TO was shaking as they held a hand to their mouth, uncertain if they’d be able to keep from throwing up even as all the others were in the midst of celebrating their very minor victory. The timer had gone down to the very last second despite the fact that Kei had hacked in, disabled the tracking on Kei’s ship, and hid their interference with more than ten seconds to spare! Once he was done, GiDi would have just hit the button, but the moment DH reached to do so, GiDi gently took their hand and stopped them. “Trust me.” They said. “This will work.”
TO would have hit that button in a second, but they, of course, couldn’t get up to do that on their own. Death seemed imminent at that moment and TO knew that Kei wouldn’t turn their ship and move out of the way. If the synth had been ordered to kill them, then crashing their ships into one another would have done the job as well as shooting them. Yes, maybe Kei had a few civilians on their ship, but TO knew the lives of a handful of civilians were nothing when a loyal synth weighed against the will of King Decon.
And yet, Kei had turned the ship. When the timer was down to the very last second, Kei’s ship swerved and the countdown stopped despite there being less than a second on the screen. Even then TO didn’t think they had made it since something slammed into their ship. What hit them, and what the damage was TO couldn’t tell, but it was hard enough to change their course.
They closed their eyes, the fingers of one hand curled into a half-fist and resting between their eyes while the other still covered their mouth. TO knew that Kei wouldn’t back down, that Kei would gladly crash their ships to do their duty. GiDi’s plan had been a good one, for the most part: appear like they were trying to ram the other ship so they could get close enough to let Vik get into the system and hide their ship on their tracking. They were supposed to hit the redirect button as soon as that was done! But GiDi hadn’t hit the redirect. Even as TO shouted at them too, they didn’t.
They had come so close to death, and that left an awful horror in them, but that wasn’t the only reason TO felt like they were going to throw up. That Kei wouldn’t turn their ship had been a certainty in TO’s mind, and nobody had listened to them!
And TO had been wrong. So often, they had been right about how another might act, and that had saved them and their friends... but this time, they were wrong. What would have happened if TO themself had been in charge!?
A sudden barking laugh drew their attention, and they looked up and saw Tham pat GiDi on the back, “Fuck, I thought that was it,” he said, “Don’t even know why I’m laughing about it now. Shit. We nearly died. I nearly pissed myself.”
“Well… Well, we didn’t die.” GiDi said, their ears flicked back and flushed, “Though I was starting to worry-”
“I was starting to worry!” Flit said. The older synth had sat down in a nearby chair, their face pale and their ears low, but they seemed to be slowly recovering their color. “That was a dangerous risk. Relying on Kei’s actions so soon after the surgery-”
GiDi cleared their throat, “Well, that’s why-“
“It worked out better than we could have hoped!” Vik said, still typing away furiously at their keyboard. “I got a view of Kei’s ship before we got too far away: we knocked out three engines. They’ll have to drift for a bit to repair the damage, so by the time they can move again, we’ll be so far away that they won’t be able to find us! I also had time not just to disable their tracking, but I was able to block this ship’s signal in the system.”
“What? How!?” DH asked, looked down at Vik with their ears up and out. “How did you-”
“I made the security systems view the signal for our ship as a dangerous signal, so it’ll block it before their systems have a chance to actually figure out what it is!” he snickered, “honestly, even if Kei had the thought to go into the security settings and poke around, they’d be a moron to open quarantine files randomly.”
How was everyone so calm? How were people laughing!? They nearly died an awful, excruciating death! “...How did you know?” They said, their voice shaking. Their voice was so low that TO wasn’t certain that GiDi would hear them, but they did. GiDi’s eyes lit up as they looked to TO, then their ears dropped in concern as they saw how queasy they looked.
“Are you going to be sick?” They asked as they rushed forward, “I can get-”
“How did you know?!” TO snapped, their ears flicking down. “Or did you not?! Were you just taking some kind of gamble!?”
All the chatter quieted down, and GiDi’s ears flicked back, sticking out slightly in confusion. “I.. well, this is all a gamble, right?” GiDi said. “Us being here, going to Scraprock, it’ a gamble. And I thought you’d like the plan. It seemed like something you’d do-”
“I’d do it when I had no other options!” TO snapped, “When I was certain! We could have all died!”
“... I was certain, though.” GiDi said, “I knew that Kei wouldn’t let the ships crash.”
“How?” TO said, their ears pinning back. Their queasiness was fading off. The fear that had paralyzed them moments ago filled them with adrenaline, and now that the fear was sinking away, all that had to divert into something. “How did you know?!”
They didn’t realize how loud their voice had gotten, how sharp it became until they heard the silence that fell after, and the echo of their own voice seemed to bounce about in their head. Worse than that, worse than the way everyone was looking at them in surprise, was the way GiDi was looking at them with their ears down and their wings falling limp around them, their ears down.
“I… I thought you’d be impressed.” GiDi said, their voice small and quiet.
TO drew in a slow, deep breath, and when they spoke again, their words were quiet and slow. “We nearly died.” They said, “On a gamble.”
“But you do this kind of thing all the time.” GiDi said, frowning, their ears pinning back ever so slightly.
“That’s different!” TO hissed, “That’s-”
“Emotions are high at the moment.” Flit said quickly, stepping between the two. “Take a breath, maybe get some rest, and-”
“I want to know why they were so confident to risk our lives,” TO hissed. “Did you forget that Pearla is on the ship? Your mate?”
GiDi’s eyes narrowed, their ears flicked back, their wings puffed up just slightly. “I never forget about my mate, even for a second.” They said, their voice cool and stiff, “And I promise, the solution I found–which worked, might I add–was the best one. It’s not my fault you didn’t think of it first.”
TO’s ears flicked back and down, their eyes widening as they stared at GiDi. If GiDi had come up to them and drew their claws, TO didn’t think they’d be more surprised than they were. GiDi’s words caused TO to jerk as though they had been struck and for the moment, words failed them. This lasted only a moment though: Despite it feeling like the second was frozen, the shock struck them like lightning, hitting quickly before disappearing, leaving fire in its wake.
“Oh, I’m very happy that I failed to think of an idiotic idea that could have gotten all of us killed.” TO hissed as they squared their shoulders and stared at GiDi with narrowed eyes. “You’re lucky it didn’t kill everyone!”
“Right.” GiDi snapped, their nostrils flaring, their hands balling into fists. “Because when you do something that seems stupid, it’s well thought out and clever. When I do it, it’s idiotic.”
“When I have a plan, it *is* well thought out!” TO said, wanting to get up and stand before GiDi so that they were looking down at them instead of up at them.
“And you think mine wasn’t?” GiDi took a step forward. “You should be happy! I came up with a great idea that got us away from Kei, damaged their ship, and which let Vik block them from being able to track us again!”
“Your plan could have failed!” TO snapped. “It nearly did!”
“Maybe!” GiDi hissed, their lips curling in a snarl, “But I assure you, I put as much thought into my plan as you did *any* of yours! I knew that Kei was still recovering from that procedure! You told us that you were able to get away from them because you made Kei angry, and they stopped thinking and just started acting!” They jabbed a finger at Flit, “They’re the ones that said that Kei had likely had developed some self-preservation instincts, and Goretta said that all these emotions were new to them, and they wouldn’t be able to adapt or control them for a while! Right now, Kei won’t think, they’ll just *act*.” They huffed, exhausted for a moment, but kept flaring at TO. “I knew, logically then, that if we were to aim our ship right at them, that they’d feel that fear first, that their preservation instinct would take over, and they’d act before they thought!”
The more GiDi talked, the more what they said made sense. TO felt the anger drain from them as they realized that GiDi was right. They looked away, glaring now at the floor while their wings tightened around their shoulders. Now that they were really thinking about it, that had been an excellent plan, and they had had all the same information that GiDi did. Why didn’t they think of it then?
“Meanwhile, it seems like all your ideas lately have just caused us more problems!” They took another step forward, now pointing a long finger at TO.
“GiDi, stop.” Snout said as they stepped forward, putting a hand on GiDi’s shoulder, “You did good, let’s-“
GiDi ignored Snout, shrugging off the older synths’ hand as their wings puffed up. “You had the brilliant idea to remove your chip and have it on a scrap of elastic! That made it easy enough for Kei to get it, which told them *exactly* where we were going!”
Despite the heat rising to their ears, TO kept GiDi’s glare. “Yes, well, pardon me for wanting to get the damn thing off my hand!” TO snapped, “I had only just realized that one of my oldest friends had put a *off switch* in my brain!”
GiDi’s glare narrowed, their lips pursed. “Yes, well, I had to if I wanted you out of that room!”
“I thought this was over.” Flit said with a heavy sigh. They rubbed the side of their head with two fingers. “Come on, this isn’t helping here-“
“-And if you hadn’t gotten the brilliant idea to go looking for Lake on your own, maybe Kei wouldn’t have gotten your chip!” GiDi said, now entirely ignoring Flit. “Maybe you’d still have your *Fucking right leg* on you, so we wouldn’t have to be scrounging around, looking for whatever materials we have lying around for trade on Scraprock to make you another!”
TO crossed their arms as they glared up at GiDi. “I didn’t have many options there.” They snapped, but their voice was lower now, quieter. “Obviously if I had known that Kei was there-“
“And for whatever reason, you brought a literal child and her injured father along with you!”
Someone–It might have been DH, TO wasn’t sure–said, something like stop, that’s enough, but TO’s ears were suddenly ringing, and they felt like their head was being pressed from both sides so they couldn’t be certain. “I knew Kei was around! I had no idea they were in the storage closet!” TO said, “If I had, I obviously would have told Mark to go on by themselves, or at least to wait for me! I never would have brought them with me!”
“But you did! You gambled there, and *you* lost, and now Mark is dead!”
TO felt their ears dip as they looked away, crossing their arms, their wings tightening further around them. They wanted to say something, but they couldn’t seem to form words. Even if they could, there was nothing to say.
Once more, GiDi was right.
The silence lingered for seconds longer, interrupted only by the slide of the elevator as it arrived on their floor on its automatic schedule. GiDi huffed and turned away, heading to the elevator. “I’m done.” They said. “I’m going up to check on everyone else.”
They went inside, followed by Snout, who only gave Flit a meaningful look and a not before they slipped in after GiDi. No words were spoken, but from the fuzzy shadows cast on the floor by the dim yellow lights, TO could tell they were signing back and forth. They couldn’t tell what was being said, but TO was certain that they didn’t want to at this point.
GiDi was right... And it was time they properly acknowledged that.
