Rusting Chains

Chapter 4

One of his robots flew to him to wipe a sweat I didn't know he had on his forehead.

He sighed as he focused his gaze on me. "Where is that old badge I gave you?" he extended his hand gesturing for me to hand it over. I clenched my pocket because I knew if I gave it back I would be relinquishing my job and even going back to my tribe. If that were to happen it would put my brothers in danger.

"Don't overreact. I'm only going to replace the old thing," he says sounding annoyed. Even so, I still hesitated before giving him the Man X badge. Charming Gold the badge in his pocket and threw a different badge towards me. "And your name, I won't refer to you as 'Gai' for matters such as these. From now on I will refer to you as Man X."

He threw a more improved badge, I picked it up and started examining it. While my focus was on the new badge I hadn't realized that Charming Gold had walked up behind me, he placed his hand on my back and led me outside. "Why don't you go find your way to the interview room?" he said pushing me out while I still kept staring at the new badge I held.

I looked around to look for a bot to ask, despite Charming Gold having many robots to attend to him it was like a ghost town in the chamber I was in.

I found a flight of stairs and went down and found another bot, I asked it where the interview room was and it led me through a long hallway. I was glad to be on track, but the encounter I had with Charming Gold was still replaying in my mind. I don't want to lose this job, I need this to be able to live a better life: to go home a hero and celebrate with my brothers far away from people like Charming Gold.

That should be my only priority, to finish my mission and win the Running Man championship.

When the interview finally ended I thought that I should prepare myself for the next games. I start heading to my room, I still have things to do maybe I should train a bit in my room or sharpen my ninja stars.

I entered my room, all the lights were out which made me feel uneasy. I could've sworn I left the light on before I went out...

I felt a weight behind my shoulders and a pair of hands covering my eyes. What was going on? Was I being kidnapped in my own room?

"Surprise!" a familiar voice called. "Didn't I tell you guys to leave the lights on?" another voice says. I can hear movement in the dark room and footsteps walk over to the light switch. "Surprise big brother!" they all say in unison as they turn the lights back on. My eyes start to adjust to the bright light and I can see 3 figures in front of me.

"Pai, Mai, Zai? What are you guys doing here?" I ask looking at my brothers in front of me in confusion. "Where are your caretakers? Aren't they supposed to take care of you?" I ask, worried for their safety. They all look embarrassed, and one says, " We sort of... agreed to run away."

I stare at them in shock. "What do you mean you guys ran away?" I ask alarmed by their actions. "Well.. we didn't really have a great time with our caretakers," Zai says scratching the back of his head though it doesn't seem like his head while smiling as if he and the rest of my brothers didn't just run away from home.

I sigh, while I am glad to see them again I'm worried that no one will be able to take care of them while I am here. "Shouldn't you guys head back?"

I looked at them and they all just looked ready to avoid the question.

"We were sort of thought that we could stay with you, bro," Mai speaks up. I looked at the rest of my brothers who had the same look on their faces that screamed: We didn't plan this far ahead.