had colonies everywhere and was the past ruler of Quebria. Terra on the other hand was a conservative nation not too long ago, having blessed land it started to sell fuel and minerals. Ter, the currency of Terra acted as the basis of international trade. Essentially Paxi and Terra controlled world economy. 

Satisfied with the newly found info mike left the library.

As promised after investigating the ships Micheal returned to the crossroad and reunited with Leah and Aka who smiled on seeing his face.

"What did you find?" asked Micheal. 

"There are a lot of ships here, most of them are exporting labor, some are importing metal.", said Akar.

"Most of them are from the west, but there's a considerable amount of them from the south as well. But the trip is pretty dangerous, overcrowded ships, pirates and rogues on the ships. Anything can go wrong. I heard a lot of tales of rape and murder. Its pretty daunting. Anyways Micheal, are you sure you want to leave this country just like this?", said Leah. 

"No, We will return to Dgarlan. You lot have family here. I need to take care of my father's factory as well."

As such they took off in the direction of Dgarlan, Mercury told them about the information he had found. They had a careful conversation regarding their choice. Weighing options and overcoming fear. When night arrived, they setup camp and stayed the night in the jungle separating dgarlan with Qami. 

The next evening they reached Dgarlan And for the first time in a long time Micheal returned to his house. He was still having a hard time accepting his decision to abandon his home but he gathered himself and salvaged through the house. In the house, he found his father's dagger and a cross necklace. he pushed the dagger under his belt and tied the necklace on his wrist. After piling all the worthy stuff outside his house, he closed the door of the house one last time, rested his head on that door and recited a prayer. He turned around and went walking.

He met up with Leah and AK and drove the jeep back to his house. They packed all the stuff and put them on the jeep and drove away.

He headed to the government office. It took 40 minutes to drive. 

He entered the creaking door. The air in the building had a musty smell and practically no light but he puzzled together a familiar face. 

It was chief Ray, Michael's ex-employer. 

"Well who do we have here?", sighed the chief. 

"Good to see you, chief.", replied Michael while shaking his hands while smiling.
"What can I do for you?" asked the chief while seating himself. 
"Buy this house and all the stuff we got ya.", mike's face turned straight. 
After a pause Ray replied, "I see... So its time huh?" and handed him a form while getting up to inspect the stuff for sale. 

"Here.", mike passed the form to the chief. "How much you thinking?", he asked.
"300k, cant do more than that."
"Fine, and what about the house and factory?"
"take 30mils for the house, 60 for the factory. Its pretty abandoned."
"Fine. hand me the worth in silver."

After an hour the chief returned with a bag of silver. It weighed 15kgs approximately. 

The ride out home was quiet, the silence had sealed everyone's lips, they rode in the starry night, the night sang but no voice was heard.