Sold!

That was what Marcas ‘Wolf’ Nixon was, sold to a Mr. Humphrey for a nice sum of 35,000 G-Credits, but with war inflation that’s a good 50,000 Wolf’s father had earned.

His father was a crime lord but nobody thought he’d stoop to trafficking but he did and it was to his own son.

One night he found himself rudely awoken by his own father and a bunch of men in black suits and shades that masked eyes, surrounded him. The masked suits, as he preferred to call them, swiftly dragged Wolf out of his bed, kicking and screaming within their sturdy grasps. Calling out to his father demanding what was happening. It didn’t take long for them to throw him in the back of a van and drive off.

When morning came, he was shown to the beyond wealthy socialite known as Mr. Humphrey and was pleased with his new addition, he was especially fascinated with the monkey tail Wolf was born with. Soon he was quickly injected with an owner’s chip and sent to work within the estate.

How long was that now? A year ago Wolf thinks as he holds the mop within his soft palms yet on his pinkies were callouses from repeated biting of them.

“Wolf… Wolf, you’re daydreaming again!” Miss Wagfingers yells into his face, snapping Wolf back into reality again.

“Sorry… I’ll get back to work, I’m nearly done with this floor now.” he said, twisting the mop, draining the excess water out of it.

Miss Wagfingers was the head maid and was in charge of keeping the servants in line, her hair was brittle like her personality and her face was always rigid with disapproval towards anyone who wasn’t her. There was a specific way of doing things and you better be sure you were doing it.

Miss Wagfingers lets out a loud and heavy sigh, “You haven’t done the water right, it’s not soapy enough and those floors aren’t shining as bright as the sun, now Wolf!” she quickly turns her back and struts off.

Wolf sticks his tongue out at her before continuing mopping the floors the way he liked them.

Swish swash all over the floor of the first floor of the estate, along with the other servants most were droids but others were other kids around his age but Mr. Humphrey preferred calling the kids ‘Wards’ instead of servants.

Swish swash until the floors are all done.

Then onto the other chores to be done within the estate.

The twelve ‘Wards’ stand in line in-front of Miss Wagfingers, who paced back and forth in front of them with a clipboard firm in hand and the persistent clicking of the pen, constantly going click click.

“Adam, you will be in charge of maintaining the harvest drones backyard in the farm after school today.” Miss Wagfingers said, with Adam nodding.

“Yosuke you will be helping Mr. Wiggums in the kitchen today, Jonathan will be assisting me in the laundry today and Wolf…”

Wolf looks away from Miss Wagfingers, twiddling his fingers behind his back. Whatever chore he got after school, he prays it wasn’t maintaining the sprinkler towers again.

“Change of plans Miss Wagfingers, I’ll be taking this boy with me to the Droid Showcase this evening, so he will be relieved of duties today,” Mr. Humphrey said, placing a hand on Wolf’s shoulder.

Miss Wagfingers rolls her eyes and struts off once again to fulfill her own duties as Mr. Humphrey looks at him with that sickening sweet smile.

If Wolf knew anything, it meant he was up to something devious when he had that smile and that’s what makes him anxious, thoughts racing at what he was planning, another droid purchase? crumbling another housing area for his own luxury apartments? or maybe something even worse.

He would just have to wait patiently until tonight.

Wolf sits on the school roof with his classmates, some of them were watching shows on holographic screens that were projected through their VisionWatches. They were a trendy item for kids his age but were way too expensive for the average household.

Other kids were watching him perform a magic trick with a hat found in the theater department’s supply closet. Wolf pulls a string of tissues from the hat and throws them across the ground. His classmates aren’t impressed and groan from boredom.

Wolf chuckles, “Now now, you may be unimpressed now but get a hold of this!” Wolf pulls one last tissue out of the hat revealing a beautiful dove with angel white feathers. His classmates look at the dove flying around them with amazement before landing back on Wolf’s head. Wolf feeds the little dove a piece of bread as a reward.

“Wow Wolf you’re so cool, where did you even get that dove… I thought they were endangered animals?” his classmate asked.

“Oh well, Mr. Humphrey owns quite a few doves, I feed them everyday so they know me quite well… I named this one on my head ‘Leia'.” he answers, as Leia pecks on his head for more bread.

The bell rings to signal school was finished for the day aside from those doing extracurricular activities such as football, STEM club or cooking club to name a few. However for Wolf, he’s to be with Mr. Humphrey this evening it seems.

Wolf waits awhile for his classmates to leave the roof before deciding to leave himself, he takes Leia in his hand and orders her, “Alright Leia, you gotta fly home now” before releasing her into the sky, flying off into the direction of the estate.

He then swings his messenger bag around his shoulder and runs down several flights of stairs to reach the school entrance, “Marcas!” Mrs. Wilson calls out just beside reception.

Wolf jerks his head towards her and slowly approaches, “Yes, Mrs Wilson?”

“I just went over your recent grades for home economics, you have a talent for cooking and all that magic trickery you do… have you thought of applying those skills elsewhere yet, I can think of several places in higher education that would love to enroll you.” Mrs. Wilson said, handing Wolf several open day leaflets for schools within the nation.

“Oh, uhh… I guess I’ll think about it, thank you.” Wolf said before walking away from her.

He darts his eyes through the leaflets, open days for Prince Regal Academy, Royal Britannia College and San Toniso Cooking School were a few. Alot of them were known for producing some of the best chefs within the world and all of those chefs own Five Michi Star restaurants. He then remembered Mr. Humphrey brought him to one once, it was nice of him.

Yet Wolf knew he couldn’t accept these offers, if he even tried to leave the estate he would just be captured again or killed. Even then, he had all that work to do back on the estate and he felt awful leaving the others to do more work in his stead.

Looking up he could see Mr. Humphrey’s shining limousine parked in-front of the school. If he makes them wait too long, he’ll anger him and he doesn’t want another punishment anytime soon.

Wolf gulps and slowly opens the door to the limousine, inside Mr. Humphrey was smoking a fat cigar while he overlooked files of all his business ventures on the holographic panes he was using.

“Good to see you my boy,” he says as Wolf takes a seat across from him. “Good school day I presume, considering none of them teachers phoned Miss Wagfingers about you stealing or trying to skip school again."

“Yes sir,” Wolf replies in a monotone voice, rubbing his hands together in a soothing motion as he looks straight into his eyes.

“Nice to hear, now like I said we’re going to the Droid Showcase in the Willingham Spaceport, this auction is being run by the GIA and I want you to specifically get me this RX-78 Pilot Droid.” Mr. Humphrey slides him the holographic panel, where a small droid lined in ruby was shown with the starting price of 5,000,000 G-Credits. Of course, Mr. Humphrey wanted it, not because it was a utility droid that could help him but because it was lined in ruby.

Stupid rich people… is all Wolf could think, seeing that droid but it was obvious Mr. Humphrey had another motive in going to this auction.

There was also the fact that it was being run by the Galactic Independence Army and he personally had no patience for that group. Knowing all the awful stuff they’ve done over the years, especially knowing they were the cause of the fall of Space Station Macbeth falling into Kowlin.

“Also get changed, I brought you a change of clothes to get into, a nice suit for you Wolf.” he said, kicking over a bag with a suit blazer, trousers and a tie.

Wolf looks at the bag, hesitant to change in-front of him.

“I said now!” he barks, causing Wolf to hastily start discarding his uniform in favor of the suit as Mr. Humphrey pleasantly watches him do so, with that wicked smile he came to hate.

When he got the suit on him, it felt tight on his body and made his movements more stiff, his tail couldn’t even breathe in it despite the hole that accommodates for it.

“You look presentable in that boy, now how about you relax and take a drink with me… don’t worry, it’s non alcoholic.”

The limousine is in line to docking on the hyperspeed elevator that allows vehicles to dock in the space port. The line was lengthy enough today, it seems a lot of other socialites around the country, perhaps the world were coming to this Droid Showcase.

Looking out the tinted windows, Wolf could see the sun was starting to set over the horizon. He could also see that they were in a tunnel of some kind that was plated with a glossy white steel, the enclosed space made the roars of the vehicles exponentially louder than normal.

Wolf didn’t dare make any small talk with Mr. Humphrey. He learnt first hand it was best to stay silent and only speak when he says to.

It didn’t take long for the limousine to board the hyperspace elevator, Wolf wonders how long it would take for them to launch into space. He just feels complete unease being in this limousine right now. Mr. Humphrey’s eyes, if he stares into them too long he could only see twisted darkness within.

“Ladies, Gentleman and People alike, thank you for using Visionlinks Hyperspace Elevator. Before we launch, I require all vehicles to be in parked mode and all passengers to have their seat belts fastened!” the announcer echoed throughout the enclosed space.

The hyperspace elevator has a capacity for ten cars normally but since every other car here was a limousine, it was reduced to only five cars at a time.

Wolf quickly fastens the belt around him as the voice starts counting down from ten to zero with a light flashing red and blue.

3…2…1

BLAST OFF!

Wolf is thrown back in his seat as he feels himself battling with gravity itself up and down. He was starting to feel dizzy from the velocity, he’s never done this before meanwhile Mr. Humphrey sits opposite him unphased him.

“Lighten up Marcas, it’s only a bit of space travel!” Mr. Humphrey chuckles. “You’ll be up there within ten minutes!” Ten minutes right… Those ten minutes feel like eternity around him.

Wolf felt like he was gonna be sick as gravity started to get lighter and lighter in the limousine and he started floating, if he wasn’t restricted by the belt, he’d probably be hitting the roof.

Ten minutes… just ten minutes.