By evening, inside a warehouse controlled by the Passion Organization, over twenty raggedly dressed vagrants sat nervously. Three hours earlier, while wandering the streets like walking corpses, they had been stopped by gang enforcers and asked whether they were willing to stake their lives for a full meal.
Such things were common in the East Borough. Gangs did not consist solely of core members; sometimes, they needed "expendables." For example, someone to take the blame for an important figure, someone to help Sivellaus Yard erase some old unsolved cases, someone dragged off to serve as cannon fodder in a gang war, or simply someone pushed onto a deathmatch stage to fight either a person or an animal to the death.
The vagrants did not resist this, because every day, they saw familiar or unfamiliar "companions" quietly collapse while wandering about, never to rise again.
Compared to dying from cold and hunger, having a full meal before death—and perhaps even receiving a settlement payment—might have been a better outcome for them.
Aside from those who believed they could hold on a little longer and might still find new work, everyone else wanted to sign up. Unfortunately, only twenty people were needed.
After eating a meal that was not delicious but was filling enough to count as a "feast," the vagrants came to this warehouse with unease in their hearts, waiting for the answer that would decide their fates.
"Calling for twenty people at once means it probably isn't to take the blame. If it were underground boxing or cannon fodder for gang fights, they should have picked younger, stronger people..." A middle-aged man of around forty silently observed the other vagrants. Even after a full meal, everyone still looked listless and weak.
It was not that they were truly that frail.