When morning arrived once again, Sigmarus struggled awake after a rough night of work and returned to the Red Street gym. Inside, only two people greeted him. One was the man wearing a hooded sweatshirt and jeans sitting behind the counter who contacted Duke for him yesterday. The other was Duke himself, who was wearing a tight-fitting gray t-shirt and cargo pants with frayed knees. Rather than working out, Duke was sitting on a stool near the counter. As soon as Sigmarus arrived, the man stood, towering over Sigmarus by several inches. Duke’s eyes scanned over him with curiosity.

“Welcome back,” Duke said, nodding slightly in greeting.

Sigmarus returned the nod of greeting without saying anything. He also nodded toward the man behind the counter.

“Are you here about my offer from the other day?”

“Kinda.”

“Hmm. Alright, follow me. We’ll talk elsewhere.”

Gesturing with his arm for Sigmarus to follow, Duke turned around and walked toward an electric sliding door not far from the counter. Sigmarus noticed movement in the corner of his eye and glanced toward the counter. The next moment, the door skidded into the wall, revealing a lounge area for the employees. There wasn’t much in the room aside from some worn out chairs and couches and a small kitchen with rusted and broken utilities. Most of it was in disrepair. In its heyday, the lounge would have looked quite nice. Unfortunately, time had taken its toll on this place, just like any other area in this rotten underground.

Duke led Sigmarus through a metal door at the other end of the room and into a small office. In this room, there were even fewer pieces of furniture, albeit in better condition than the furniture in the previous room. Only a small meeting table surrounded by a handful of worn down office chairs whose cushions looked flat as a crepe from countless years of supporting people’s weight and a handful of rickety wooden desks with old desktop box computers and monitors on them filled the space. None of the computers escaped the passage of time, either. Each of them looked like a chimera of computer parts and scrap metal which had been tinkered with ten too many times for their own good. Most of them likely didn’t work at all.

While Sigmarus was observing the regrettable scene of aged utilities, Duke took a seat in one of the office chairs. It groaned under the man’s weight as though its support could snap at any moment. The muscular man then gestured for Sigmarus to do the same. Another chair groaned, but it still held Sigmarus up as though it had been born to do so.

Scanning over Sigmarus once again, Duke said, “I was under the impression that you were the type of guy who didn’t want to get pulled into our activities. Did something change?”

“Honestly, you’re right that I’d rather not get dragged into disputes, so before that, I want to know if it’s possible to ask for a favor.”

Raising a brow, Duke asked, “What kind of favor?”

“I heard Fallen Leaf tries to prevent underaged prostitution. Is that true?”

“Oh. Is this about that girl who led you here the other day?”

“You saw that?” Sigmarus raised his brows, but then continued, “Yeah. It’s about that girl.”

Leaning forward with a focused expression, Duke asked, “Is she related to you or something?”

He seems quite invested in the topic, Sigmarus thought while also answering, “She isn’t related, but we’re acquaintances. Her situation is… sad, so I’m helping her out a bit for now. I just can’t help her completely get out of it.”

Duke crossed his arms and fell into contemplation. Then, in a lower tone than normal, explained, “We do try to prevent underaged prostitution for certain reasons, but it isn’t a united effort of the entire gang or anything. It’s hard to make much of a difference aside from deterring the other gangs from removing girls’ v-guards before they turn eighteen since even most of our lower members don’t care about it.”

Sigmarus’ forehead wrinkled as he asked, “Is it impossible to help her get out of that brothel, then?”

“Not impossible, but it could be difficult. Were you planning to join us just for that?”

“Yeah.”

“Sounds like more than an acquaintance, then.”

“Not really. I’m just an idiot.”

Briefly, Duke’s lips curled upward with amusement, but then his stoic expression returned, and he said, “Tell me some of her situation and I’ll tell you if I can help.”

From there, Sigmarus explained Grace’s debt issue with the Green Devil gang in as few words as possible without giving too much personal info. Duke calmly listened to every word, his expression only briefly changing every so often.

“The Green Devils, huh?” Duke grumbled after listening to the compact explanation. His dark brown eyes looked even darker as his face adopted an annoyed expression. “It’s always those damn greedy bastards.”

Noticing that the man was starting to tremble with anger, Sigmarus refrained from saying anything more. He hadn’t expected such a reaction.

There seems to be some sort of bad blood there? I don’t know much about the relationships between the gangs, but it seems like Duke at least dislikes the Green Devils. Good for me, I guess.

A few seconds later, Duke calmed his nerves and asked, “You’re planning to pay that girl’s debt by yourself, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. That’ll make it easier. If Fallen Leaf actually gets involved, it could cause some major problems. If it’s just secretly moving her somewhere else after her debts paid off, it’s more doable. Could give her work at one of our hideouts or something.”

“Alright.”

“So you’re gonna join just for that, then?”

“Sure. Not like a slow death as a foundation melder is better than dying in a turf war or something.”

Such a statement left Duke speechless for several moments, but then he said, “For now, I’ll just make you a member in name only. You can join officially after that girl’s situation is settled. Don’t want those greedy snakes knowing you’re with us, or it’ll bring you more trouble.”

“Thanks.”

“Let’s go pay your early contract severance.”

“Eh? Now?”

“When else would we do it?”

“I mean, I can afford it.”

“Save your money. You’ll need it later.”

Sigmarus raised a brow out of curiosity and wondered why he would need money later.

Perhaps noticing his confusion, Duke asked, “Have you ever wanted to go upstairs?”

Immediately, Sigmarus’ brows furrowed, and he answered, “Even if climbing was possible, I wouldn’t really care.”

Duke’s eyes widened. Which muskrat didn’t want to escape from this toxic hellhole? Then, he focused on Sigmarus again. After observing his features for a few moments, he asked, “Are you someone with clipped wings?”

“Been a while since I heard that term, but yeah.”

“Huh. That explains a lot,” Duke muttered under his breath. He fell silent and his eyes grew distant as though looking into the future. The strange expression caught Sigmarus off guard. However, the man quickly refocused and said, “Let’s just go pay off that fee of yours for now. We can talk about other things later.”

“Thanks, then. You sure I can join just like this, though? Isn’t there some sort of process?”

“Nobody will question my decision, so don’t worry about it.”

Guess he’s really one of the top dogs here, Sigmarus thought.

* * *

Later in the morning, after settling Sigmarus’ thirty thousand credit severance fee, Duke returned to the gym to complete his morning workout regimen which he originally delayed in favor of meeting with Sigmarus. When he arrived, a few other Fallen Leaf members were already exercising, and they looked over at him with wide eyes.

“Hey, boss!”

“Yo!”

“Whatcha doin’ here so late, bossman?”

Waving toward these rowdy family members, Duke said, “I had some stuff to do this morning, so I’ll be joining your workout.”

The few lower wrung members here didn’t get to see their leader very often. One cheered. One laughed. One smiled silently. They were all excited to interact with the big man himself.

“Sup, boss?” The man behind the counter lazily greeted. “How’d it go with that Sigmarus guy?”

“Not bad, but not great. He’s a fallen bird, so we’ll need to work on him a bit.”

“Oh, gotcha. You still gonna train ‘im? Make him one of our climbers?”

“We can try. I’ll let you and Shad convince him, if you don’t mind. You’ve got three months.”

The man chuckled, raised his right hand to form an ‘ok’ sign with his fingers, and said, “Got it, boss.”