Disclaimer: Yeah, you know the deal, I own not-a-thing.
Keira leaned back in the cold metal folding chair and started to speak.
"The first month I was in Haven, I lived in the slums. I didn't know where I was. The first night, I slept in an alley. It rained cold torrents, and rats crawled across my feet. I thought that I had died in the rift and gone to hell."
"Mostly I wandered around. I got food where I could, but since Haven City has such a large number of homeless, even rotting food in trashcans was scarce. I managed to stay alive, though, and since it was getting warmer every day I figured I could try and get a job, then save up enough money to rent a place before winter came."
"I tried a lot of places all over the slums and port, but no one would hire me because I had no address, no resume, and no other job records. I was starving and one day I found a wallet on the road. There was no money in it, but I found a security pass to get into the industrial section and the stadium area."
She had wandered around the industrial section, working out gradually where everything was. The only place that she dared not go near was the
stadium, because once she had tried to go there and had been chased away by the Krimzon Guards.
But finally, when she walked by there one morning, there were no Guards and she walked freely into the area.
She beheld the huge building in awe, looking up at the high-tiered ceiling. She couldn't get inside it, though, because there was a force gate blocking the public from going in. There really was not much to do there, but tall bushes that she figured might be good to sleep in surrounded the high stone walls around the area.
She noticed a man near one of the entrances to the stadium. He was attempting to fix a near-totaled racing zoomer. Keira could tell from as far away as she was that he was not a very good mechanic. All he was succeeding to do was make a shower of sparks fly. He stormed into the Stadium, swearing loudly.
Keira walked over to the zoomer. What the man had been struggling with was the brake, and she saw immediately what was wrong. This zoomer was almost the same type as the ones she worked on in Sandover. She fixed it with a few deft movements and turned to leave. She didn't know this man, but she was compelled to help him. It had been so long since she had been able to fix any machine, and as it was what she loved to do she would take any chances to do it.
She watched for a while, but the man did not come back out. At last, as the sky grew dark, she went into a bush to spend the night there.
Keira slept in the Stadium bushes for several nights. No one ever came near where she had made her humble home, and she dared not leave the area for too long because the Guards were nearly always there and she had to stay out of their way. So aside from finding (and occasionally stealing) food, she kept to herself. She didn't know how she would ever survive in this place without a job, but she tried not to let that consume her thoughts, and she tried to simple concentrate on surviving from day to day.
One day, however, she returned to her shelter in the bush only to find it ransacked. Everything was gone, down to the rags that she slept on. Some one had taken it all.
There was nothing left to live for. Keira sat there on the grass and wept bitterly, not caring about the staring eyes of those who were in this part of town.
Someone sat down beside her, but she ignored the person. He continued to stay there until at last she looked up toward him.
There sat the man whose zoomer she had fixed several days ago. Keira wondered, briefly, why he was sitting there, but otherwise she sat dumbly. This loss of a home, the little that she had gained in this place, had broken her spirit.
She could see him through the corner of her eyes. He had vivid orange hair, and he wore yellow and red armor. No matter how hard she looked at him, she could find no trace of warmth in his hard features, no shred of compassion in his cold blue eyes.
At last she turned to him. "What do you want?"
"I saw who took your stuff," he said. "It was a Krimzon Guard."
"Yeah, one of the protectors," Keira said. "I've seen them in action before in the slums."
"Well, they technically aren't supposed to steal from the people, but it's a rule that is often ignored," he remarked.
She glared at him. How dare he speak so lightly of the suffering of the innocent people? "They take from the slums all that they can, when those people already have so little," she said accusingly.
He shrugged. "It's one of the perks of the job."
Sicko, Keira thought. You probably stole my stuff, you bastard.
Looking uncomfortable, he changed the subject. "What I want is to offer you a job."
She looked up quickly, narrowing her eyes at what she thought he meant. "Hey, I'm not-" she began, was quickly cut off.
"No, that's not what I mean," he said hastily. "I mean a job as a
mechanic. I know it was you that fixed my racer the other day, and you did a damn good job of it too. I have a racing team. I'm city champion, and I need a good mechanic for my zoomers."
He went on to describe the pay, and job requirements, and how the job included a small apartment above the mechanic garage. He obviously seemed quite sure that she planned to take the job. This one's used to having his own way, she thought. But he was right. She planned to take a job. She didn't care that she would be working for a man she knew nothing about. A few months before, she would have laughed if someone said she was doing this, especially in a dangerous city like this. But no matter what would happen to her in the future, she needed money now.
She listened halfheartedly as he continued his job description. He seemed awfully sure of himself. How did he really know that she had fixed his machine? He hadn't seen it himself. There was just something about the situation that gave her the creeps, and the heart of it lay, she was sure, in his cold eyes.
She looked at him. "I'll take your job offer," she said gravely.
He smiled a creepy smile. "Glad to hear it."
Keira followed him into the stadium, down a hall, and into an office filled with parts for racing bikes, piles of papers that looked like contracts, and dirty dishes. He fished around in a drawer for a moment or two, then held up what he was looking for: a document stating the terms of agreement for the job. "Just sign here," he said, "and it'll all be legal."
"I want to see the apartment first," Keira said.
"Okay. Well then, follow me," he muttered.
The apartment was small, with three rooms. The furniture and appliances were provided, and all in all it was fairly nice. It was heaven compared to the streets.
Back at the office, Keira signed the contract with a shaking hand. Briefly, she wondered whether she was signing her soul over to this man. It was a fleeting thought and she dismissed it as a product of her sometimes-overactive imagination.
Keira began her work the next day. With a week's salary in advance she had been able to buy bread and milk, things she hadn't had since she was back in Sandover Village.
Months passed, and nothing much happened. Her work became routine: She did a tune-up on the hoverbikes before races, repaired any damage afterward, and did general mechanic work for anyone who needed it. There was only one thing that changed for her, and always was changing: Her relationship with Errol. Though she had first deemed him self-centered and rude, she began to notice him in a different light, one of awe at his racing skills.
He would come to the area when he had the spare time, and flirt with her and talk to her. They had a relationship that was not strong enough to stand the test of time, but enough to keep her on her feet for the time being and to hold her up when she was thinking about Jak, Daxter, and her father, all of whom she feared that she would never see again.
One day she was in her apartment and Errol came in. He never knocked on the door, just barged in. He slumped down in a chair. "Bad day?" Keira asked.
"Found the body of a guy in the port. He had half a zoomer propeller sticking out of his head. We think it was an accident," he said.
Keira shuddered and choked on her coffee. "How horrible."
He shrugged. "It was kind of weird. The guy was about your age, ad he had weird old-looking clothes and bright yellow hair. It's rare to see hair that color. Back a while ago, yeah, it was common, but now. I guess as soon as the metal heads began to hunt our race and everyone had to dye their hair to be camouflaged, we just adapted. Weird to think about."
Keira made herself answer him, and she kept up the conversation without having any knowledge of what she was saying. Her insides and her brain felt frozen, all concentrated on one word. Jak. He had yellow hair. No one else in this future world did. He was dead.
Though she had prepared herself for so long, almost a year, to face thetruth, when it hit her at last it took her breath away and made her quiver with pain. He was gone now. She would never again see him, never again be in his arms, in the one place where she felt truly happy. She would never speak to him, or feel the caress of his lips upon hers, drawing her closer to him.
With these thoughts, Keira collapsed onto her bed and wept for what she was sure she would never again have: love.