Rats: Shai's Story

Working For Mikko

Author's note: I hope you all are enjoying it!

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Lynn was sceptical about Brodhi working for Mikko. He told Jasper that night to stay home while he went out tomorrow. He was up at the crack of dawn and he slipped out of the house before anyone woke up.

He tried to remember his way back to Mikko's house. The streets were fairly dead in the Slums and as he walk farther and farther away from Bright the Rats diminished quickly. He was alone on the street when he saw the highway.

When Brodhi finally got to Mikko's house, the sun was up high in the sky beating down on him. He could feel a cold bead of sweat run down his back. He knocked on the metal door and waited.

No one answered.

Brodhi knocked on the door again, but there was still no answer. He wrapped his hand around the handle and opened the metal door and then reached over to the second wooden door. It was unlocked and he walked in Mikko's home.

The narrow hallway was covered in junk. Boxes full of wires and other objects Brodhi couldn't identify were all over Mikko's house. A thick layer of dust covered everything. He assumed that Mikko was still asleep.

Brodhi's eyes were scanning everything on the floor. He heard a faint noise and then felt something smashed against his forehead. He quickly pressed on his forehead where he was hit and looked up.

Mikko was behind a counter in his kitchen with a silver box in his hands. Brodhi saw two slits running down it on the side facing him. He looked down to see a piece of dark looking bread on the floor in front of him.

"Toast gun works!" Mikko exclaimed.

Brodhi picked up the bread of the ground. It crunched under his fingers.

"Toast?" Brodhi asked raising his eyebrow.

"Yeah, Brighties like to cook their bread another time." Brodhi just nodded his head and placed the toast on the table. "Some are so picky. You toasted it too much or not enough. Just shut up and eat your bread."

Mikko put down the toast gun and started digging through one of the boxes on his counter. Brodhi looked around to see the kitchen was just as full of junk as the rest of the house. Mikko let out a sigh and tipped his box over so all of its contents spilled all over the counter.

"What ya want me to do?" he asked Mikko.

"I've run out of water, so go down to the Market and get some," he said. He dug into his pocket and slammed a handful of money onto the counter. "Two jugs. Keep whatever the change is as your pay."

Brodhi slid the money off the counter and shoved it into his pocket.

"That's all?" he asked.

"Uh-huh, Brod-hi."

"What did you just call me?"

"Brod-hi. I know your name is Brodhi, but you spell it an odd way. Most people would use an I or an E, maybe even a Y. But you use the unconventional H."

Brodhi continued to stare at Mikko quizzically. He remembered how Mikko was telling him about Jasper and Shai, but he still couldn't figure out how Mikko knew all of this. Only Officers had access to files, so how did Mikko know all of this?

"How do ya know this all?" he asked him.

Mikko pulled a small, very thin box out of his pocket and waved it in the air. It looked just like the rest of the junk that filled the boxes that littered his house.

"How many times do I need to tell you I'm a Techi?" Mikko asked.

"What's that?"

"Come! I'll show you. It'll blow your mind."

He ran out of the kitchen and Brodhi hesitantly followed. He was a little scared to see what Mikko was going to show him. They weaved their way through the boxes in the hallway and Mikko stopped in front of a wooden door. He put his hand on the knob and turned around quickly to face Brodhi. A huge smile was painted across his lips.

"This is my office," he told him. "My pride and joy of my house. No, no, no. This is the pride and joy of my life."

He opened the door and walked in. Brodhi stood in the doorframe and peered in. Large screens covered three of the walls. They were playing videos of people who looked like Brighties walking down streets and into stores. The odd screen was covered in words scrawling down it. An old padded red chair was the only piece of furniture and it sat in middle of the room. It was covered in layers of tape. Mikko settled himself into it and the pulled up on a bar so his feet shot up. Brodhi walked into the room, scanning all the screens closely.

"What is all this?" Brodhi asked in awe.

"Technology," Mikko told him. "It scares the living daylights out of Brighties. They banned a lot of it after the Outbreak. Something about it advancing too quickly and taking over everyone's lives."

"And what's a Techi?"

"That would be people like me. We were controlling it all. Had access to everything. Well, not everything. The Dyer family is under too much security. Especially after the assassinations. They think a gently breeze is an attempt to murder Cyrus or Cambrie."

Brodhi saw his name on one of the screens. A sequence of numbers he didn't recognize followed underneath. He touched the screen with his finger and the image on it twisted. His name was lined up with Jasper's and Shai's, and his parents' name were on top of theirs. Names that Brodhi had never heard before were stacked up on top.

"A family tree," Mikko told him. "They organize everyone by family. Brighties use them to classify where their blood comes from.... Like it matters."

"If you're a Brighty why do you live here?" Brodhi asked turning away from the screen to look at Mikko. He was still in his chair. His mouth was open and he was scratching his cheek.

"The bastards kicked me out," he grumbled. He let out a yawn and stretched his arms up over his head. "Now I didn't hire you to go look at my screens."

"I'm going," Brodhi said. He turned his head back around towards the screen. He let his eyes gaze over all the images. There was so many. He had no idea how Mikko could sit in a chair and remembers all of it.

"I'm becoming parched, Brodhi," Mikko announced from his chair.

Brodhi rolled his eyes and let out a deep breath. He was strangely entranced by what was going on the screen.

"I'm going," he said as he walked out of the room.

Brodhi took the long walk from Mikko's house to the Market. As he was buying water he heard the commotion of someone being arrested happening down the street. He ignored it and carried the jugs of water back to Mikko's.