Once Rex saw that the guard was pointing his gun toward him, he raised his hands in sign of surrender.

    "Hey, hold on; I’m not trying to do anything dangerous. I just want to make a deal with you that’ll make you get a good amount of credits, and without doing anything too complicated, what do you say?"

    The guard thought for a few seconds before putting down his gun.

    "Say, what is the deal? I won’t let you leave, just so you know; after all, there’s not enough credits in the whole galaxy that could make me bet my head on; after all, what use are the credits if I can’t enjoy them?"

    Rex then lowered his hands and began to touch his left arm device, accessing his bank account. Once on his bank account, he walked up to the guard and flashed the credits.

    "This 300k credits I have is the payment; all I want is for you to go this direction; I’m transferring you right now; there lives an Aquarian grandma, and all you have to do is tell her to take care of the bald kid, and that’s it, easy credits for you, right?

    The eyes of the guard widened when he saw the 300k credits. As that amount was a lot, since he could only gain 30k credits per year, these 300k credits were the savings of 5 years of Rex that he was saving to buy himself a cybernetic upgrade, but saving the kid of his best friend was more important than the credits right now.

    "All you want me to do is tell the grandma this message?"

    Rex nodded slightly.

    "Yeah, that’s all you have to do. I’ve transferred her 150k credits that she’ll pay you when you get there with her and deliver the message."

    Then, Rex transferred the 150k credits to the guard and joined the line to the transport ship, where Carlos was also going. He thought that calling it a transport ship was too big of a praise since it was only a big empty area inside of it, without anything else. Rex then started looking for Carlos.

    Once he had located his unconscious friend, he lay down next to him on the floor and let out a deep sigh.

    ("And there goes my cybernetic hands upgrade, at least I know that the kid is going to be safe with grandma, I have no idea how long we’re going to travel, so I better take a nap. Later I’ll provide the grandma’s bank account number to this damned bald, and I am not going to pay to his son all of my life, not like he is a beautiful and hot single mom, damn.")

    He had not even finished saying it when Rex interrupted him.

    "Wait a second; don’t you even dare say that. I gave those credits on a voluntary basis; if you want to pay me, then let’s search for a tavern with the worse name tomorrow once our shift is done, and you will pay since I have 0 credits right now. Sounds good?."

    The warm smile that Rex was giving Carlos right now was a safe haven from all of this that was happening, and after hearing these words from his best friend, he wanted to cry, but he just manned up and joined hands with him, making the promise to drink tomorrow at night.

    Like this, they left to their places. Rex could notice that this world had a sun and 2 moons that were so big that you could see them without difficulty from the colony. This colony, like any other mining colony, was made full of metals, and you could see pipes everywhere releasing smoke from time to time.

    While usual holographic company ads were being transmitted, together with the news of the colony, it didn’t take him long to reach the guard headquarters of the Duotherm Omega company: it was a big building situated in the northeast part of the colony.

    After he entered the hall, he was taken to a 4-by-4 room in which he would be obliged to live from that day on.

    ("Well, it could be worse; at least I was in luck and got a room with a window.")

    He opened the window of his room, undressed from his formal office worker clothes, and sprang onto the bed, which was as hard as a rock. Now he was clutching at his chest area from the jolt with the hard bed.

    In fact, he did not take long to sleep; after 5 hours of sleep, he was awakened by an alarm installed in his room, which meant that it was about time his shift started, and he had to head to the barracks to put himself together, and so he did that while dragging his still sleepy legs towards the barracks.

    There, he was given an electronic key with the number of the armory locker he had been assigned to. Once he walked towards his locker and opened it, he could see a black guard uniform with usual guard chest armor and helmet, and there lay an electric rifle.

    The electric rifles were a new military technology capable of firing bullets without using gunpowder, an achievement that was to be twice as fast and twice as strong as a regular rifle. It took Rex just about 10 minutes to be fully armed and ready for the start of his shift.

    It was common that the colony guards weren’t even trained in the use of weaponry or other kinds of military training. Since the companies didn’t care what the guards in the godforsaken colony did, they only cared that they comply with their material orders.

    Since this was the first time for Rex here, he walked toward the guy in charge of the armory to ask for a little advice.