Feeling the cool autumn breeze, Lero could hear several of the guards call the prisoners back into the waiting station. They had been here for hours mining away the iron and other minerals like most days, even with the cooler air. The last he had heard, it was early October or at the very least, the last days of September. Whatever day or date it was, it had little relevance as the man joined the growing line of prisoners filing toward the mine's entrance. There would be several of those long carrs waiting in line, and would take them straight back to the prison with no stops.
Lero, however, began to slowly note the few flaws that the vehicles mostly had. For starters, the more weight/passengers one carr had, the slower they quite notably went. Another issue was that the doors themselves, which in order to actually keep them inside were to have them shut closed from the inside with a large latch. They always only had one guard among the other chained prisoners, and that person had to individually chain each person up. Of course, with the bomb testing, which had actually stopped after the second one, essentially created a sense of leniency among them. Except for Lero, for all he did was come up with the best solution to escape this shamble of a system.
"You going to walk up?" a prisoner behind him whispered in his ear, causing Lero to perk back into thought.
The line had quickly moved ahead, as Lero dashed ahead to avoid a quick beating. Getting back into position, he glanced behind just to see who was so close to his bloody ear. Managing to turn his head slightly, all the color from his face vanished. Somehow, standing behind him was that elderly man from all those months ago when he first arrived. The elder man was staring back at him, grinning menacingly at him. Lero wasted no time to gain as much space as possible, except there wasn't much to work with.
"You missed me?" the elder man began to rub onto the man's back, with Lero having an instant reaction to slam his foot into his knee.
The guards looked in their direction, just as the elder man howled in pain and collapsed onto the ground. Lero kept looking forward as if nothing happened, while the front of the remaining line looked back at him and the fallen body. Keeping his composure, Lero almost laughed at the situation, before several guards created a space between him and the older man, and forced him and everyone else to continue towards the carrs.
"You did him well." Lero could hear the person in front of him mutter under her breath. "What a creep."
"I bloody know, mate's sicker than a Codyan Cough." Lero said in disgust.
For some reason, the woman actually laughed aloud at those words, having some of the guards stare back into the crowd, but unable to pinpoint the source. Everyone thought his accent and phrases were hilarious, and that was fair enough. But that would be fine with him, as long as he got out of here in the right scenario.
"My name's Keru. Yours?" the woman turned around to look at him.
"Lero." the man showed as little interest as possible, not trying to gain any attraction.
"We'll see each other soon." the woman managed to say, before a guard shoved her into the last open carr, and closed the door.
Lero himself entered the next available carr before anyone could grab him, and sat down near the front of the prisoner seats. That woman tried to shoot her shot, and he hopefully shot it down. How likely did she get the hint, that was to be determined, but he would give himself the benefit of the doubt, hopefully?
"I know after Thoam you've been lonely, but I didn't think you would get a lover, mate." the sole guard still awaiting the next set of prisoners to occupy the carr joked with him, knowing that he couldn't retaliate.
"That's what your wife said to me in bed." Lero muttered under his breath.
"What did you say?"
"I said, that joke would have put me to bed. Because I would have bloody slept it off or something like that." Lero quickly corrected himself.
"I know you definitely said that, better watch your mouth, boy." the guard stopped smiling, as he cocked the rifle to show who was in authority.
Lero didn't even reply back as he laid back in the seat. All he knew was that he was going to use these exact vehicles to escape from the prison. It would be their weakest point, and especially on weekends when there were fewer guards and the most relaxed. All Lero had to do, was avoid any destructive disasters and make his own move to freedom. He had waited long enough to risk it all. And if everything went smoothly, it all would be.