Musaa is still raging, but doesn't make any attempts to actually leaves this place. Lucky and Scipio can tell that he doesn't really want to leave anyway. Leaving his gang once was enough for him. Yet there is something...
When Lucky said those things about Riker, HarleQueen was about to jump about and set him on flames (as you've seen her see people set on flames before!), but then she realized what this was about, and restrained herself. She allowed Lucky to gain Musaa's trust, and kept her feelings about this to herself.
"I'm not talking about my real real family, y'know. More like, y'know, lika ya, but different.
"Ya remember, I went off roaming tha city when I got into that mean guys' turf. They beat me up badly, they did. Then they left me to die, and died I would have if Prakash hadn't found me. But he found me, and he brought me home. That is, his home. But it would also become mine. And there I lay, bleeding, and then I got cold. It was so damn friggin' cold, and I already saw my soul leaving my body.
But it didn't. It stayed, because of Sai Baba. You musta heard of him: Sree Yela Sai Baba the Saint. He come towards me, he put a tika of holy ashes on my forehead and suddenly I felt warm and safe, and the bleeding was almost gone. They gave me clothes, they gave me food and a shower. I was allowed to stay with them, can you imagine? I ... I had everything I always missed. 'cept for you, course. But they let me stay under the warm roof of the temple, and eat and drink with them, and I there was nothing I had to do, save to worshop my savior."
Musaa sits down again, as he sees how people listen to what he has to say. Led by some encouraging questions, mostly posed by Lucky, he told the entire story:
"And then came those men. I call them the white men, because they were always wearing white suites although the street is so dusty. But sometimes, they too, were dusty. Y'know, not the finest man can go through dirt without getting dirty, can he?
"They told me that I was chosen because I was the fastest and strongest and toughest of all the boys in the temple. And y'know what, it's true. Not everybody grew up in the toughest gang of the city, so they told me they would make me a soldier. Soldiers never go hungry, because they can work in the army, and they earn really tough money, y'know? I'd be afraid of nobody, and I'd be rich and then I would buy myself a big house and let all of you live with me. I'll kill all those who are bad to me. Kill Riker.
So the white men came, and they trained me. There were paper puppets and they gave me a gun and let me shoot them. There was a trainer, and he told me how to shoot. He said, always pull the trigger twice, then you can kill more likely. And he taught me how to shoot straight at the chest. And they told me how to use a knife and I got the taughest boy of the temple.
And then the white men said, that I was even better than they thought. That they would give ma a very special present, a new technology that would make me stronger still. With this, I could be the strongest warrior in the world. They explained me how it works, but I understood nothing. They said, it would hurt in the beginning, because my brain is getting stronger than it used to, and then they made me sleep and when I woke up, there was this."
Musaa touches his datajack ever so slightly, as if it were some precious jewel, or something that hurt. He smiles, though.
"And then I resumed the training. And at first, there was nothing special, but then sometimes I saw things I couldn't really see. But they were there and they made me faster and more accurate. And I got better and better. And the stronger I got, the better food they gave me (I even got meat once a week to my dal bhat) and the better the clothes were.
And after so many, many weeks of training, they said I can make holidays. And they let me go and visit my brothers. And so I came here to see all of you again. But I didn't know that Riker was here..."
