Gateway Worlds

Assimilation - 2

The man leaned forward until she could feel the heat of his breath, "Not even close, it's a reminder of what my victims look like once I'm done with them."

She felt a tremor of fear slide down her back at the cold decisiveness of his tone. The words held no malice or threat, simply cold, hard fact.

When she spoke, her voice fluttered just a bit, "Murderers aren't sent here."

"They aren't sent here if that's what they're caught for, but plenty of people aren't caught for what their actual vice is." Ribbons pushed back and away. Before she could right herself he had disappeared into the deeper darkness of the room. A minute later she felt alone, although there was no way to be sure.

Maria wanted to rush to her stash, gather it up, and get as far away as possible, but she wasn't a stupid woman. The minute she touched it he would reappear and snap it all away. She considered her dilemma. He'd been sent after her, but they must not know her identity or they would have confronted her in open daylight.

Would Ribbons tell them what he'd found, or was he more interested in recovering the stolen goods first? She had to rely on his greedy because that would buy her the time she needed for escape. Until then, she decided to play it cool and try to throw him off the trail.

Stopping cold would be too obvious, but continuing to steal seemed ludicrously dangerous. She definitely wouldn't stash her new loot among the old. She'd wait three days. Hopefully that would be enough for him to let down his guard, then she'd gather up everything she could and run like her life depended on it.

Maria tried to take comfort in her plan, but it was still several hours before she could get herself to go to sleep. Even then, the lightest sounds brought her fully awake with an expectation of some Boss' men surrounding her and trying to torture the information from her.

In the morning, groggy and cross, Maria made her way back to the main square to find work.

"Don't know why they came in such a rush though," the conversation, hushed and intense, pricked at Maria's ears.

A second participant chimed in. "I heard it had something to do with a common problem and they want it resolved immediately."

"A common problem? Like water? Please tell me we're not going to run into a water shortage again."

The first shook her head in disgust, "Nothing to do with resources, if my friend is correct, from what I've heard there's some idiot nut who's stolen from a bunch of the Bosses and they've tracked him here. I just don't get why the Bosses themselves came. I guess I would have thought that something like this could be resolved by lower level guys, you know?"

"Who all came?"

"Jupiter, Cronus, Horace, Eris, Darius, and The Pirate."

Maria wanted to curse, they'd come specifically looking for her, Ribbons must have been hired by the group to find her and he'd done his part, all he lacked was the proof of what she was. Three days probably wasn't going to be enough time to throw him off, having the money of five of the largest Bosses in the outer cities filling his pockets would keep him focused for quite some time. The only option, although the thought of it made her skin feel like it was already on fire, was to escape now; to travel during the heat of the day when no one dared risk death.

When the break came for their daily siesta Maria almost reconsidered. Although the suns weren't at their peak yet, the heat already soaked her thin clothes with sweat. The sluggish breezes that came up now and again seemed burdened, and the low level humidity only added weight to the atmosphere. With a few more degrees to rise, this trek was going to be hard.

Her crewmates broke into smaller groups as they moved off. The increased diversity of workers due to extra people in the presence of extra bosses made finding a job difficult. Followers of Cronus and Jupiter, the Bosses furthest from this area, mixed with locals from Horace and Eris. The Pirate never had a following, which always intrigued Maria. His slower, more methodical recruitment generally produced a crop of underlings who were loyal to a fault and didn't stray from their assigned tasks. Even without them, the minor chaos of the additional bodies gave her the perfect opportunity.

Maria grabbed a quick meal from the food vendors, who wanted nothing more than to be inside as well, before heading back to her building. She tried to walk casually as she ate the overripe fruit, but her nerves were pulsing. If, for some reason, he was waiting for her, then the entire plan would be foiled. The concern percolated into a stronger brew as she moved: Ribbons knew who she was. Simply disappearing didn't necessarily show her as guilty, but would lend it credence. She could always leave the jewels behind.

Giving them back might appease their anger enough to stop paying Ribbons, and the mercenary wasn't likely to come after her without someone funding the search. She'd have to start saving again. Better that than face anger hot enough to warrant hiring a hunter, traveling to another Boss' realm, and threatening her.

The woman hadn't stopped sighing by the time she dropped to her knees by the stash a few minutes later. Moving by feel, she began pulling the money, jewelry, and other objects from the hole. She divided them into piles, dependent on who they had been taken from; annoyed that enough guilt lingered to make the distinction easy despite her attempts to blend the stolen property.

Next, she moved to the building's doors and cracked one open enough to let in light. Along with the light came a blast of heat, but she ignored that and propped it. Taking a piece of rough paper, the only kind available in this world, and a charcoal-like pencil, she began scratching out a list of sold items along with as much information on where they were sold. After each note sat with its respective cloth-wrapped pile of loot, Maria picked them all up and buried them at the bottom of her travel bag. The roughhewn bag wasn't the best for carrying such cargo, with patches and badly sewn holes in more than a dozen places, but it would do the job until she got where she needed to be.

Maria had weathered a few afternoons outside, so today wouldn't be her first, but she never enjoyed the sunburns that inevitably followed. No amount of covering seemed enough to avoid them.

The woman checked and double checked herself in the small sliver of light. The temperature had risen noticeably. No one moved in the open locked in whatever dark hole they could find. After verifying this, she pushed the door open a little further.

The silence of the deserted streets felt as oppressive as the temperature. Every crunch of soft-soled shoes against brown dirt sounded loud in her ears and every shadow quickened her heart. Maria shifted her pack higher onto her shoulders as beaded sweat slipped between her shoulder blades. She would be drenched before the three hours were up, but she would also be a long way down the road if she were lucky.

A straw connected to a thick water bladder sat at her cheek and she turned her head to pull a strong draft of the stale liquid. She had enough water in the bladder to get her through the day, but not much more. Eris held the land that bordered the wilds. Maria had ventured a few times to learn about the people who chose wilderness over the cities, but aside from a minor introduction to survival, she couldn't bring herself to stoop to their level. What she learned would serve her, but she preferred the city life, as hazardous as it felt at the moment.

The building Eris claimed for herself sat stocky and well-made, ready to defend her. Maria stopped outside the main gate and dropped her pack to the ground. As quickly as she could, she unwrapped her hands and looted through her bag for the five bundles. She placed each within the open gate, directly in the walking path, and well-labeled. There would be no pilfering by passers-by before the Bosses could get their hands on them. She closed her bag as she rose and settled it back into place, strapping it across her hips and chest to reduce the strain.

"It feels a little light."

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Okay peoples, give me some comments. What would you have done. Personally, there's no way I would have returned it all. I might have returned half, or some of the bigger items. No sense in losing everything you've 'worked' for, right?