Inactive - Chapter 25 Bad For My Health

For the following period of time, Chance really had no opportunity to go against Loki’s plans. This was mainly due to the face that the only thing he was asked to do, was nothing. That’s right. Aside from the simple yet lengthy questioning about the workings of the camp, Loki practically disregarded Chance’s involvement and simply tasked him with nothing.

And so, his daily routine was once again fixed. He would go out into the field alongside the twins every day and work as usual. After collecting Essence fruits and credits over the shift, they would all leave around ten minutes earlier at the cot of a few credits each. Going to dinner, they would all eat together with Rykar easily eating three or four times as much as the others, before heading back to their room as the other workers began arriving in the food hall from the fields.

With the time they spent in their home, they alternated between sleep and meditation each shift. Although the feeling of tiredness would lessen after a period of meditation, similarly with sleep, they would still feel some fatigue as they awoke for the next shift. To balance this out, the twins followed Chance’s advice on meditating and sleeping in cycles.

While taking on this cycled routine, it also allowed Rykar to come to an understanding towards his body’s new constitution and a way to appease his elevating levels of hunger. It seemed that the amount of food wasn’t what was important, but the amount of energy that he was taking into his body! Due to this, the shifts which he meditated, he would feel more tired physically due to the lack of sleep, but he would actually feel less hungry than if he slept.

Chance had explained what the meditation was and how it worked, to the best of his ability. It was a technique which his late mother had passed onto him from his father.

Chance himself didn’t understand too much about how it worked, as a large section of the files didn’t make sense to him. However, the notes, concepts and diagrams which were available within the files were able to grant him a vague understanding.

It was a form of meditation which allowed people to harness the energy in the surroundings, channelling it into the body. The body would represent a black hole, causing the surrounding energies to slowly gravitate with the said person at the centre. This would have an amazing strengthening effect on the body over time.

What was shocking was how quickly the twins were able to enter the state of meditation. Despite Chance saying that he wanted to show them something, he was certain that he would have had to guide them along over a long period of time before they would be able to accomplish anything, if at all!

With himself, it took him weeks of daily practice. And that was with him following the manual to a nearly religious level! What the twins knew, was that they were able to enter the perfect mind frame due to being overly familiar with the feeling of void from past-experience. Since the very first session, they were already showing a greater level of conceptualisation, causing their level of progress to outstrip that of Chance despite his much longer period of practice.

Sparked by curiosity, the conversation quickly went off topic. Rykar and Loki began to branch from the original subject and went on to question him about his life while growing up, only to find that came across a brick wall with Chance deterring the bombardment of questions with light hearted jokes or just laughter. It didn’t take long for the brothers to realise that Chance was reluctant to delve into matters of the past.

The improvements were astonishing. Rykar wasn’t able to see the increase in his physique as much due to there not being a way to test it. Within the camp, their movements were constrained to the fields, the food hall and their accommodations, unless you count isolation. So, the only way to test their strength was with the ease in which they were able to pick the plants from their ridged leaves and stems.

These were now easily pliable for Rykar now that he had recovered his strength. He was able to walk around the fields picking at will, while only spending a few seconds on each fruit. If needed, he could even pry the petals apart with his bare hands, discarding the knife entirely but that would only extend the process.

Loki was previously behind his quota at all times with his body remaining skinny despite the new nutritious food made available to him. Despite this appearance not changing much, his body began to develop a healthy firmness with his skin no longer appearing thin. His appearance could now be regarded as slim rather than skinny, along with both his torso and legs being covered in black cotton clothes which hung nicely despite being slightly itchy.

There was still a clear gap in strengths, however. Rykar could pick just under three hundred fruit within the four hours, although this was being limited to just over two hundred at the moment. Loki was picking around one hundred and fifty within the same time. Chance however, far outstripped them both and was picking upwards of four hundred each shift while using a portion of the credits on rent, clothes and other commodities while saving for a holiday.

Loki’s part in the escape plan was slightly more active than Chance’s. Before each shift, he would tell the other three which location they would be harvesting the essence fruit from while pointing out focus points to Rykar.

During each of the shifts, the amount of essence fruit which the group actually submitted had plummeted significantly despite remaining over the given quota. While working, Loki and Chance would find opportunities to cross paths with Rykar while stealthily dropping portions of their harvests. Rykar would then find an opportunity to store the fruits with shining eyes.

Rykar’s task however was nothing to do with storing the fruit, this was just a bonus. Every shift, he would submit around two hundred fruit while saving the rest for himself. This was mainly to prove his ‘worth’ to Sir and deliver on his promise of results. The rest of the time, he actually focused on the essence plants themselves!

It was difficult for him to store the larger plants due to their volume, however medium and small plants were no problem if given a few seconds of focus. On many occasions, Rykar would crouch down and place his hands on the base of a plant, looking as though he was simply picking a fruit. Moments later, he would stand up and walk away with his container and knife in tow.

The place he had just knelt would only have a vacant space in its spot. These spaces were inconspicuous at first, but it became apparent on further inspection that there was indeed a gap in the row of plants. This delay in the discovery time was essential, along with the strategically picked locations which Loki had targeted.

The main strategy employed was simply chaos. The sheer incoherence of the spread would leave and unpredictable pattern, while the locations were still concentrated enough to give a certain scope of containment. It was a delicate balance of making everyone in the area a suspect, yet not planting targets on their backs. Now it was simply a waiting game.

It was indeed as Loki had said. Twenty-nine shifts later, Sir could be seen walking among them within the fields, seeming to be inspecting the plants under the guidance of three managers. He was only out for an hour, but each of the points he inspected related to one of the plants which Rykar had slyly seized.

By this time, Rykar had claimed well over two hundred plants but it was apparent that not all of these had bee discovered. Sir and the other managers only looked over forty odd locations before he calmly walked back into the camp without casting a glance backwards. All of the workers within the vicinity watched on in surprise while making sure they remained on their best behaviour, heads down, they only dared to steal glances with the sides of their eyes.

There was never a good occasion if one had to go and see Sir, so they already associated this man with calamity within their minds. Most of them didn’t even dare to breath loudly as they put forth their best efforts to increase their work rate to the max, only taking a sigh of relief as his back faded from view.

Within the food hall, the trio were once again sat around a table while stuffing their faces before the rest of the workers intruded the space. Rykar and Loki were eating without restraint but at Rykar’s side, Chance simply picked at his plate with a conflicted expression.

“Guys” He began but then took a pause, as though he was choosing his words carefully. “I think we should stop. I know there’s no way for them to pin this on us, but you don’t always need proof to decide someone is guilty. Sir was in the field today, so he obviously knows what’s going on.”

Rykar simply carried on eating as though he hadn’t heard Chance at all, but Loki patiently explained between bites. “Its fine for him to suspect us, I’m going to confess soon anyway, but not just yet.”

Hearing Loki’s words, Chance spat out the bread he had been chewing absent minded. “Are you f*cking serious?!” He shouted while smashing his fist onto the table, causing all three plates to jump and clatter on the table.

Loki didn’t continue to reply. His plate had slid away slightly after the table shook, so he simply slid it back in front of him and carried on eating while Chance too deep breaths calming himself.

“Chance, don’t worry.” Rykar finally broke away from his food with reluctance to comfort his new-found brother. “That’s how Loki is, he likes to annoy people, but he wouldn’t do anything dumb. He’s playing the mysterious game, so he hasn’t even told me what or why we’re doing this but if you get mad then it’ll just make him happy I thought you’re meant to be the grown up and mature one” He rolled his eyes as he turned his attention back to his plate.

Failing to convince them while only managing to infuriate himself, Chance gave up despite the uncertainty he was left with. Either way, he was in too deep to jump off this ride now. Even if he did try to get rid of suspicions on himself and snitched on the twins, what would he say?

‘Rykar, a boy born and raised in the forest without even clothes, sucked them into his hand’?

He would probably be thrown into isolation just for wasting Sir’s time. Throwing the matter to the back of his mind, he started to gobble down the food on his plate with a renewed gusto. He didn’t even pick up his fork, simply shovelling it down his throat with his bare hands as the food became the release for his anxiety.

“You guys are bad for my health.”
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