By the time someone came to wake us, I could already hear the other slaves out there dragging crates.
Clearly the day's labour had already begun. Maybe it had started while we were still asleep. It made me feel like I was cheating.
Before leaving, we were once again fed warm food. The same drink as the rest, but at least in ample measures.
The same feeling I had experienced yesterday, that we were being pampered for a reason, fell on me again.
After that, we were escorted back to the office by an enforcer. When we arrived, the handler and the assistant boss were already there.
The handler's desk was spread with a wide variety of what I knew to be spices, but this time, instead of being stored in sachets, they were packed into tiny glass vials.
It was only then that something occurred to me. The analogy the handler had given the first time Koji had asked what pitching was.
In the handler's analogy, to pitch his product he had to use it so as to discreetly demonstrate its effect on the potential client.
We had overlooked it then. But right now something registered to me. Koji would have to use these drugs to pitch them.
I mean, how else would he know the effects and how else would he convince a potential client and sell them something he himself did not use?
That was a big threat, because if Koji started using this stuff, he would become a perpetual slave to these syndicates.
If there was something I knew from canon, spices were extremely addictive. They hooked you real fast until your life revolved around them.
That would be exactly what the syndicate hoped for. They would want Koji to rely on them. That way, even if he managed to become the best salesman and clear his debt, as long as they controlled the supply of whatever he used, where else would he go?
I wanted to turn and warn my friend, but there was no time and certainly not here.
I was not about to start playing smart, not with the murderous assistant boss still glaring at us.
"You," he said, pointing at me. "Today is your route training. Today you leave and explore the city."
He reached into his pocket and counted out a series of credits, placing them on the table.
"One hundred credits as your day's budget. Use it to learn the routes, explore the city, get acquainted with Ord Mantell. Tomorrow you run the routes actively."
He turned to Koji but did not say anything. He left, still gloomy just like the previous day.
We were left with the handler, who instructed Koji to sit on the seat before the desk.
To me, he did not even turn to look.
"You will be shown to your speeder. Remember the rules. Today I will only tell you one more thing. When riding a speeder, stick to lower lanes. Upper lanes mean more scrutiny. More scrutiny means higher chances of being stopped.
Not to mention most speeders will not be stable on the higher lanes anyway. You can go now. Oh, one more thing," he said as I turned to leave.
"You return immediately at the end of the mid cycle."
When I was eventually released, another enforcer escorted me out toward the entrance I had seen the yesterday, the one where the runners walked through unrestricted.
It was my turn now.
As we passed, I almost expected the security droids present to stop us. But they did not.
"Your speeder," the thug said, shoving a pair of keys into my hands rudely.
In all this, nobody asked me if I knew how to ride a speeder.
I stared at the thing in momentary confusion.
It looked like a mixture of a motorbike and a speedboat. It had just a basic handle and a small display.
Of course, in theory, I knew how speeders worked.
Having been a Star Wars fan, I had seen scenes of Luke Skywalker's landspeeder on Coruscant. But that was seeing.
I had never ridden one.
Theoretically, they were supposed to work by use of repulsor lift, which meant they hovered a meter or so above the ground.
It seemed that everyone assumed riding one was basic knowledge that did not need to be taught.
It was like a bicycle in the normal world.
I reached toward it, conscious that the thug was still looking at me.
I did not want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that I could not ride a speeder, which was supposed to be a common tool for runners like me. He would automatically run to rat me out.
But if they assumed it was basic knowledge, then probably it was something that only required manning the controls and direction , since stabilization was controlled by internal mechanisms.
That was something I could manage. I considered myself a pretty good cyclist back on Earth, so it should present no difficulty.
It was not hard to spot the ignition once I was seated. And when I keyed it in, my body stiffened for a second as I felt the hum and vibration beneath me.
Just like I had seen in the films, when the engine came alive, the speeder bike rose slowly to almost a meter above the ground, just like I had anticipated.
A few seconds of deep breaths and I could feel my nerves stabilizing.
It was just like a bicycle. There was nothing complicated here.
I accelerated forward.
That was my first mistake.
I had not anticipated it to be this responsive, and it shot forward at a blinding speed.
I had to slam the brakes, which threw me forward as it came to an abrupt stop.
When I turned back, I could see a grin playing on the face of the enforcer behind me.
Son of a bitch.
But at least now I had learned when there was no traffic here.
After that, I assumed it worked more like a motorcycle. Just ease the throttle forward.
The speeder glided out of the smugglers' dockyard smoothly.
Soon I had joined the lanes outside.
That was another problem.
There was no particular order.
In theory there was supposed to be a lane for speeder bikes, guided by beacons. That meant you traveled along a particular route.
You could change course, but there was supposed to be order.
Here however there was none.
Speeders were scattered everywhere and overtook each other as if they were in a battle.
Yet somehow none of them collided.
It was chaos but it seemed like the residents here were used to it.
They knew just when someone would cut right in front of them, when to accelerate to overtake somebody, and when to switch to the opposite lane.
We were hovering about a meter above the ground, but with the speed things were moving around here, just a tiny knock was bound to cause catastrophic injury.
I slowed down and let almost everyone overtake me as I glided across the industrial district.
The industrial district did not pretend to be pretty. It sprawled around me as if basking in its ugliness.
There were refineries stacked on each other next to industries that smoked as if a diesel engine had gone berserk or was about to explode.
Chaos was everywhere.
People who looked like mechanics waited like vultures, as if hoping someone would mess up and give them work to do.
Everything was everywhere in no particular order, and the air itself nearly made me collapse.
I pulled the mask back over my face, even though the heat around me was unbearable.
I would rather tolerate the heat than breathe such stale air.
It felt like the air itself was too tired, almost giving up on sustaining the life around it.
It had been recycled to its limit, and still its freedom did not look anywhere near.
After a while though, I became used to the drama of things around me and even began to partake in it. There was no way around that.
Soon enough I had left the industrial district, but there was no relief, only a change of colors.
In the industrial district there had been holo adverts lit by a blue color. Now here in the market district everything was lit in purple .
That was the good thing about Ord Mantell. You always knew where you were if you paid attention to the ads.
This was something I was beginning to understand. Know the colors. Know your location.
However, in terms of environmental relief, there was none here.
While industries polluted the industrial district, the market district was polluted by people and crappy stores.
Everyone was everywhere.
And here the lanes were a little higher.
My speeder bike adjusted automatically to almost a meter and a half. It was like we were slowly going higher and higher.
I remembered the instruction the handler had given me.
Do not go past two districts on the same speeder unless instructed.
Well, I was not doing a run right now, but it was better to practice that.
Eventually I found a paid landing pad run by a towering Wookiee.
For a second I thought I had encountered Chewbacca.
Then I realized that could not be true.
Earlier I had established that I was in 32 BBY.
In that period I did not think Chewbacca would have been alive yet. Even though their species tended to live longer, Chewbacca would not be born for a while.
And besides, the mean looking Wookiee did not resemble anything like the warmth of Han Solo's co pilot.
This was just another one of their species.
He approached as my speeder bike locked onto the landing pad.
"Hmm," he roared, holding up a banner in his hand.
"Three credits an hour," I read out loud.
I took out a couple of credits and counted them.
"For five hours," I said, handing him the money.
Then I retrieved my keys from the ignition and turned to scan the area around me.
I did not care much about the security of the bike. There were a lot of other bikes around here. And besides, there was no way anybody was riding it without the keys.