The sounds of dice being tossed, people talking loudly and clinking of glasses all stopped abruptly when the man entered along with Nico.

  Which was a welcome reprieve since his head was throbbing from all the frantic exertion he had done during the chase, and the sound was only making it worse. His ribs were pulsing with pain, the man dragging him paid no mind to any of it.

  “Evening boss” A butler bowed before Nico’s captor. Even with how panicked and confused Nico was about this situation he still noticed the very expensive clothes the butler wore. Things were not looking good.

  “Get me Mikhail and tell him I’ve got a job for him”. The butler nodded and rushed off behind a staff only a door. Nico was once again dragged by the man, he was afraid to say anything in case the man decided to kick him again.

  The noise in the casino had picked back up and people were having a merry time, Nico was dragged through an unmarked rusty iron door. He was thrown inside of it and left there while the man walked out, the man had to try a few times to lock the door but eventually he succeeded , the sound of his footsteps got quieter and quieter as he walked away.

  Nico was left alone in the cramped and smelly room that looked like it hadn’t been used in decades.

  Now that he thought about it, he didn’t really look at the face of the man he had stolen from, oh well it didn’t really matter now.

  Nico thought about what might happen to him soon, the best case scenario he could come up with was that they would just beat him up and toss him to the streets, there were many worse things that could happen to him though, organ harvesting, slavery, a shiver of fear passed through him.

  Shaking his head to get such depressing thoughts out of his head he began looking around to see if he could escape from this room, after a half an hour or so of futile searching, Nico slumped down in a corner of the room.

  Deciding that no one would be coming here anytime soon, the gang boss – at least that's what he assumed the man was at this point– probably had more important things to get done than beating up orphans.

  Nico pulled the silver coin out of his pocket. After tossing it and letting it fall back onto his hands a few times he pressed it onto his forehead.

  The part touching his skin heated up, a few minutes passed as Nico waited for something to happen, the heat kept increasing with no end in sight.

  Gritting his teeth, he tried to keep pressing the coin but eventually the pain was too much and he dropped the coin, clutching his forehead he hissed with pain.

  The sound of a key turning reached Nico’s ears, he scooted to the corner furthest away from the door and tensed up as he stared at the door.

  SLAM.

  Nico nearly felt like crying, what the hell was going on with his life. The man kept walking closer to Nico, his footsteps thundered across the room, his eyes looked like those of a hawk that had spotted a rabbit and knew it was its next meal.

  Nico’s heart beat ever louder as the man got closer, the man seemed to take a strange pleasure in trying to stretch Nico’s suffering and fear.

  As the man got close enough to see Nico in the dim lighting of the room, he suddenly paused, with a pale face he turned around and walked towards the door quickly closing it and locking it with a key from his pocket.

  Then the man pulled out a black, metallic wand, it looked like the hand held metal detectors the security at the airport frequently use, he stomped around the room waving the wand all over the room, even over the place Nico was sitting at.

  Nico looked at the man with confusion in his eyes, eventually the man seemed to be satisfied as he nodded to him and then walked towards Nico.

  There was none of the earlier bloodlust as he walked towards Nico, he walked calmly and then sat down beside Nico and put a hand around his shoulders.

  “Gaddamnit Kid, How’d ya end up in this situation” the man said as turned towards Nico, “The names Mikhail by the way ”, Mikhail extended his hands towards Nico for a handshake, Nico begrudgingly shook his hands.

  Mikhail’s slightly tanned hands were flowing with sweat, his dirty blonde hair was swept back, he looked like the perfect gangster.

  “Ya look like my cat when it was neutered and it didn’t know where it’s damn balls went, HAH that was real funny it to see” Mikhail took in a large breath and released it slowly and repeated this a few times as he looked at the cracked, gray wall on the far end of the room.

  “Uhh . . Yer name’s Nico right ?” Mikhail looked towards questioningly, Nico gave a small nod. “Alright, Nico, Here’s the thing, I’m one of ye Father’s friends” Mikhail seemed to have a weird accent.

  For some strange reason Nico was curious why the man spoke that way, and interrupted him, asking “Hey Mikhail, are you speaking weird ? ”. Mikhail let out a large laugh and doubled over himself, wiping tears of laughter away as he got back up he asked.

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  “Kid, you are In a gang boss’s prison and the thing you’re worried about is my accent ?”, Nico turned red at the question,“ Well to answer your question, It’s part of my disguise”. Mikhail then paused for a while and then said “I’ll get there eventually just listen ”, Nico gave a sheepish nod to the man.

  “Ah so where was I, yes so I’m one of your father’s friends, him and I go way back btw.” Mikhail let out another deep laugh at that and then went on “Oh the things him and I got up to, I was there in the hospital when you were born”, a look of sorrow passed through Mikhail’s face as he talked about Nico’s Dad.

  “Your Father and Mother worked for a weapons corporation, around the time you were born they were researching mind machine interfaces, brain lattices we call them now, your parents basically invented them”, he took out a cigarette out from his pocket and lit it up and puffed on it for a while.

  “They had a few disagreements with some of the higher executives of the company, some personal spat, I’m not really sure, but eventually those guys got the board on their side, even with all of your parents contribution to the company, they got fired ” Mikhail spat towards the side angrily at that, a scowl twisted his lips as he took another puff.

  “Awful company, I quit a few days after they were fired, anyways you don’t want to hear an old guy ramble” Mikhail turned towards him and looked him straight in the eye, emotions flashed too quickly through his eyes than could be discerned.

  “Your parents were murdered kid, fucking heart attack they say, don’t chase them Nico, your parents wouldn’t want you to do that , spend your life on something else, I’ll work on the murder alright” Mikhail’s eyes softened a bit as he explained.

  Nico didn’t say anything, the air around him just got gloomier and darker. Mikhail gave Nico’s back a few thumps. “Don’t worry about that, Uncle Mikhail will deal with it, you just focus on getting out of this shithole, how the hell did you manage to anger the bossman by the way? ”.

  Nico slightly laughed at that, the mood in the room got a bit lighter, “I stole his creds when he was drunk, he caught me though”.

  “Ofcourse he caught you, Idiot, by the way lay low for a while after you get out of here, the company is still looking for you, It’s a miracle they haven’t found you yet, they hunted down everyone connected to your parents already, I barely escaped due to working for another spy corporation” Mikhail let out a breath of cigarette smoke.

  Nico waved his hand in front of his face in an attempt to get rid of the smoke, “Please stop smoking”, Mikhail grinned at that “Call me Uncle Mikhail and I will”.

  “Stop smoking Uncle Mikhail” Nico said while laughing, things were finally looking up for him, he was able to find someone who could help him.

  There was still the fact that Uncle Mikhail had very carefully avoided the name of the company, Nico’s parents had also never told him the company’s name.

  Nico decided that he would figure the details out later, there was no chance that Uncle Mikhail would tell him, he didn’t even need to ask to know that.

  “The boss will probably be back soon, He sent me to beat you up, Hah” Looking at Nico’s forehead for a while Mikhail asked “You tried using the coin didn’t you” Mikhail pressed his fingers against the red mark on Nico’s forehead.

  “Give it to me”. Nico handed the silver coin over to Mikhail who motioned for Nico to come closer, without warning Mikhail pressed the coin against his forehead and held Nico in place.

  “Here bite this, you’ll live through it, don’t worry”, Mikhail handed Nico a wallet, the coin once again began heating up and the pain of the heat seared through his whole body.

  Nico bit into the wallet hard, as tears pricked at his eyes as he resisted the urge to struggle and escape, after what felt like forever the pain and heat stopped and Mikhail moved away.

  Smiling like a madman, “Imagine that burn mark on your forehead being gone” Nico looked at him confused. “Oh come on just do it”. Nico tried imagining the burn on his forehead being healed, eventually he felt a slight tingle in the area around the mark, small pinpricks of hunger pocked at him.

  Smiling even wider than before, Mikhail gave Nico a firm pat “It’s gone now” then began nodding to himself “The coin was nanobots, self replicating ones, really dangerous stuff, remember the gray goo incident from a few decades ago, yeah similar to that”.

  “It’s safe though . . . probably. I’m not entirely sure on what all it’s functions are this is the only one I'm aware of, also now think of heavy bruising all around your body, just the surface level appearance, don't imagine the pain of it”

  Nico was still confused, but he trusted Uncle Mikhail at this point and did as he said, Large splotches of purple and blue damaged skin appeared all over his body, as is someone had worked really hard at beating him up for the past hour.

  “The boss wanted me to beat you up, that should do it, Now act like it really hurts alright I’ll drag you out and toss you somewhere, then you’re on your own, DONT. GET. CAUGHT. Work as a waiter or something, just find something to do while laying low”

  Uncle Mikhail then began dragging Nico by the foot towards the door, opening the rusty door, he was dragged out through the red carpeted floors of the now empty casino, it seemed to be undergoing some renovation work now.

  “Hey Mikhail my good man” A booming voice resounded behind them and footsteps followed as the man that had brought Nico here walked up to them.

  “Hahaha I see you’ve given the boy his lesson, good, good” Looking menacingly towards Nico for a while the boss nodded to himself, deciding on something.

  “Leave the boy here” the boss pointed to the floor, Nico felt Uncle Mikhail’s hands tense on his legs. “Why boss, I don wanna waste yer time with this fool”

  “Leave him here, I have a different plan for him” Uncle Mikhail eventually had to relent, he couldn’t blow his cover after all, though he did stand by on the side, watching.

  The boss took out a sleek, rectangular, chrome colored device and tapped his fingers on it for a while and then held it to his ear “Yes, yes the location of this device, right now, take the premium package, yes paid by patient, thankyou”.

  The boss let out a chuckle and looked towards Mikhail, “Take the boy to the front door and drop him there, I have a good surprise waiting for him”

  Nico looked at Uncle Mikhail’s face, when it was turned away from the boss, it had a very angry scowl on it, along with hints of sadness in his eyes.

  Without another world Uncle Mikhail dragged Nico towards the exit of the casino, the boss followed behind them, chuckling with apparent glee.

  The automatic door rattled and open up for them, in front of them a crowd had gathered around a sleek flying vehicle. People whispered to each other and looked at the vehicle with envy, surprise, confusion and other vast arrays of emotion.

  The vehicle had two red crossed on both sides, and a red cross on the doors on its back, two droids floated out from the vehicle and grabbed Nico, and then injected him with something.

  The last thing he heard before his consciousness slipped away was the word “Ambo”, Uncle Mikhail also tried saying something in his ear, but it was all a jumbled mess and Nico’s world went black as the droids carried him onto the vehicle and Uncle Mikhail’s face looked at him with worry.