Chapter 13

Iga fallowed Kito through hydroponic gardens. "So what is this tower called?" Iga asked as he examined a plant with green berries hanging from it's vines. "I would assume it's called the tower but... Proper names should be used..." Kito glanced back at Iga and shrugged. "The inhabitants of this Island simply call it the Rig. The Tower is our long range turret." Kito said as he weighed a tomato in his hand. "Their is no specific name right now until we expand outwards beyond this fortress. We were thinking of calling it Sanctuary City, or Neo Harbor Town." He shrugged and moved on down the walk way.

Capt. Iga sighed. "I know what you want Captain. Yes, this would be an ideal headquarters. But very few of us would agree and usurping us would be almost impossible. There is vary little that can destroy this place short of God's wrath or a nuke." The fox like boy said cooly. "And trying to take us by armed forces is just as. The men and women here are all trained to respond almost as quickly as the minutemen patriots. We prize this structure, it is our home." Iga sighed. "Your people would die to keep this place." Iga stated. "No, Blue wouldn't take this place, even if it wanted to. But perhaps this could be a shelter?"

Kito turned and smiled to Iga. "It is a shelter Captain. That's the thing about this place. We are harborers, we always offer shelter to those we think need and deserve it. Those that don't want destruction to everything, war, murder, we do not harbor violence." Iga frowned. "You all seem to be trying for utopianism." The old man said shaking his head sadly. "I don't think it will work." Kito smiled with his eyes closed. "More than you think. I don't care if your a different race, so long as you don't cause trouble I would be happy to allow you to stay. Hybrid, human, kitsune. I wouldn't care if it was a little green person from mars, so long as they keep their peace." Kito said. "We have our ways in doing things. Violence is only required when we must defend what is our. This island provides for us. The sea around us, it provides for us. Why should we not try for a utopia?"

Iga nodded. "What will you do with your hybrid prisoners?" He asked growing curious. "Your people seem to treat them well enough, how many have died?" Their was a silence for several long moments between the old man and the fox. "One. A reptilian hybrid. He refused to be a prisoner and committed suicide." The fox answered. He had led them into the lower layer. Iga raised his brow. "Where are we going Kito?" The old man's gruff voice demanded. Kito turned back to the man and smiled. "To see my charge." He simply answered.

Iga had fallowed Kito all the way to his quarters. Kito's door had no knobs, handles, but simply a card slide and a keyhole in the middle of the door. Kito laid his left hand on the door and slid a card handing from a belt into the card slide. He closed his eyes and concentrated. "So how does it open?" Iga said after the card slide failed to open the door and he was done examining the door. "Is the reader broken?" He asked. "No." Kito answered, and with that the door swung inward. "You need the car and a key to get in. Kino is the only one with a key. Me, Snow, A vixen named Wren, and Kino are the only ones with a card to this room. I don't need a key."

Kito stepped in and a squeaky sliding noise resounded. A mutio clung onto Kito's leg and then clambered up to his chest hugging his neck. He held her their and turned to Iga. "This is River. She's a mutio child I found in the ship that attacked us a few weeks ago. She lives here in my room with me."

Iga looked from Kito and down to River and back to Kito. The mutio had a auburn color to it's hair. "What are you harborers planning on doing with your prisoners?" Iga asked. "I doubt you and your people will keep them for the rest of their lives, and I don't see you harborers using them as slaves." The mutio was snoozing in Kito's arms. He sat down on his bed. "I think we will either assimilate them into our population." Kito answered. "We may try to keep them imprisoned until then, but the process won't be long if they are willing to be educated. But, slavery is not an option. I don't quite know. We could release them after a time."

Iga frowned. "There is no clear plan. Just to feed and try to educate them. Make their live comfortable huh?" He asked with a scoff. Kito nodded. "That's the plan I guess." He said ignoring the old man's skepticism. "It would be nice to see them helping us. For now they simply keep to themselves. They've calmed down during the first week and the second they began to co-operate a little when we tried to get them to learn how things must be done around here." He added.

"We are planning on building another level specifically for them to have for themselves. It will be a sort of prison but they won't be confined to that big cage." He said as he walked to the bathroom. His whole room in the span of time the river had started living with him had dramatically transformed. It had many tanks with foods the mutio would usually eat in her kin's natural habitat. Fish and sea plants of all kinds took residence in the tanks that dominated two walls of his room. Kito beckoned.

"Her room is what was bathroom. The toilet and sink remains but everything else was renovated for her to live here more comfortably. The floors are tiled for example. They are also padded because they are slippery." Kito explained. "She has fun sliding around. I made sure she wouldn't run into anything that would hurt her or brake." Iga whistled quietly. "Quite a set up boy. Reminds me of Tetsu's." The man exclaimed. Kito cocked his head as he laid River into her tub.

"Hayami Tetsu? I didn't know he lived with mutio." He said as he turned to a monitor. "He's married to one and has a few children, one of which is your age." Iga said with a deadpanned look. Kito snapped his head towards Iga, a astonished look of confusion on his face. "I didn't know. He never mentioned it. He helped build this place. But he never brought anyone with him. Always alone." Kito said his face going into it's sad-foxish style. "He started to come less when I brought people here to have a home. The cities are crowded and dangerous. Soon, we built this, and he only visits for seed and some food."

Iga frowned. "He's become solitary." He stated. "It may hurt him." Kito shook his head. "He we send him away with medicine. He's perfectly healthy when he arrives here, though, the rest of his family, I can only guess." Iga took another look at Kito's room. Their didn't seem to be a bed. Thair was a table in a corner that was opposite to the tanks. The seating was a kind of cushioned bench that angle into the corners. It had a tank resting on a shelf built into the back rests. The Iga spotted what looked like a large basket with sheets. "And of course you wouldn't sleep in a bed." The man exclaimed. Kito smiled. "I sleep in a sand bed. The basket is made to hold the sand and the sheet separates me from the sand so I don't get dirty. I like sleeping in the sand because it shifts, it's soft, and it absorbs the heat from your body."

Iga shrugged. "... So what will you do with us?" He asked giving up with patently waiting for Kito's decision. Kito shrugged. "Come and go as you please I guess. I'm just the head of the military department. Yeah, I have a lot of influence here, I helped build the place, but I'm not THE leader, just a leader." Came his reply. Iga bowed and declared his diparture before leaving for his quarters.

It had be agreed upon the rest of the Rig's leaders that the Blues could act as another way for them to trade and gain recourses. The rig could send it's freight drones to hold the trading good. Captain Iga agreed upon the condition that they would act as the sub's main supply base. The Harborers agreed upon the conditions and offered to refit the ships grampus with non-depleting weapons such as concussion cannons the next time the Ryuoh came around. Iga gave them schematics to the grampus and in a short while left with the trading cargo.