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.