Nebulous Emperor

It was lunch time now, and the workers had a little habit during that time. Eating was one of them but there was another.

Nave made his way down to the lunch area behind the workers, even the slow ones, without Darnell.

He went from a dark tunnel and turned into a wide archway. It led to a large white room with lights hanging from the roof and many round tables.

He walked and sat down at an empty table near where the food was handed out. Waiting for it to start.

The last few men were getting their lunch, and that's when it happened.

A lunch lady was rushing to finish her post-lunch procedure of counting the cash. Before she could, a few men approached.

"How you doing, sweet cheeks?"

"Woooh, she looks good today."

"Hey white chocolate."

Nave cringed.

The men pointed their comments toward the sweet lunch lady that gave Nave milk on his first day.

She was a cute woman with brown hair, a dimple on her left cheek, and freckles. She had a very pleasant smile and pretty eyes.

'And a nice body.' Nave didn't really want to admit it, though.

She uncomfortably said, "Hello."

"What you doing after this?" The one in the middle said.

"Going home." She responded.

"Finally, I've been waiting for you to come over."

"HAHAHA!"

The men behind him got a good kick out of that.

Nave wanted to intervene now, but it would help to catch them in the worst of it.

The woman started to walk away, and the leading man reached out and grabbed her arm.

"Where you going?"

"Let go of me."

His big hands easily wrapped around her small arm.

"We just wanna talk, Selena."

Usually, the big woman would come and assist Selena. The one who was the mother of Sergei. She would defend her against the bigger men and threaten them, since her son was the floor manager. But since Sergei wasn't here, she didn't have anything, and the men knew that. Sergei never missed a day.

Nave stood up and walked over to Darnell, who was sitting with his friends.

"Holy Darnell, that's a lot of money."

"I know Smith."

Smith's face lit up.

"Dude, I have an idea."

He was interrupted by Nave putting his hand onto Darnell's shoulder, "Come with me. And bring all your friends too."

All of them got up and followed Nave.

He approached the three men, with five men behind him. The gathering of men garnered a good amount of attention from the other miners in the lunch room.

"What's going on?"

The man holding Selena's arm looked up and did a double take.

He let go of her arm and backed away.

"Nothing, nothing's happening."

"Good."

He looked at Selena and affirmed, "You're okay now, ma'am. Go ahead."

She looked at Nave and turned away quickly.

He looked back at the men.

"Now you three. What shall I do with you?" He thought with his hand to his chin, pulling an imaginary beard.

He very much so wished he could just fire them, especially since that woman reminded him of his mother. But that could have serious consequences.

"Which of you three have wives or girlfriends?"

All three of them rose of their hands.

"Kids that depend on you?"

Two of them rose their hands.

"Fine, I won't fire you, but if I catch you doing something out of line again, especially harassing that lady. You're jobs will no longer be yours."

He raised his voice to make sure that as many people as possible could hear him loud and clear.

"For the next three days you'll work without pay, and you'll be cleaning all of the bathrooms."

The faces of the men dropped. They said nothing though, knowing how much they depended on this job. Word of Nave's position had got around successfully.

Nave needed to make an example out of them and make sure that the word spread because he was sure that this was happening in other branches too during their lunches.

Firing them would ruin their lives; they would be unable to financially provide for their families; they would almost definitely have to resort to the underworld. Their children raised by men who did very bad things, which would affect them for the rest of their lives and more than likely end up sending them down the same path.

Now that Nave was a boss, he had to be mindful of all the ways he affected the people under him. He couldn't afford to be heartless, but he couldn't afford to be soft either.

"I want the bathrooms to look spotless."

He turned toward everyone in the lunch room.

"I want all of you to feel like you can eat off the toilets. If you don't feel that way, let me know and I'll investigate."

He walked away from the lunchroom and went towards his office.

He has actual business to tend to. He was beginning to feel restless.

He had to start planning how he was gonna move up the rest of the ladder and how he was gonna take down Charles.

'I need to get in contact with someone associated with the underworld.'

He knew that some workers had to have some connections or knowledge of the underworld in this town.

'What's going to be my plan though?'

He thought about it hard and realized he just didn't have enough, or really, any information.

'Guess I gotta get some.'

He turned around and went back to where Darnell was sitting.

"Smith, you want me to ruin everything, just for a chance?" Darnell said to a man sitting right next to him.

"How do you think he got there, Darnell?"

Nave's hand landed on Darnell's shoulder again.

"Follow me."

All of them stood up.

"Only Darnell."

They sat back down.

Darnell followed him out of the lunchroom.

"What's up, boss?"

"What do you know about the Underworld?"

Darnell started to think.

"Hmm, let's see. My dad was a part of it; he did small jobs pushing the hard stuff, you know? I'm happy I got a job here, though. I may be a big guy, but I get scared easily. Couldn't do that stuff myself."

"Details Darnell." Nave stated.

"Okay details, let's see. He spent more time with his boys than he did with us, probably on some corner or something. He was always wearing black and trying to recruit people. He tried his hardest to keep it out of the house, though."

"What did he do exactly?" Nave asked.

"He pushed char."

Nave's brows furrowed.

Char was a drug that ruled his town. 'Probably a lot of other towns and cities too,' Nave said to himself.

It gave people a very warm feeling on the inside; it was very addictive and slowly deteriorated their bodies, making them sick over a long period of time until they finally got a burning fever and died.

"I'm happy you don't do the same, Darnell." They reached Nave's office.

"Thanks boss."

"What corner did he spend his time on or what place did he go to often?"

"He was around and outside a bar a lot, called Mcclarens, near the laundromat."

"Thank you, Darnell; I really appreciate it."

He started to enter the door.

"Also, Darnell, tell your friend Smith he can stay home tomorrow and the days after that too."

Darnell's face dropped.

"Why boss?"

"Because I don't like people with too much ambition."

Nave closed the door.

He sat down at his desk, satisfied with the conversation. Now he knew where he needed to go and what he would do after the mine was closed for today.

But before that, one more thing had to be handled for today. Payroll.

All of the miners were paid at the end of each day. Even though Sergei was the general floor manager, meaning he was right underneath the owner of the mine, there were other floor managers. One for each of the branches. They reported attendance, and then Nave had to get the money for each miner. Even though he didn't really have to pay them today, he still chose to.

'I wonder why it's like this? Why not pay them on a certain day in specific intervals?'

Nave didn't understand.

'Maybe its to stop the gang members from waiting like sharks on the days that they would be paid. It would be inconvenient if enough gang members to rob all the miners had to wait every day to take their money. That's just a guess, though.'

While nave had miscellaneous thoughts, he continued working, and the day ended soon.

Paytime had arrived.

The designated people arrived at his door, and he handed them the cor and watched them get situated near the entrance of the mine. As they did that, he saw several men arrive and stand next to each of the money handlers. Then they did absolutely nothing. They just stood there.

'I wondered who those guys were from the first day. It's time for me to find out.'

He walked toward one of them.

"Who are you guys?"

The man looked at Nave and said nothing. He pointed his finger towards a wall. There was a single man leaning against it. He had a scowl on his face. He was a man of average height with dark skin and short black curly hair. Nave went over to him and said the same thing.

"Who are you guys?"

"I heard there'd be a new guy who was a little young; I wasn't expecting this young though."

Nave was tired of people talking about his age.

"Who are you?"

The man answered.

"My name is Rahesh."

"Okay, Rahesh, my name is Nave. What exactly do you do here?"

"Harry had a deal with us. We'd offer him a few men at the end of the day to help secure the many transactions that take place, and he paid us a small fee."

Nave didn't see anything about this fee in the financials that he looked through, but it was possible that he missed it since he didn't look through every single paper.

'Or Harry left it out for some reason.'

"Basically, you're security for the guys who handle the cash."

"Yeah."

"Which organization are you apart of?"

Rahesh looked at him and turned his head.

"You really don't know anything, do you?"

'Because no one tells me anything.'

"I guess I don't, so why don't you tell me?"

"We're part of the Harashers; we're the local gang."

'I wonder if this was the same gang that Darnell's father was apart of.'

"Nave was it?" Rahesh said. "Do you plan on honoring the deal that we had with Harry?"

Nave thought about it.

'I wouldn't particularly mind it, but I have a feeling that I could potentially streamline this whole employee payment thing.'

"When were you scheduled to receive your next payment?"

"Three days from now."

"Then I'll talk to you three days from now about it in my office. In the mean time, continue as if everything were the same."

Nave walked away back to his office.

Even though he could've asked Rahesh plenty of questions, he had to be careful. He had entered a game that he had never played and all of these men had. Nave had no idea who had ears anywhere.

Asking random questions to random people was how he was going to get in serious trouble.

Even if the underworld was the antithesis to the law, that doesn't mean that Charles or chief enforcer Donald had to agree with that.

Nave didn't know who was working with another or who hated another.

The most valuable information was information that he could get and verify himself.

Now was the time to get that info. He was going to Mcclarens Bar.