Chapter 6: Steady Work
Ricky woke up before the shadows in the rafters had even begun to gray.
His body was a map of deep, throbbing aches. The flattened piece of cardboard had done nothing to shield his ribs from the cold pine floorboards, and his shoulders felt like they had been beaten with a wooden pin. He lay still for a moment, his breath forming a faint, white mist in the freezing pre-dawn air of the warehouse.
He didn’t want to get up. Every muscle in his legs screamed for him to stay flat, to close his eyes and drift back to sleep.
But he knew if he didn’t do the workout now, he wouldn’t do it at all. Ten hours on Vance’s boat would leave him completely spent, and the thought of a fifty-percent penalty to his attributes made his stomach turn. He needed to keep his edge. More than that, he wanted those stat points. They were his insurance policy in this raw, unpredictable century.
Last night, before the dark had completely swallowed the room, he had mentally accessed his character sheet and allocated two of his four available points into Vitality. He had been braced for a sharp, blinding pain, but instead, it had been a subtle, deep warmth—like drinking a shot of whiskey on a cold night. The heat had radiated from his chest down to his throbbing joints, taking the raw sting out of his chapped hands. It hadn’t made him a superhuman overnight, but it had made the hard floor bearable.
Ricky rolled over and pushed himself up to his feet. He took a slow, deep breath, shaking out his arms.
"Alright," he whispered to the dark. "Let’s get it over with."
He started with the run, jogging a slow, quiet circle around the empty third floor. The soft squeak of his modern sneakers was the only sound against the hollow wood.
By his fifteenth lap, a rustling noise came from the corner of the room. A pile of straw shifted, and Marek’s head popped out from under his scuffed leather bag. The younger boy blinked through the gloom, rubbing his eyes with a dirty fist.
"Ricky?" Marek croaked, his voice thick with sleep. "What in God’s name are you doing? It’s not even four."
"Running," Ricky said, his pace never breaking as he glided past the stack of flour sacks.
Marek sat up, pulling his wool vest tight around his shoulders to ward off the chill.
He watched Ricky for a couple of laps, his brow furrowed in utter confusion. "Are you mad? You’ve got a full shift of hauling wet hemp ahead of you. Why are you throwing your strength away in the dark?"
"Keeps the blood moving," Ricky lied, his chest starting to heave as he picked up the pace. He couldn’t exactly explain that a floating blue screen would cut his physical strength in half if he didn’t run five miles before sunrise. "If you don’t keep the routine, the routine breaks you."
Marek scoffed, but his eyes tracked the definition in Ricky’s arms, visible even in the dim light. "Is that how you got those muscles? From doing this back in... wherever you’re from?"
"Yeah," Ricky said. In reality, his build came from years of heavy, back-breaking yard labor in Georgia—heaving rusted iron engine blocks and tossing heavy truck tires into the back of scrap flatbeds. But out here, in 1910, "training" was a luxury only wealthy athletic clubs or professional boxers indulged in.
Marek stood up from his straw pile, looking down at his own thin, coal-dusted arms. He wiped his nose on his sleeve, his jaw setting with a sudden, competitive spark. "If we’re going to be regulars on the waterfront, the foremen are going to look for the biggest backs. I’m tired of being the last one picked for the coal carts."
He stepped into the cleared path, waiting for Ricky to come around. "I’ll run with you."
"Keep a steady pace," Ricky warned. "Don’t sprint."
They ran together. For the first five laps, Marek stayed right at his shoulder, his boots clattering loudly on the pine boards. But by lap ten, the boy’s breathing had turned into a ragged, whistling gasp. By lap fifteen, Marek slowed to a dead stop, hands on his knees, coughing violently from the kicked-up gray dust.
"Jesus," Marek wheezed, his face pale.
"You’re... you’re a horse, Ricky."
"Told you," Ricky said, his own shirt soaked through with sweat as he kept his piston-like stride. He finished his remaining laps alone, his focus locked on the rhythmic thud-thud of his feet.
When the five miles were done, Ricky dropped straight to his hands and toes for the push-ups. Marek watched him for a second, then dropped down beside him, determined to prove himself.
"One," Marek grunted, his elbows shaking. "Two... three..."
Marek collapsed flat on his face by twenty-two, his arms giving out like dry twigs. He rolled over onto his back, staring up at the dark rafters, his chest heaving. "It’s impossible. No one does this unless they’re getting paid to enter the ring."
Ricky didn’t answer. He kept going, his core locked, his shoulders burning with a dull, familiar heat. Eighty. Ninety. One hundred. He stood up immediately, his legs trembling slightly, and went straight into his squats.
Marek didn’t even try to join him for those; he just sat against a wooden crate, watching with a mixture of awe and exhaustion as Ricky finished the final reps of his daily discipline.
As Ricky stood straight on his hundredth squat, the familiar, beautiful chime of a silver coin hitting crystal rang out in his head.
The pale blue screen flared to life, hovering inches from his damp face.
[Daily Workout Quest: Physical Baseline] — SUCCESSFUL
Rewards Granted:
+$20.00 USD (Added to Static Vault)
+4 Attribute Points
Current Static Vault Balance: $40.00
Available Attribute Points: 6
Ricky swiped the menu away mentally, ignoring the points for now. He’d keep them in reserve until he knew exactly where he needed the boost.
"Come on," Marek said, pulling his cap down as the first faint lines of orange light began to cut through the dusty windows. "The coffee carts will be set up by the ferry slips. We should get some rolls before we head to the boat."
They walked downstairs into the brisk morning air. The waterfront was already waking up. The streetlamps were being extinguished by a man with a long wooden pole, and the smell of roasting chicory and fresh bread was beginning to fight against the stench of horse manure and low tide.
They bought two large, dry yeast rolls and two tin cups of scalding chicory coffee from a street vendor parked near the pier, paying five cents each. They walked toward the lower basin, chewing the tough, dense bread as they went.
Mr. Vance was already at the Mary-Ann, rolling empty wooden barrels across the deck with his usual gruff efficiency. He looked up as the boys jumped down onto the gunwale, their boots clattering on the wet wood.
"Look at that," Vance grunted, a toothless grin splitting his white beard. "The birds didn’t even have to wake you up. I half-expected you two to be nursing a hangover in some Tenth Avenue cellar."
"We’re on time, Mr. Vance," Marek said, swallowing the last of his roll. "We bought some bread for the run."
"Eat it on the way out," Vance barked, slamming the steam engine into gear. The motor let out a loud, rhythmic thump-thump-thump, spitting grey smoke into the cold harbor air as the boat backed out into the river. "We’ve got to hit the upper shoals before the tide turns."
The second day on the water was entirely different from the first.
The wind had shifted, coming hard from the east, and the bay was choppy and rough. For hours, Ricky and Marek hauled the heavy, water-logged gill nets over the side, but the barrels remained mostly empty. The schools of striped bass they had found so easily yesterday seemed to have vanished into the deep gray swells.
By mid-afternoon, their hands were raw, their shoulders aching from pulling empty mesh.
When they finally moored at the Fulton Fish Market to sell the day’s catch, the red-faced merchant only counted out a small pile of silver coins into Vance’s hand.
The old man walked back down the gangplank, his expression grim. He pulled out his stubby pencil, scratched some numbers on a dry fish box, and sighed.
"Sixteen dollars total," Vance said, his voice quiet. "After the coal and the ice... there’s only six dollars left for the crew share."
He slid three silver dollars toward Marek, and another three toward Ricky.
"Yesterday was a lucky haul, boys," Vance said, looking at their tired faces. "Out here, you don’t get the same tide twice. Some days the river gives, some days she keeps."
Ricky took the three silver coins, their heavy weight cold in his palm. Yesterday he’d made seven dollars; today he’d made three for the exact same amount of bone-crushing labor. To his modern, corporate-minded brain, it seemed wildly unfair.
But then he looked at Marek, who was carefully tucking his three dollars into his vest pocket, looking perfectly content.
Three dollars was still twice what a common dock laborer made for ten hours of carrying pig iron. It was a solid, honest wage in 1910.
"We don’t mind, Mr. Vance," Ricky said, offering a respectful nod. "We’re glad for the work."
Vance watched him for a second, his bloodshot eyes softening slightly. He leaned his thick elbows against the wheelhouse rail, looking out over the crowded, noisy harbor.
"My old crew... they aren’t going to be out of the Tombs anytime soon," the old man said quietly.
"Even if they get let go, they’re unreliable bastards. If you boys are willing to show up at five sharp every morning... I’ll keep you on as my regular crew. No more daily hiring. The work is yours if you want it."
Ricky and Marek exchanged a quick, excited glance.
"We want it, Mr. Vance," Marek said, his face splitting into a wide, dirt-streaked grin. "We’ll be here every morning. Five sharp."
Vance let out a soft, dry chuckle, nodding slowly. "Good. You’re strong lads. You remind me of my own boys... before they grew up, got married, and moved out to the Bronx. Now I only see ’em on Sundays, if the trains are running."
The old man turned back to his engine, his shoulders hunched against the rising river fog. "Go on, get some hot food in you. See you at dawn."
As they walked back up the wooden ramp toward the bustling boardwalk, the weight of the silver coins in Ricky’s pocket felt different. It wasn’t just pocket change anymore. It was the beginning of a foundation—the first real, steady brick of his new life in 1910.