The
door I took out of the Coliseum opened up to a road by the factories.
I made my way through the heavy fog caused by the smoke and stumbled
out onto Dume Street, named in honor of the Turaga of our
city.
Removing a small flax-covered bundle from my kitchen apron,
I unfolded the cloth to reveal a Kanoka launcher. It was a secret
only I knew about. Recently, in my spare time, I had been going to
the junkyard and had been practicing my firing aim with flawed disks
that had been left there to disintegrate.
When I was adventurous
enough, I sometimes distracted the factory workers long enough to
snag a disk. A real Kanoka disk, not like the flawed ones in the
junkyard. I rarely used them, except when fish needed to be cooled (a
freeze disk worked) or I was outside in the city and far away from
the Coliseum (teleportation disks came in handy here).
Heading for a small diner I knew well, I pocketed my launcher, a wise decision on my part. Better not to let the Vahki see someone with a weapon in the middle of a crowd of Matoran. Things like that would land you in jail- unless you outran the Vahki, which rarely happened.
Entering Reka's Diner, I waved at the Red
Mahiki-wearing female Matoran behind the counter. "Hi, Reka!"
I exclaimed.
"Good to see you, Hikan!" she exclaimed.
"What'll it be?"
"A Bula berry shake and two
scrambled Gukko eggs, please," I replied. I secretly had a crush
on Reka but I was too shy to let her know it.
"Coming right
up!" she replied.
After eating my breakfast and paying
Reka three widgets (the cost), I decided to make a strategic
move.
Bending close to Reka, I murmured, "Would you like to
go out tonight?"
She blushed and whispered back, "What?"
"Go
out. You know, just the two of us. I was thinking of visiting the
dinner theatre down the street, maybe have a stroll somewhere nice
afterwards..."
"Oh, Hikan, that's very sweet of you, but
I can't."
"Why not? You don't have the late night
shift!"
Reka sighed. "I have commitments."
I
groaned. "Let me guess. Family, right?"
"Correct."
"Look,
Reka," I persuaded, "Forget about the family for once.
Enjoy yourself, for once in your life!"
"Look, I can't,"
she snapped. "And if you can't understand that, get out of my
diner."
"But...but..." I stammered.
"No
buts! Out!" she growled under her breath and jabbed a finger
towards the door.
Not wanting to make her angry, I did as she said
and hurried outside.
