Disclaimer: I do not own YGO 5ds.
A/N: Don't worry if you're not familiar with the decks mentioned, anything relevant would be explained in detail.
Rex Goodwin prided himself on discipline. He routinely slept at past midnight and got up before the crack of dawn. It practically came with the job description as the Director of Domino City.
Believing he had settle all urgent matters the day before, he was thus unpleasantly surprised to be woken up by a ringing of the telecom at 3 o'clock that morning, little under two hours before his scheduled alarm . Or as normal people think of it, 'an unholy hour in the middle of the night'.
"S-sir, Dir-rector Goodwin, sir," his doorman stuttered. Sweat dripped off the man's brow, while he was too scared to reach up and wipe it off. "There's, there's an o-officer from Sector Security to see you, sir. Level A clearance. I, I wouldn't have let him in, of course, b-but then I remembered that you told me to always alert you i-if anybody comes from Sector Security. So, umm..."
"Yes, of course," Goodwin nodded, now fully alert and looking as imposing as always even without a shirt,"show him into the living room, I'll be right over." He hang up before the other man had time to respond, not wanting anybody to see the concern in his eyes.
He and Roman had long decided that conventional methods of communication was too risky for their current endeavors. As the Director of Neo Domino City, he could always arrange impromptu visits to the Satellite if he needed to communicate with his older brother. Roman, however, preferred not showing himself in the City. They were, after all, the infamous minions for the notorious Professor Futou, the sole cause of the Zero-Reverse incident. While he 'reformed' himself, Roman was assumed dead. Being seen in the City would raise too many red flags for his older brother.
Instead, Roman had resorted to using his spiders to mind-control a Sector Security officer and relay any urgent messages in person.
This arrangement had enabled them to communicate within 24 hours whenever necessary.
Of course, if there had been cellphones, the Goodwin brothers could have just called with a burner phone, and not brainwash a poor chap on his day off.
Quickly getting dressed, Rex Goodwin walked uncharacteristically hurriedly towards the single living room in his mansion. The security officer greeted him stiffly, his awkwardness just enough to be dismissed as exhaustion or excitement at meeting the Director. To Goodwin's trained eye, the mindless stare was apparent, this was one of his brother's spawn. Waving away the servants that always guarded this area, Goodwin reached inside the fireplace to open a trap door to one of the safest hidden room in the house. Hidden in plain sight, as he always believed.
The Director of Domino City showed the security guard inside before following closely behind and closing the door. Only here would he trust not to be overheard by even the men under his control.
The two men entered an abandoned-looking storage unit. Filled with dust and cobwebs, only the ceiling-high empty wine crates remained from its glorious days, an extra layer of security in case somebody does happen to stumble upon this hideout. Goodwin flipped on the light, facing the man his brother send.
"All hail the King," He muttered reluctantly, the password his older brother unilaterally dictated for the brainwashed minions he sends Rex's way. This trivial resentment soon dissipated as he heard the message magically relayed to him.
A shift in the power equilibrium of this caliber is well-worthy of even Rex Goodwin's time. With the magical surge he sensed within of the King of the Netherworld, Roman Goodwin is concerned about the waning of the Crimson Dragon's powers, and asked his younger brother regarding changes in the Crimson Dragon. An answer the younger Goodwin cannot provide, as he had not chosen to bear the mark of the Crimson Dragon as yet. No matter, he'll speak to Roman and bluff his way through like he always does.
He did, however, choose to follow his brother's other instructions. They had waited long enough, it is time to gather the Signers of the Crimson Dragon. It simply would not do for one side to overpower the other, Goodwin requires the two sides to be in perfect balance to control both beasts.
Dismissing the security officer and restoring his hidden room, Goodwin marched purposefully to his home office.
"Lazar." Powerful villains were generally ruthless about waking people up in the middle of the night unnecessarily, which is without a doubt an act of pure evil. Goodwin waited for his purple-haired vice-Director to appear on screen, still dressed in his Meowth pajamas, then immediately barked orders, "our most recent shipment of second-hand duel runners are not to be refurbished, discard them to the Satellite as scraps."
"Director Goodwin?" Lazar's eyes widened in surprise. He didn't understand a word his boss said, as was natural when you receive a phone call at 3am, just Goodwin's call was shock enough at this hour. The incredibly large eyes grew even bigger when he comprehended Goodwin's message. "But Director Goodwin! I'm not saying you're not right of course, but surely there're most profitable ways to reuse these duel runners. Might I suggest recycle the parts? Or at least melt the dyne?"
"I hired you to follow orders, Lazar," Goodwin threatened impatiently, even villains get grumpy when they're tired, "don't ever forget that."
"Yes, my sincerest apologies, Dire-"
Without waiting for the smaller man to finish, Goodwin cut off communications. Taking a long look at the moonless sky outside, he put on his jacket and contacted his chauffeur.
It's 4am, might as well get to work. This new development would no doubt require countless additional hours of analysis, they all do. Who needs sleep anyways?
At the core of Old Domino, the light of day had done nothing to penetrate the heart of darkness dwelling deep beneath the core Zero Reverse reactor. Roman Goodwin again sat at the head of the table on the lowest level of the building, in the room closest to hell.
The room remained absolutely silent except for the flickering of the candles, one for each of the members present, and Roman's fingers tapping rapidly on the mahogany table, the sound echoed back to him, resonating against the empty stones halls. Roman started when he heard the noise, mentally berating himself for his subconscious actions. He was usually more controlled than this.
But the prospect of a greatly weakened Crimson Dragon, combined with Rex's lack of response this late in the day, worried him more than anything else had since he chose this path of darkness. But this time, he was not alone.
"Roman," Demack said impatiently, "you called us here."
"There is a change of plans," Roman Goodwin announced without waiting to hear back from his younger sibling. Rex would obey his older brother, he always does. "We're moving everything ahead of schedule. Spread your webs now, grow your clusters, prepare for war."
Silence answered him, the Dark Signers' noise of consent.
"Kalin," Roman turned to the blue-haired teen, his real objective for the meeting, "Search the Satellite. Report back to me any changes. The King of the Netherworld grows impatient, something stoked its ire."
While his spiders detects nothing extraordinary, perhaps a Dark Signer would.
Roman was telling a half-truth, which he was very good at. The Demon is getting restless, but only because it senses the weakness in its arch nemesis. Roman was eager to quell its impulses, or at least prepare for the Demon's eventual descent into this realm.
"So it begins," Kalin laughed, "and how much longer, Roman, before I get my revenge."
"Soon," Roman said simply. Having the strongest magical powers of the group, the leader of the Dark Signers paid little heed to his colleagues.
"Keep your words," Kalin stood up quickly, "and I think you'll be more than satisfied with my work."
Various planning and chatter had lasted late into last night, plans were made, people were recruited and evil plots plotted, while I slept blissfully upstairs in the Magician's hideout. I only woke up when Felice knocked on my door the next morning.
"What time is it?" if the question sounded a little resentful, that's because it was.
My head was pounding with obvious sleep deprivation. Rhythmic mechanical noise drifted up from downstairs, like a white noise machine effectively luring me back to sleep. It's rude to sleep in as a guest though.
"It's six o'clock," she replied from the other side of the door.
"AM?" I asked incredulously, I must have slept at 1am in the morning.
"Get up, there's something downstairs you really should see," she urged in an excited, conspiratorial tone. I was suspicious of what they could create in five hours, but I obviously couldn't stay in bed anymore, no matter how much I wanted to.
Never having undressed last night, I reluctantly got up and opened the door for the excited, no-longer-in-a-suit whitehead. For once, the Magician wore a simple t-shirt, still in purple, I noted with some amusement.
"Let's see it," I replied groggily. Given the water shortage, I decided I could probably skip showering for a day and purposely ignored the question of when this body last showered.
"This way," Felice smiled excitedly.
She covered my eyes and guided me towards the stairs, mechanical noises grew louder and much more unpleasant.
"Ta-da! May I present to you, the beginnings of your empire." she let go at the top of the stairs to reveal, at least I think she wanted me to see, over twenty people working downstairs, the source of the noise I hear upstairs. These kids, the oldest of which barely looked 18, worked like cogs in a well-oiled machine.
What's happening? Did one of those duelists with superpowers brainwash them last night? That would explain so much.
I stared at the rows of workbenches, occupied mostly by teens and pre-teens, sorting and assembling metallic or plastic pieces too small to identify at this distance. I only recognized the few adults in the crowd, Nervin was walking between benches, bending down occasionally to answer a question or prevent a disaster.
The Magicians worked mostly with welding equipment, and stood out by their brightly colored clothing, thankfully sans circus-suit. Cyril put on a powder blue shirt, Teddy wore a green tank top in the color of my hair, and Vincent wore no shirt at all, revealing ripped muscles that spoke very highly of nutritional value in the disgusting Satellite rations, glistening with the sweat of hard work. Not safe when welding, but yum. Wait, who let Teddy join the adult group, isn't he like 14? I need to talk to Nervin about it. The end products were tossed carelessly into large black garbage bins that lined the walls.
Was I supposed to feel like Santa? I didn't.
Who am I kidding? It's minors performing repetitive manual labor at 6am, it's not a craft station, it's a F* sweatshop. I think Felice meant the beginning of my labor camp.
"But" I was stunned speechless, "What? How? Who did this?"
Felice almost cowered when she saw my expression.
Down on the factory (let's call it that) floor, Chaos saw my undisguised distaste and froze, he dragged Nervin away from his post (from his very important job of presumably preventing anyone from losing a finger), and walked up the stairs hiding behind the much skinnier man.
"What happened?" I removed 'the hell' from that question with some effort, they had obviously worked hard on, whatever this was. I should at least listen to their side of the story.
"I, umm," Chaos stuttered, "I brought these kids over last night."
Last night, there was no last night, it was 1am this morning when I got back.
"We needed people to put together our mini-clip radios," Nervin added, thinking he was being helpful. That didn't answer any of my questions, I could see what they were doing, I wanted to know why.
"Why did we hire children?" I blurted the question out, there was really no good way to ask that.
"It's really much more economical to hire underage workers," Chaos said stiffly as though reciting a speech.
"Especially seeing as the majority of the associated tasks do not require intense physical exertion. Younger employees complete most tasks on par with, or faster than their older counterparts. Taking into consideration their caloric intake, the age for maximum productivity is 13 to 15. The younger ones can still work of course," he added hastily, "especially the 9, 10 year-olds, they've really picked up since last night. I assure you, all attempts have been made to maximize profits."
Last night...
My face grew from mild displeasure, to revulsion, to abhorrence, and finally settled on 'what the hell is wrong with you people', a sentiment that I voiced loudly.
"What's wrong? It's a good job and they're pretty good at it" Felice didn't understand my anger, "and we are paying them."
Chaos nodded in agreement, looking perplexed and a little like a St Bernard.
"What they meant," Nervin nudged the larger man aside, he seemed to be the only one who understood me, "is that these kids need a job, and shelter, and some protection. All of which we can provide when they work here. Letting them work here is charity really."
"Charity," I repeated with disgust, "charity. How stupid do you think I am? Neo Domino handing out food to minors is charity (well, barely, more like social responsibility, but that's a whole other discussion), and we will not stoop lower than the Domino government"
While it's probably unwise to attack the other three people, all of whom were at least a head taller than me, I don't think I could resist for much longer.
"The government-issued food isn't enough to eat, let along getting other necessities. These kids need work, and can't find it anywhere else," Nervin argued, "They don't have a better choice, this is as good a chance as they'll get in the Satellite."
"What about every other kid, what do they do?" I questioned suspiciously, I can't find a flaw in his argument but it instinctively sounded wrong.
"You know," Nervin suddenly changed the subject, "I was twelve when Zero-Reverse happened. Even then, the Satellite area was a dump, but we still had things like hospitals and schools, and I was a pretty good student."
"Get to the point," I prompted impatiently.
"So I remember learning," Nervin ignored my interruption, "that Domino City, the whole city back then, had a population of around 1.3 million. About 1 million lived in what is now the Satellite, the rest lived in the area occupied by Neo Domino City."
He didn't need to say anymore, my blood already froze in my veins.
There was less than half a million people living in the Satellite now, and over two hundred thousand in Neo Domino City. Keeping in mind, there is no way to get out of the Satellite. Yet the population decreased to a half in less than two decades.
Zero-Reverse was advertised as the calamity of the century, and had a death toll of 13,000. Tragic, but it doesn't even put a dent into the death rate. To put things into perspective, think of your best friend, only one of you gets to live.
Sometimes, numbers were more terrifying than words could ever be.
"I see that you're familiar with the most recent statistics. So that, Boss," Nervin finished mercilessly, "is what everybody else is doing."
"What about, you know, not forcing, okay, 'convincing' minors into hard labor?" I struggled to defend my argument, a little desperately this time.
While it goes against every fiber of my being, even I had to admit that, while being stuck in the Satellite, our factory wasn't the worst option. It's a step up from death by starvation, hypothermia, gang fights or various diseases prevalent when the majority of the population were malnourished, uneducated, without healthcare access, and lived more or less on the streets (by my standards). Basically the fate of the previous inhabitant of my body.
"We can't afford it," Nervin countered bluntly, "we can't afford to just feed twenty kids at this stage, because we can't afford to hire more people, not if you want this company to survive."
"Well," I scratched my head, "I'm not particularly attached to the company; we can start others." But even as I said it, I knew it wouldn't be practical. It takes massive amounts of resources to manufacture and sell our products, especially as a company situated in the Satellite, we might not get another chance for years.
"Our bankruptcy wouldn't help anybody," Nervin rolled his eyes, "I don't know where you got all this Neo Domino fantasies, but that doesn't work here in the Satellite. You'll do what you can if you want this company to even stay afloat."
I sighed deeply. Realities suck, some worse than others.
"They're working well," Chaos looked lost throughout Nervin's short speech, and just started to understand the conversation again, "very efficient, 6 to 8 just like the factories."
I don't think he meant 6am to 8am.
Felice rose her hands to her lips and made a zipping motion.
"Not helping," Nervin added.
I stood there mortified. I finally understood the essence of the Satellite factories, though I personally preferred calling them workhouses because that what they were. Gather up the poor and restless, force them into hard labor in exchange for survival, so they would be too worn out to think about their own misery while making ludicrous profits for the manufacturing industry (does that count as an upside?).
A true innovation at its conception during the 19th century, where it should have stayed.
But this Japan had regressed to a feudal system, I knew that, I just didn't quite understand what that meant until now. In this more primitive society, the reach of federal law rarely extended past federal land, which currently is 16% of Japan.
Corporations, thanks to modern (ish?) technology, remained international. With different countries, counties and governments mostly in hostile relations, corporate laws became impossible to enforce, then obsolete. As it is, Satellite had too much in common with the dawn of the 20th century, the age of the Robber Baron.
Makes sense, almost. Childhood is really a post-Industrial Revolution concept, when the human race gained the luxury to offer their young reprieve from adulthood. The Satellite no longer has that luxury.
"Right," I stared out onto the factory floor, where teens and tweens were grateful for the chance of working 14 hours a day, so they didn't become the 1/2 of the population that doesn't make it (literally). "Adjust the working hours, and add an education system, we'll find the money somewhere. And for god's sake, don't hire anybody under 12!" At least with kids over twelve, I can lie to myself and say it's a part-time job, after I institute part-time hours, of course.
I directed the order at Nervin, he was the only one who could comprehend my moral system, or so I thought.
"Education?" Chaos repeated as though the term was foreign to him.
"Why?" Felice asked and meant it.
"What they're asking is, how could education help these kids in any way?" Nervin amended the previous two questions, "academia has no place in the Satellite."
My mind blanked, I find myself honestly not knowing how to answer their questions. Universal education has become so common place to me that I never thought it needed justification
"There are some people who went to school in the Satellite," Nervin went on to explain, "Whether they received an education before the Incident, or went to school in Neo Domino before being sent here, but no jobs here require an education, and it's not like most of them would be able to start something for themselves, school or no school. So what's the point of getting an education?"
"Uh..." I stammered. Though the effects of education may be variable on each individual, and it's very possible for somebody with less education to do better than somebody with more education, an educated society would trounce an uneducated society any day. History had proven that time and again. I just didn't know why. "These kids need to go to school, they're like, ten!"
"Can we afford it?" Felice countered bluntly. "It'll hard enough to stay afloat as it is, we have better uses for the money and the labor. We probably won't teach these kids anything anyways."
She had a point. While I wholeheartedly believe in (at least) basic universal education, we might go bankrupt before any of these kids learned how to add. The company almost definitely won't last long enough for us to reap any benefit from our investments into primary education. If anything, it'll help attract attention from NDC and get all of us locked up (sooner than we otherwise might have been).
Even more practically, there's currently not one, not two, but at least three different groups* actively plotting to destroy the world within the next two years. By all logic, preventing that should take precedent over a likely-temporary educational effort.
It should but it doesn't. I don't think I could sleep at night if I ended up putting minors into sweatshops 'for the greater good'.
"I'm sorry, would you like to do a cost-benefit analysis of educating nine-year-olds as opposed to putting them into intense physical labor?" I asked sarcastically, secretly proud of myself for successfully going around the argument.
"I've heard of cost-benefit analysis back when-" Chaos stopped abruptly, then started again. "I heard cost-benefit analysis were a good idea, they um."
"So, what do you want to do?" Nervin ignored Chaos, his eyes trained on me. "Keep in mind, we can't help anybody if you run what little we have into the ground."
"We'll start with vocational schools then. Language, math and specific skill sets," I finally relented, realizing I had no idea what kind of education the Satellite, or these satellites needs at this point.
"I'll write up an outline for the curriculum," Felice volunteered. I nodded approvingly, that's less work for me.
"Work out a sustainable schedule too," I gestured downstairs, still uncomfortable at the scene and quickly retreated back to my room to the comfort of trading cards. Yes, trading cards. An arguably useful tool in this world that can help you forget the troubles of reality.
All the cards I won from the night before, plus what Vincent offered me, several hundred in total, were methodically spread out on the bed. The tiny desk that came with this room wasn't nearly large enough.
Sitting on the floor by the side of the bed, I sighed deeply, banging my head against the mattress and getting Left Hand of the Forbidden One stuck on my forehead in the process.
I had a collection most people in the Satellite could only dream about. That didn't mean I had a good deck.
I would wish for a Yang Zing deck, or maybe Scraps, or even Synchrons. What I had was an excellent Gimmick Puppeteer deck, one of the best XYZ decks, except XYZ extra deck monsters did not yet exist in this world. Literally.
The theory of duel monsters, as far as I could tell, is that existing duel monster somehow exert their influence on the human realm such that mortals create their corresponding cards. Since alien species that constitutes XYZ extra deck monsters had yet not made their way to earth, there were no XYZ summoning. Even though the non-extra deck monsters, which are native to the duel monster realm, still existed at this point in time.
(Thus was Yukie's best and feeble attempt to make sense of the plot-hole ridden world in which she was trapped.)
I managed a half-assed Six Samurai deck, hopefully enough against the nameless minor characters I hope to defeat.
* three's counting Dark Signers, Rex Goodwin and Z-One's team. Sayer deserves an honorable mention but doesn't really count, he wants to take over the world, not destroy it.
A/N: Remember Robert Pearson? The guy Crow mentioned who worked on his duel runner company with the kids Crow was taking care of? That was really odd, those kids couldn't be more than 10 years old at the time.
And since a teenage street runt like Crow was taking care of a few kids, we can assume there were many kids that needed care of some sort.
A/N 2: The anime repeatedly shows rows upon rows of empty houses, and occasional abandoned sky scrapers in the Satellite. If nobody could leave the Satellite, where did their original occupants go? Something are chilling when you think about it.
It wouldn't make sense for the entire city to live underground. It's also unreasonable to assume a single event, earthquake, explosion or Zero Reverse, would kill most people in the city, but leave the buildings largely intact. So we can assume whatever it was occurred after Zero-Reverse.
A/N 3: It also really bugged me when, in the Z-One arc, Crow claimed the 10 year-old orphans would have still had parents if Zero Reverse hadn't happened 17 years ago…. Think about it.
Even the 'gang war' theory doesn't play out- in a disorganized chaos like the Satellite, the adults had a much better chance of survival than children.
So:
All taken together, my theory is radiation of some sort from the incident plus poor healthcare, thus targeting adults, who had less self-regenerative properties. Hence the number of orphans in the Satellite and the high death rates.
This might not come up in the story again so I thought I'd mention it here.
…
This is a happy story, honest, it just takes some time getting there.