All right, so last time Curtis entered the district. Where does this lead to?

Lots of stuff. You'll see what goes down.

In the meantime, though, if you guys have any comments you want to make on the chapters, by all means, R&R!

Now let's build up his trust with the poleepkwans, shall we? Away with the next part of the memoir!


An Act of Introduction

The next day, I has woken up, feeling surreal about being in the District. It was one of those moments that I anticipated, yet I remember that I moved along with Marius and James. The three of us were sleeping in the same area of large tents, and so I was following Marius and James closely as we moved to the mess halls for our morning meals.

"Well, I dunno about you guys, but I'm actually not looking forward to this," said Marius as we weaved between hoardes of other security guards moving throughout the tents. "I thought the job description looked good... but these guys have enough people here!"

"Well, you never can be too careful," replied James, crossing his arms in front of him. "You don't count your chickens until they hatch. Uncle Harvey told me that one."

I shrugged, having heard that phrase from my mother when I was a young boy myself. "That's true," I replied, shrugging. "But still, I do wonder what we will be asked to do in our first tour guarding the district..."

"Probably nothing much," replied Marius. "We'll find out soon enough anyway when we get assigned to our tours."

"I hope things don't go too badly," said James then. "I really hope we don't have to deal with something crazy on the first day of the job."

"Bah, I really don't think that will be the case," I replied. "According to our commander, they have not been moving much lately."

Marius lanced at me uncertainly. "But he did say they might have done that to lull us into a false sense of security."

I chuckled. "What, when we are armed and their arms are in a store-room somewhere?" I asked. "They know what they could potentially be up against once they see our assault rifles."

The Afrikaaner glanced at me uncertainly. "You never know with these things..." he said. "We shall see..."

As much as I hate to admit it, I mention this here because I was right. The main storyteller I met eventually met told me that the guns were a show of power on their end, and that the poleepkwans feared any kind of retribution that would result in their extermination. And so, they never plotted anything. I did come across as a bastard when I said what I said, but in the end I ended up being correct.

But right then, I had nothing to prove my claim, so I shrugged to Marius' comment. I knew that at least I could find out something about my shifts that day when I reported for duty. And then I knew I could work something out with my schedule so that I could attempt to contact the poleepkwa. I doubted I would be very successful, but I knew I had to try something.


As luck would have it, I was given one of the night shifts with Marius in addition to the noon shift that I would be working with James and Abejide. This worked for me in that I knew I could work under the cover of darkness to gather some tales. Marius was of course out of the loop with my ideas, but I would make sure that it would change very quickly.

Right then, though, I was busy watching on the day shift with Abejide by my side and James leaning by the side, his assault rifle in his hands. We were all rather bored; nobody had really tried anything that day, but the fear of rebellion was still there.

To be quite frank, I was a little nervous seeing the poleepkwa up close for the first time. I am sure to this day that their appearance was what caused me to be more than a little unsettled. MNU was quite right in their descriptions of the aliens looking incredibly intimidating.

But at the same time, I understood that these people had done nothing wrong. They had come from a foreign world, had found themselves abandoned here, and were dangerous only because MNU was pushing regulations on them that they should never have considered shoving into their faces in the first place.

Thus, my emotions can be summed up as a very strange kind of unease. It was the kind of unease of not being sure what to do, like asking a teenage girl out to prom. In this case, however, it was almost surreal.

My thoughts were interrupted when Abejide slammed his open palm down on my shoulder.

"Hey, why you staring into space like that?" asked the Nigerian, his accent thick.

I had not even realized I had spaced out, so I shook my head. "Sorry," I replied. "I tend to let my mind wonder when I really should not."

"Nah, it's all fine," replied Abejide, white teeth standing at a stark contrast against his dark skin. "I just don't want these prawns to get you off guard."

"I'll be fine," I replied. "The prawns probably won't kill me if I don't attack first."

Abejide gave me an odd look. "And how do you know that, man?" he asked. "These prawns! Look at them! They look like they could tear you apart, man!"

"Well, they did come to us starving in a ship," I replied. "So I don't think these people are intuitively evil, even with their weapons. It's best to leave them be."

James simply looking at the aliens with a gleeful glint in his green eyes. "Yep," he said. "That's the way to think about it; they won't do anything to you if you don't do anything to them."

The Nigerian simply glanced at me and shrugged, turning his attention back to the aliens in front of us. "Fine," he said. "But don't come to me when they try to kill you."

He ended the discussion there, and I looked to James as he chewed on a piece of grass.

"What's his deal?" he asked me, the gleeful glint in his eyes gone as he looked to Abejide.

"I'm as clueless as you are about that," I replied, shrugging. "I get the feeling we'll find out eventually, though."

The American nodded as we continued keeping our guard, looking at all of the poleepkwans go by as Abejide stood a very short distance away from us.


As Abejide would find out from my second day on the job, I was indeed correct.

Abejide, James and I were simply sitting around, making sure the prawns did not do anything when I thought I noticed one of them coming very close to Hendrik's group a long ways down the fence from where I was. James was the first one to notice this, and then Abejide and I looked to see the black shelled alien pass by. There was a bandage around the alien's left hand, and it had gotten quite dirty for some inexplicable reason.

Without any warning, I thought I saw Hendrik shoot the poleepkwa a hateful glance with more venom than any human had any right to by my opinion. The poleepkwa seemed to notice this, and pretty much stood there. I think Abejide had registered that the alien was showing fright, and before long the alien had disappeared from our line of sight.

It was admittedly a very anti-climactic way of seeing the first dredges of hatred between the humans and the poleepkwans. But the amount of hate in Hendrik's glare told me that the tensions between many of the MNU guards and the aliens were at the point where they could be cut by a plastic spoon.

I am under the impression that Abejide and James got the same message from this interaction, and then we all looked at each other.

"D'you see that?" asked Abejide. "That prawn looked frightened, man!"

"I know what you mean!" I replied, nodding. "It didn't look like the thing wanted any trouble either..."

Abejide nodded as James glanced at him. "I told ya," replied James. "If you don't let them do whatever they want sometimes, then they get pretty scared and that's when everything bad starts to happen."

Abejide nodded. "I'm just gonna stay here, then," he said, holding his gun by the barrel.

"And I take it you will only fire if they move towards you?" I asked.

"Unless I see them attacking someone else, yes," replied the Nigerian.

I nodded. "Good," I said. "That, I think, is the right attitude to have."

"It's like that war we had in America way back then," replied James, drumming his fingers across his gun. "They enforced too much on us, and we fought back."

I glanced to the side distastefully before resuming our watch with full attention in front of us.


As part of MNU regulations, we were always given a few cans of cat food in case the poleepkwa were particularly unruly. They said it would serve as a kind of distraction. I personally did not know what would make one of the poleepkwa distracted about an aluminum can of severely processed tuna, but then again I am not a poleepkwa and I would not understand that, so I decided to take their word for it and take the rations of cat food anyways.

I would realize on my second night that the one thing that MNU used to try to distract the poleepkwa successfully would work against them. I would also find out in one of the oddest ways that the cans of cat food were the best ways to earn a poleepkwa's trust.

Marius was with me that second night shift, the Afrikaaner glancing around to make sure nobody had violated our curfew. We were more spread out as we knew that the poleepkwans would likely be incredibly tired and thus knew that they would not exactly try anything at night. Or so MNU figured, but the guards knew better than to let their guards down.

The night was rather peaceful, the night sky sending its sparkles of light down to us.

I remember that Marius had suddenly grabbed my sleeve and pulling me close. I was able to feel his breath, the heat providing a stark contrast against the cool night air.

"I think I saw something," he said, indicating something with his other hand.

I glanced in that direction, and in the darkness I could make out a small form advancing through the tents, attempting to make sure that it would not be seen as it lugged a large sack of something behind it. It seemed to go about nervously, almost as if it was frightened by the fact that it was carrying a load to heavy for it to carry. Its big, auburn eyes seemed to glance around uncertainly, its small body moving forward

A strange feeling of pity welled up within me upon seeing this, and I desperately wanted to show the thing that I would do whatever I could do to help.

I took a step forward, but Marius held on to my sleeve tighter. "Curtis, don't!" he hissed through barred teeth.

The warning came a little too late, though, for them the thing looked back at the both of us, its eyes open wide in terror as its small form turned and nearly fell against his sack.

At once, the frown that had come on Marius' face faded away, replaced by a look of confusion. I of course was quite shocked at what I saw.

"It's... it's a child..." I whispered softly.

There was a tense silence between Marius, myself, and the child, none of us really sure what to do about the present situation. The silence went on for about a minute before I glanced to the side, knowing that the other MNU guards in the area were too far away to see us.

I knew then what I could do to earn this child's trust.

I turned to Marius and held out my weapon to him.

"Hold this for me," I said, gulping after I had said it. "And whatever you do, do not point it in that child's direction."

"Curtis, are you insane?" asked the Afrikaaner in disbelief. "You know what these things can do!"

Glancing back at the child, I decided to pull out the excuse I had crafted for such an occasion. "I get the feeling that if I can get their trust, then they will be more willing to comply," I said. "For what, I'll tell you later. Besides, he's only a child. You know what they would say if they found out we killed a child! Just, trust me Marius. That's all I'm asking."

Glancing around nervously, Marius gulped and nodded.

"Okay," he said. "But if you die, then I was never in on... whatever you're planning to do."

I nodded. "That works, I suppose."

With this, I turned to the subject and walked slowly forward. The child flinched briefly, but I simply kept my gait rather slow and approached him slowly. As soon as I got close to it, I knelt down to his level, and it looked up, some of the fear seeming to have been driven away slightly.

"Don't worry," I said. "I won't hurt you."

The poleepkwa glanced at me, antennae flittering about in the air as he looked at me uncertainly. I understood that he was likely terrified of me, but was complying either because of my friend or because I did not have my gun with me when I approached him. I will assume it was the latter.

It clicked uncertainly at this, the language going by my ears. I will admit that at that time my alien was quite rusty from not having exposed myself to the spoken form of the language enough. However, it had pointed at my badge as it appeared on my bullet-proof vest, so I assumed that it was a gesture of fear based on what I was.

"I'm..." I began uncertainly. "I'm not like most of these people. When I say I won't hurt you, I won't hurt you. All right?"

The poleepkwa's antennae went about once again, and this time he seemed to relax a little. It clicked some more, pointing to the bag it had been hauling behind him. I was uncertain of what it was, but I knew that it had some significance for him.

I nodded. "Okay," I said. "I'll tell you what; if you ever have to haul this bag again, then you can come through again this way, and I promise that neither I or my friend here will try to kill you."

The poleepkwa's eyes seemed to light up a little bit when it heard this, but it still pointed to my MNU badge while clicking.

"Again, I'm not like most of these people," I replied. "I'll stay true to my word. And I'll make sure my friend here stays true to it too."

The alien's eyes lit up happily, flashing what I could only think of as a poleepkwan smile before grabbing its bag and going back to wherever he lived in the district. As it left, it turned to me and clicked. I interpreted it as a 'thank you', and I knew I would be hearing more of that soon.

Smiling, I stood up and resumed my stance where I was besides Marius. He simply blinked at me when I took my gun back.

"Damn, you're good," he replied. "You think he'll be back?"

"I know he'll be back," I said, nodding my head. "And when he does, I won't be doing anything."

The Afrikaaner had raised an eyebrow at me then. "Why?" he asked.

"I told him he could go through here without getting in trouble if this ever happened again," I told Marius.

Marius was not pleased by this. "Curtis, are you crazy?" he asked. "What about the captains? What will they say?"

I blinked at him then, knowing a few things that he was paranoid of. "The captains?" I asked. "If we don't tell them anything, they won't have anything to say. Besides, you think anybody else can see us in this darkness?"

Marius just shrugged. "Well, whatever fills your cup," he said. "I'm just not sure this will all work out. But if it does, I think he'll like you a lot."

"It will like you a lot," I corrected, holding a finger up. "The prawns are hermaphroditic, so I think that's the best way to refer to one until we find out their MNU issued names..."

Marius frowned at me. "I don't know," he said. "I think they might take offense to that."

"German has the neuter tense," I replied, almost without skipping a beat.

"Yeah, but this isn't Germany, this is South Africa," Marius told me then. "I'll tell you what; if he likes you enough to answer that question, then I'll bet you something. If they get offended by being referred to as 'it', then you have to give me five rand. If not, then I have to give you five rand. Deal?"

Rolling my eyes, I nodded. "Deal," I said. "Whatever you do, no word about this to anyone."

"Don't worry about that," replied Marius, nodding with a smile on his face. "I trust you enough from how you've been handling yourself lately to let you do whatever it is you plan. And you better tell me what you want to do here!"

"Duly noted," I said.

With this, we turned our attention back to the grounds of the district, neither of us aware that the one interaction I had just had would be the beginning of my story collection.