Once they were allowed to leave their little room, Flit and Snout led them to a larger common room; its rough walls told TO that it had been carved out recently, probably from a former, smaller area that was part of the old tunnel system. Despite the overall chaotic feel of the room, and the multitude of different species scattered about, it reminded TO of being back in their old dormitories. It wasn’t because of any sense of decor - The stone and brick walls were old and dingy in stark contrast to the clean, gray walls they had in the training center. It wasn’t because of the noise either; there was a mess of noise in the place - various people of different races playing card games and laughing uproariously, music playing from speakers and headphones, and a screen that played a drama off in the corner. 

 

No, what reminded them of being back in the dormitories was the looks they received as they entered. The looks that were quickly hidden as people purposefully went back to what they were doing, nevertheless, that look that said so clearly, “what are you doing here?”

 

The only difference was that this time, it was mixed with fear. 

 

“Vik?”Pholi called out once they got into the room, “You have the chips ready?” 

 

“Yes. Sorta.” Vik’s voice came from behind several screens off in the corner. 

 

“Come on.” Flit said, putting a hand on TO’s shoulder as they tried to lead them forward, “Vik can-“ 

 

TO shrugged Flit’s hand off and wordlessly went over to the screens. A pang of guilt hit them as soon as they had, but it was too late then to do anything about it. As they walked away, they heard Snout whisper to Flit, “It’s ok… they’ll understand, eventually.” 

 

They understood perfectly. They were like this because of Flit and Snout. ALl the pain and suffering they had experienced was all because of them. 

 

They didn’t realize that they had taken DH’s hand until they felt their mate’s fingers squeeze back. They glanced over and gave a quick, dull smile. Flit was right, though; if it wasn’t for their tinkering, they wouldn’t have fallen in love with DH, and despite all the worry and anxiety that had brought them, it also gave them sweet moments, memories like candy scattered amid the dull nutrient cubes of their life. 

 

It was worth it; they knew. TO didn’t even have to consider it. They knew they’d gladly suffer so much more just to be with DH, but they were still angry. They needed to have a few minutes with DH to talk about everything, but they didn’t want to talk with DH in front of all the insurgents, in front of Flit and Snout.

 

“Welcome to my office.” Vik said as they neared the screens. The small rodent sat down before a semi-circle of screens, a keyboard wired to a tiny version of their own. Behind them, a large table covered in random tech lay scattered about. 

 

“Take a seat.” They said, “Just give me a minute to finish up, and I’ll have your chips ready for you.” They didn’t even look away from the screens as they spoke, and their tiny fingers never stopped moving as they typed in lines and lines of code. 

 

TO looked around, but didn’t see any seats to take. There was a chair set up before the screens, but Vik had converted that into a tiny office, with crates set on the seat so that it was instead a small, private room. They saw a relatively sturdy old crate, and figuring that’s what Vik meant, they sat down there. DH didn’t, though. They stood up, watching Vik carefully, watching their fingers fly and watching the lines and lines of code flying up the screen. After a moment, their ears flicked back, and they gave a low gasp. 

 

“You’re ‘Joe Momma!’” They exclaimed. 

 

That stopped the constant typing. Vik looked up, confused as they stared at DH, then laughed. Even from around them, TO could hear muted chuckling from others as they pretended not to pay attention to the two synths. 

 

“Oh, no!” they said, wiping tears of mirth from their eyes as their tail flicked rapidly. “No no. Uh, that’s not necessarily a name or an alias I’ve taken on!” They chuckled again, and went back to their work, “That’s uh… I guess it’s a bit of a dummy name we use here. Bit of an inside joke, I guess. Someone - I don’t even remember who- needed a name for something once, and they used ‘Joe Momma’ as a joke. Now, whenever we need a random name for something, we use that.” They snicker, “It’s funny to imagine you super serious synths sitting amongst yourself, talking about this awful ‘Joe Momma,’ though.”

 

TO felt their ears warm slightly, knowing that they and DH had done just that. “So, you weren’t the one who called us?” They asked, “I had figured that whoever called us had been the insurgent hacker.” 

 

“Oi! I’m not just a hacker.” Vik said, their tail lashing against the table, their ears flicking back, “I’m a programmer, and an engineer… I just do some light hacking and AI modification on the side; it’s just a useful little hobby.” 

 

“A hobby you’re good at!” DH said, their ears perking up as they leaned on the back of the chair. “The methods you used to subvert the coding on that AI that tracked us down were absolutely elegant in its execution! It was so simple, but-“ 

 

TO felt their own ears pin back. How could DH just be talking to these people so easily? Sure, they were excited about the programming, and yes, TO couldn’t appreciate it on the same level as another programmer like Vik… but it still bothered them. 

 

 How could DH just engage with an insurgent so quickly?

 

“Excuse me?” 

 

There was so much noise in the large common area that TO had heard no one approach them. It was only when the civilian spoke they realized someone else was close. They turned, their wings puffed up, their ears back for the split second it took them to realize that the person who approached them was a small, skinny civilian who made her way around on eight long, red tentacles which matched the color of her skin. The plain brown dress she wore was the only thing that broke the color, as even her eyes and the strange prongs that stuck up from her head were bright red. 

“Sorry,” she said, edging back as TO turned, “I don’t mean to bother you… but are you the synth that was in Thalassa?”

 

Was this vital information? Had they sent her over to get something out of them? Well, that information was well known, anyway. The insurgents already knew that both TO and DH had been in Thalassa.

 

“Yes.” They said after longer than necessary. 

 

The young civilian gave a relieved sigh, her skin shifting to a green-blue color. “I hoped it was!” She said, “I’m Marissa; she/her. I was in Thalassa when the alarms went off at that awful party.” 

 

“They abducted you?” TO asked, glancing about to see who was paying attention to them. They lowered their voice. “Do you need help?” If she wanted to get away from the insurgency, TO wasn’t sure what they could do, but they’d try to help, anyway. 

 

“Oh, no!” she said, “Well. I mean, I need some help, but it’s nothing you can help with.” She laughed nervously, “I just wanted to thank you!” 

 

“Thank me? What for?” 

 

“My brother was down there too, but we got separated in the rush for the service pods. I found out later that he got out before the dome fell, thanks to a synth that activated the guest pods.” She gave TO a soft, sad smile, “I mean… He’s still in with the indebted, but he’s alive thanks to you. I never thought that a synth would bother to help people like us.” 

 

TO felt their ears flick back as a frown crossed their face, “No? But you’d expect the insurgents to help?”

 

She took another step back, the ends of her tentacles curling tightly as the prongs atop her head stood on end as her colors dulled. “Well. I mean, it’s just that with you, with synths… we’re not really….” She frowned as she tried to put into words what was in her head. “We’re not worth your time? You generally have more important things to do, and you looked busy! But you stopped, and you helped them.” She looked away, “Anyway, sorry I bothered you, but I just… My brother is still alive. He’s still indebted, and still living in that awful facility, but he’s alive, and I wanted to thank you for that.” 

 

“I guess you’re going back to him, then?” TO asked. Maybe she wanted to, and the insurgents were keeping her here against her will. “They said the rest of the Indebted they abducted went off the planet. You refused?” 

 

“Well. Yes, but I’m not going back. I won’t leave without my brother, so I need to save him. Get him out of there.” She laughed again, but this time the sound was bitter. “You probably think that's a bad idea.” 

 

“… I have been here long enough and have learned enough to understand a desire to leave.” They said, “The system for the indebted is flawed. I understand the desire to escape it, even if I don’t think helping the insurgency is the best of ideas.” 

 

“I just want to help him.” She said, “Get him out, and then get off this planet.” She suddenly brightened. “I heard there’s a planet we could go to that’s a lot like the one we grew up on! We can’t go home; our home is to a planet wide hydroponics farm now, but it’d be nice to be somewhere similar. Somewhere that we don’t have to choose between being soaking wet or too dry for comfort.” 

 

“Marissa!” The shout from Tham cut through their conversation like a knife, and Marissa flinched. “Watch what you say to them!”

 

“They’re different though!” She protested, “They helped us! They’re the one that activated the guest pods and got my brother out of Thalassa! They actually give a shit about us, so I don't think they’d try to hurt us now.” 

 

“You don’t know that.” Tham said as they came up to her. 

 

Maybe they weren't intending to hurt her, and in retrospect, TO decide that they wouldn’t have. However, the way they approached, their long tail lashing at the concrete, their broad shoulders back, their eyes narrowed, TO couldn’t help but feel it was aggressive, and that they meant harm. They didn’t even realize that they had moved before they were standing between Marissa and Tham. Their wings puffed out, hiding her from sight. 

 

As soon as they did that, Tham stopped, their tail stilling as they watched TO. Their hand twitched at the multi-gun still strapped to their waist. 

 

“Hey, uh.” Marissa snuck past TO. “Tham’s an ass sometimes, but he’d never hurt me. It’s fine.” She gave a quick smile as she sipped past TO and towards Tham. “And you need to relax. Honestly, I know you’d never hurt a fly, and even I thought you were coming over here to do some beat-down.”

 

Tham gave a withering look to TO before turning and slipping away with Marissa. “Honestly.” They whispered, unaware that TO could still hear them, “Don't say unnecessary things in front of them. We can’t trust them. They’re synths.” 

 

“So’s GiDi, and they’re practically family, aren’t they?” 

 

“That’s not the same. They never became real synths, did they? They didn’t pass that damned loyalty test thing.” 

 

“Alright!” Though Vik was small, his voice seemed so loud since TO was straining their ears to keep listening to Tham and Marissa. “All done! I have a makeshift solution for your chip issue.” 

 

That got TO’s attention entirely. They turned away from Tham and Marissa and went back over to where Vik and DH were sitting. DH was looking at some code on the screen while Vik showed off a small, transparent piece of paper with circuitry etched into it. 

 

“What’s that?” TO asked as they approached. 

 

“It’s a makeshift chip.” DH said, frowning as they looked over the code, “But the feedback here to the chip in the brain is-“ 

 

“Oi, it’s going to take me a few weeks to come up with a better solution for your chips.” Vik said, “So, in the meantime, this is the most elegant solution I can think of.” They jumped from the table - their long legs and tail facilitating the jump and giving them more height than TO expected, and landed on the back of their chair-turned-office. They held the thin piece up to TO. 

 

“Hand please.” 

 

TO wasn’t sure about allowing civilian tech to interfere with their chips, but they were so desperate to have that connection back that it wasn’t much of an internal debate for them. They held their hand out, and Vik stuck the chip on TO’s hand. 

 

Just like that, the connection flooded back to them; they didn’t even need to look up anything, but they could feel their access restored to them. Just because they could, but lifted their hand and brought up a screen to project before them. The basic screen flickered to life- a little staticky, but otherwise fine- and showed them the local time and weather. 

 

“You're set to read only for now.” Vik said as they brought another chip to DH. “You can’t send information, but you can access all basic civilian files.” As they slapped the chip onto DH’s hand, TO saw DH’s shoulders and wings relax as they did the same thing as TO, and brought up their own screen. 

 

“It’s not much.” Vik said, “But I know you all like to have your chips. You get all anxious without them, so. Here you go.” 

 

“We all have our chips?” TO asked, “What about Avery?”

 

“I have one ready for Avery.” Vik said, “But… they’re not doing so well. And the other one, they’re super aggressive and they’d probably eat me if I got close enough to put a chip on them. They’d probably also just pull it off after.” 

 

They didn’t care that Kei was being aggressive. They only half listened to the rest of what Vik said. Avery wasn’t doing so well. 

 

“I want to see Avery.” TO said, closing their screen. 

 

“… Hey, Tham?” Vik called out, “TO wants to see Avery. Is that fine?” 

 

 “I’ll have to go with them.” Tham called from the other side of the room, “And Pholi. Maybe Flit or Snout, just in case those two get aggressive.” 

 

“I won’t!” TO snapped, “I’m just worried about my friend!” 

 

“They’re not lying, you know.” Pholi said from where they sat at a nearby table, drinking a cup of tea as they poured over something on their own computer. “You can tell by the way the ears move if they’re lying; A subtle vibration along the helix shows-“ 

 

“Don’t care; I don’t trust those ear-movement things. What makes you so sure they can’t control them?” Tham said. 

 

“I wish I could.” TO muttered.

“I’m glad you can’t.” DH whispered in a volume so low even TO could only just hear it. “I like how they look when you’re flustered.” 

 

Ears down and flushed, TO could only just stare at DH. 

 

“Well, I’m busy.” Pholi said, “A new news alert came through and I’m trying to get the right information from it.” 

 

“Then they can’t go see Avery.” 

 

“I’ll go with you.” Flit said. They kept their distance from TO but now they stepped forward, “If TO’s alright with that.” 

 

They weren’t. They still wanted to scream at Flit for everything… but if the alternative was having Avery trapped along and upset in a room all by themself…” 

 

“Fine.” TO snapped, “DH and I will go see Avery, and I suppose Flit will come.” 

 

“Along with me.” Tham said. “And stick to speaking Common. The moment I hear that weird clicky-hissy language from you, we leave.” 

 

“Fine.” TO said. “Let’s go then.”