The Life of Koru, Chapter 61
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The demands of the rebel slaves were clear -- they wanted to return to the Black Empire as soon as possible. They were tired of working in the quarry for the Caliphate.
Both Mulo and Gryf agreed on that, for the first time ever.
And so it happened that during a shift change of the guards, when vigilance was at its lowest, Mulo and Gryf saw their opportunity. They moved swiftly, freeing their comrades and arming themselves with whatever tools and makeshift weapons they could find.
The barred gate of the prison was broken open, and amid the commotion, two smallcock guards were rendered unconscious.
"We'se free! We'se free!" Mulo and Gryf bellowed.
The atmosphere was charged with hope, as the once docile laborers now stood united in their quest for liberation.
"These insurrectionists will learn the price of their defiance!" Chief Khalid said, when he heard about the slave riot.
He acted swiftly, rallying his most trusted subordinates and preparing for a brutal crackdown. As the sun was rising over the Ahaggar Mountains, casting long shadows across the quarry, Chief Khalid and his forces advanced toward the uprising.
The slaves knew they had to fight back. They occupied a strategic place on the hills of the quarry, using the terrain to their advantage. They called this territory "the in-yer-face-no-Sharia-zone" and erected a barricade of stones to protect it.
Chief Khalid found it impossible to attack the place. Whenever his army approached it, the rebel slaves would start throwing rocks and showing their asses in a rude manner.
"Do what we'se askin'! Just do what we'se askin'!" Mulo shouted. "Let us go back to the Black Empire!"
"I'm going to siege their little fortress!" Chief Khalid thought. "They have no food or water up there. How long can they last?"
He was right. Thirst and hunger were the fiercest enemies the slaves could face. As the days wore on, the once-hopeful cries of freedom began to fade, replaced by the pained groans of those weakened by starvation and dehydration.
"There is no way you can escape me, slaves!" Chief Khalid said. "Surrender now!"
"I'se surrenduh, suh!" one of the slaves said.
It was a shocking reality that Mulo had to face. One of his mates couldn't bear living like this anymore and was surrendering.
Then, another one said:
"I'se surrenduh too, suh!"
Then a bunch of slaves said:
"We'se surrenduh, suh!"
It was disheartening for Mulo to see that the riot was an utter failure.
Chief Khalid smiled.
"From now on, I will make you work twice as hard, you insolent pigs!"
The lash curled in the air with a vibrant crack, then snapped sharply on the naked back of Peon.
"AAAAH!" Peon cried.
"Tell us where your accomplice is hiding, boy!"
"I'se don't know, suhs! I'se swear!"
The cop growled, raising the whip again.
During this time, Lil Massa was pacing around the police station. He was very angry:
"You only have one task!" he told the policemen. "And you can't even get a simple piece of information from that dumbass slave! What kind of lawmen are you, if you can't handle him?"
"Can you please be respectful and shut your mouth for a change?" a police officer said.
Lil Massa was taken aback by the cop's insolence.
"Do you even know who my father is??" he said.
This was enough to put the cop in his place. It was obvious from Lil Massa's looks that he was an aristocrat, so the policemen had to endure all his tantrums. His finely tailored clothes and his air of entitlement made it clear that crossing him could lead to severe repercussions, compelling the officers to swallow their pride and comply with his demands, no matter how unreasonable.
"Can I ask you something, Sir Nnamani?" the policeman said. "Your koru slave keeps insisting that the mulatto slave Eamon was accompanied by his daughter, a certain girl called Miss Amara."
"No. It couldn't have been her!" Lil Massa said. "The girl in question is fucking dead, I saw her die! I think the mulatto slave had an assistant that LOOKED like his daughter, but wasn't actually her."
"I see. The koru slave also says that this female assistant wanted to saw you in half..."
"Umm... Yeah! That's what she said..."
"So the boy basically saved your life!"
"No! That's not true! He didn't save my life! He's a BAD boy! He ESCAPED from my father's property!"
"I see! Well, Sir, we seem unable to extract more information from him!"
"Have you whipped every part of him? Have you whipped his balls, his armpits, the crack of his ass?"
"We are doing this right now, but from my experience, if he had something to hide, he would have said it long ago...
Here's the thing, Sir Nnamani: we suspect that your mulatto slave Eamon wants to embark on a ship to New Orleans, which is on a straight route from the Caribbean Sea to the Gulf of Mexico. Once he reaches that city, he is as safe as anyone can be, because mulatto persons are free by Law in that province called Louisiana.
Also, we cannot prove that he wanted to murder you, because it looked like a regular magic trick to everyone spectating.
In other words, our last chance is to catch him is in the port of Caracas, before he embarks on the ship, or never!"
"To Caracas then!" Lil Massa yelled. "To Caracas!"
"As for you," Lil Massa said, looking towards Peon, "I'm going to send you back to the plantations to be nailed to the post!"
This was the moment where Sir Kenneth intervened. He had been listening to Lil Massa all this time with the patience of a saintly figure. But now he felt the need to say:
"Isn't it better to keep him, Julian? What point would it make to kill a slave who can do so many stunts, who is so talented in acrobatics and so on?"
Out of all the people Lil Massa expected to defy him, Sir Kenneth was the last. After all, Lil Massa had so much fun with him during the vacation.
"It's my slave, so I do what I want!" Lil Massa said.
He went to the post office, bought some post stamps and a large wooden box for slave transportation, then forced Peon inside, despite him being full of painful whip marks. The box was of standard size, allowing Peon to sit in a crouched position, with little room for anything else. Lil Massa sticked a note with the address "Nnamani Plantations, Brazil" on the box, and the letter:
"Dad,
I have caught the fugitive scum slave. I want him nailed ASAP!
Julian."
Peon's box was taken by the post office employees to the parcel depot, where many other boxes containing slaves were waiting to be shipped. In the agony of his cramped seclusion, Peon noticed that someone came during the night to fumble at his box. He couldn't see who it was. He couldn't see that it was Sir Kenneth who tore down the label of the box and placed another one with the address "James Foster Robotics Institute, California" and the letter:
"Dad,
I found a prime specimen for your experiments.
Kenneth."