The prisoners were all lined up in rows with enough space between them to allow as many people as possible to look at them. They all had devices around their necks that would go off if they got violent and with all the policemen watching them, they didn't really have that much of a chance. It was a funny system, really. They obviously knew that whatever waited for them was no good but rarely anyone made a fuss, too afraid of the device that could kill them.

Kris was just strolling along the rows and looked at random prisoners, just to ask Xiumin an occasional question about them. He knew not to judge by their looks alone.
"What about this one?" he asked and pointed at a particularly bulky but short bald guy. "He looks angry."
Xiumin looked at the number and frowned at the reader he was carrying.
"He was in a ual relationship with a normal guy," he translated. "When the guy tried to break up with him, the prisoner almost killed him."
Kris pulled a face. "And that's why they want to execute him?"
"Apparently," Xiumin shrugged and added, "He can make plants grow."
"Well, how cute," Kris said and tried not to sound too disgusted. It was exactly for cases like this that he needed someone to translate the files.

"This one doesn't look like a criminal," he said and stopped in front of a skinny boy with a sad face. "Number 35."
"He can turn invisible," Xiumin said and browsed through the file while standing a step behind Kris. He always knew his place, so he never actually stood right next to any of the Chinese. Kris figured that he probably didn't even think of himself as a crew member but as Luhan's slave.
"Oh," Xiumin suddenly said and pulled a face.
"What?" He looked at the reader despite knowing that it was no use to him. All he could read were the names if they had Chinese characters.
"Well, as I said, he can turn invisible," Xiumin explained and looked genuinely sick. "So that's what he did. And then he broke into a few houses of normal people and several women."
Kris shook his head as he walked on. There were always cases in which people who looked useless actually prove themselves to be useless. He hoped that there wouldn't be any merchants who thought of the boy as a good bargain and who gave him a chance to ever be around females again.

He was just about to walk past another inconspicious fellow when that guy suddenly started talking to him.
"Hello, I'm Chen. How are you? You're handsome," the guy said with a bored smile.
Kris narrowed his eyes. "You speak Chinese?"
"Yes," the guy said and took the attention as a good opportunity to show his discontentment at his situation by sitting down on the floor. A policeman immediately came by to yell at him, so he stood up again.
"Where did you learn it?" Kris asked. There was this weird idea that suddenly formed in his head. He already had a Korean who spoke Chinese and who was a great help, so having a second one maybe wouldn't be such a bad thing. He didn't care what all the other smugglers said. All he needed was for people to understand him, not to actually be from his country.
The guy who called himself Chen apparently wasn't all that fluent though. "I don't understand," he said flatly. He probably just threw random phrases at the people passing by to waste some time.
"His name is Kim Jongdae," Xiumin explained. "He bought smuggled electronics from Chinese merchants."
Kris nodded apathetically. So that's why he probably knew some Chinese. It was always easier to trade with people who at least knew some standard sentences.
He was about to move on, salespersons were often sly but no good as fighters anyway, when Xiumin continued, "His power is something like thunder. Or electricity," he frowned at the screen. "Anyway, he rigged the goods and sold them but one his devices apparently killed a normal child."
He looked at the guy who had already turned away to chat up someone else.
"Do you think he did it on purpose?" he asked.
Xiumin shrugged. "I could ask him."
"Nevermind." He didn't think that the Chen fellow would give an honest answer anyway.

The next guy already had a small crowd around him. When Kris pushed past the others to take a look, he saw a guy who was arguing with a policeman.
Kris understood some very basic Korean, so he figured that it was something about a name or something like that. The guy kept repeating what sounded like his name when the policeman grew tired of it, hit his head with a stick and ushered the spectators away.
The guy looked as if he was sulking and held his head in pain when Kris turned to Xiumin. "What was that about?"
They stood in front of the guy who looked at them suspiciously. Xiumin meanwhile looked quite amused.  "He complained that all the Chinese keep laughing at him while saying something rude he doesn't understand."
"I thought he said his name," Kris frowned and looked at the file. "Piao Canlie."
The guy immediately pointed at him and yelled for the policeman to come but was ignored.
Xiumin chuckled. "It's your name in Chinese," he said in Korean and the guy　grew quiet while looking extremely awkward.
"I think he thought they were insulting him when they read the Chinese characters of his name," Xiumin then explained in Chinese, still looking as if he was trying hard to contain his laughter.
Kris snorted. "Is he an idiot?" He looked at the guy who was about as tall as he was and who gave Xiumin a curious expression. "What did he do?"
"Uhm," Xiumin said and looked at his reader. "So, this is Park Chanyeol." The guy looked incredibly thankful when he heard the proper pronunciation of his name and Xiumin gave a tiny bow as if to greet him. It was all really odd to watch.
"He's an arsonist. He repeatedly set fire to government buildings." Xiumin looked up as if to make sure that this was really the correct file he was reading. "The last time a couple of people got hurt."
"Did anyone die?" he asked but Xiumin shook his head. "You really have some tough laws in your country."
Xiumin answered the way he always did when anyone questioned anything about Korea: He shrugged. "Well, these people are all Special Citizens," he said, obviously aware that it wasn't really an answer to anything. He always said it as if it had nothing to do with him.

They moved on but there was a weird feeling budding in Kris, like a bad aftertaste. He never questioned his job, not really. He grew up with what other people considered as crime, so he never really stopped and wondered about the moral consequences.
But well, he probably got old and it suddenly didn't seem fair that there would be people like him who didn't do anything wrong and who were punished for their mere existence. They couldn't fall in love with 'normal' people, they couldn't find proper jobs and when they tried to rebel they were marked as terrorists almost instantly.
He knew there was nothing he could change about it, there were enough problems in his own country but when he stood there and watched several so-called criminals who were sold off to dubious merchants as Xiumin gave him some short information about their charges, he suddenly wanted to do something, even if it was just a small gesture.

When they dragged out the guy called Chen who seemed very unwilling to follow, he wondered what it would be like for him. Technical powers were rarely needed if the person didn't speak proper Chinese, so he would probably become just an average slave or a fighter. He probably wouldn't make it. Smart people barely ever made it.
Kris though had people to translate and he actually needed someone who could take charge of the ship. A guy who killed someone through an electronical mistake probably wasn't his best bet but he could still sell him if he was useless. It was at least worth the try.
So before he really realized what he was doing, he placed his bid as Xiumin stared at him as if he was going mad.
"I don't think he's going to make any decent profits," he whispered but Kris just waved him off.
"We'll see about that," he said and felt like he really deserved a prize for being a good person.
The Chen guy seemed just as confused when he realized who it was that bought him and when he was brought back to the cells.

After that Kris most definitely went overboard. Happy that he actually was about to help someone, he immediately placed another bid on the next person, Piao Canlie or whatever his name really was. He figured that someone stupid like him probably didn't really have any chances anyway.
What he didn't expect was Piao Canlie's popularity. It actually made sense. A Korean who used fire really was extremely likely to sell well, especially one with a criminal history. He looked stupid but in the end it was all about the power and he wouldn't have been there, had he not known how to use it. If Kris was into his right mind, he too would have seen him as the perfect good, not as someone he needed to save.
But well, that day he felt charitable, so he kept placing bids until the prize for Piao Canlie reached a completely insane level. When everyone else finally gave up, Kris won. It was like a complete rush of success and it was only when he noticed Xiumin's stunned expression that he wondered whether his newfound benevolence maybe wasn't a bit much.
Although Xiumin actually was the last one to complain. He obviously liked that guy and they really sometimes needed someone who could melt all the goods he accidentally froze.
So, really, it wasn't a bad deal. And Piao Canlie really would be easy to sell off if they didn't need him after all.

Kris was afraid that there could be problems with Chen and Canlie. To him it didn't seem like a bad deal to work for him rather than to be killed but well, unlike Xiumin they really were proper Koreans who weren't assimilated to a Chinese environment.
What he also didn't consider was the opinion of his crew. Even if he had people to translate, there were still three of them who barely knew any Korean.

It surprisingly went well though. At least for the first two weeks. It was probably only thanks to Xiumin's and Luhan's kind explanations and to Lay generally being nice to everyone but Chen and Canlie seemed eager to work with them.
But then they reached the point when they would get their first actual job of selling Korean Special Citizens to the Games. He knew that Chen would be the most likely to cause trouble, so he told him to stay away from the new batch of Koreans. He also needed him to make sure that everything on the ship worked smoothly.
Canlie he wanted to use as a spy. He would place him among the new arrivals to make sure that they weren't going to freak out and to have someone who could stop them before they had a chance to attack his crew. Even with Tao to stop most riots, Kris knew that his crew often was much weaker when it was about mere fighting power compared to the ones they chose to sell.
Another advantage of placing Canlie, the terrorist, with the new refugees was that if he decided to side with them at one point, they could still get rid of him along with them. In a way it was to test his alliances.

It was definitely Chen he underestimated then.
Just when they finally left Korean territory, he suddenly attacked them. He knocked out Tao first and locked Kris and Lay inside the sick room, causing Kris to really regret to scout someone who already knew the ship better than he did. Outside they heard noises, probably Xiumin trying to get the better of Chen as the temperatures constantly kept sinking.
Kris didn't really think that they wouldn't be able to take care of the problem but this was definitely the last time that he tried to help a Korean. It was probably just a question of time before Canlie and the others were going to join Chen.