TO lunged, trying to get to Pearla to make sure she was ok, but Mira held them back.
“Don’t.” She whispered. “They chipped her. You have a chip already don’t you? Some kinda thing linked to the chip in your hand? What’ll happen to you if they try to chip you?”
TO didn’t know, and that was dangerous. Would the chip cause damage to their existing chip? Would it damage the wiring to their brain? Would it damage their brain? TO had no idea what it might do, and that was dangerous. Still, they had to help Pearla.
Thankfully, with Pearla chipped it didn’t seem like the guard wasn’t too concerned about her anymore, and wandered off without a backwards glance. Mira held onto TO for another moment until the guard got a little more distance, then pulled them forward so they could check on Pearla. They passed through the gate with no issues thankfully and got to where Pearla was leaning against a nearby wall. The purple tone of her skin had grayed in her face, and her breathing was erratic and rushed.
“Let’s see.” Mira said as she gently pulled Pearla from the wall and lifted the hair from the back of her neck. After a moment, she looked to TO, “I don’t know what I’m looking for here.” She admitted, “Can you look?”
TO rushed to her side and looked at Pearla’s neck only to reel back almost instantly. There was blood; a steady trickle of red running down her purple skin and seeping into the back of her tunic. Why was there so much blood? Was she hurt-
-blood. Disinfectant. Plastic gloves. Bones cracking, skin slicing-
-Was she going to die? Putting a chip in someone’s brain seemed something to do in a laboratory setting, like it should be a surgical event and not something a random guard could do with a glorified stapler.
“Oh shit. Yeah, blood.” Mira positioned herself between TO and Pearla, “Shit. I can clean this up a bit-”
“I know nothing about it.” TO said as they held themself against the wall, taking long deep breaths through their nose. The sour smell of overworked civilians was awful, but it was better than the tang of blood, and the imagined smells that their mind was giving them.
When would this stop? That whole incident had happened so long ago; when would they be able to see even a drop of blood and not react?
They felt a hand on their arm and jumped, turning around and preparing to defend themself; their wings puffed, their ears pinned, they had their hands out… and it was just Beck, looking very confused and more than a little scared.
“I didn’t mean to startle you?” She said as she took a few steps back, “What’s happening here?”
“Pearla got a chip.” Mira said, then noticing she was looking at TO she added added, “Oh, and they’ve got a thing with blood-”
“Thanks.” TO hissed. They didn’t need or want everyone to know that!
Beck turned to Pearla, “They didn’t chip you at intake, and you didn’t bolt while we were working?” her tail swished behind her, “Man, I would have run.” She beckoned as she headed away, “Come on, You got basic beds; I have a private one. We can clean her up there and have a chat.”
“Wait.” TO turned, “Where's our-”
“I took care of it.” Beck hissed, her voice suddenly quiet, “Come on, I’ll tell you about it at my bunk.”
“What’s she talking about?” Pearla asked as she touched her hand to the back of her neck.
“Later.” TO said as they took Pearla by the arm, and let her lean on them as they followed Beck. Somehow, the hiss to Beck’s voice, the tensing of her muscles and the flick of her tail were things that TO recognized in part; a warning that they weren't safe to talk. A quick look around told them that there were cameras watching them, and of course there were guards strolling about, a few of whom were now watching the four.
Too many ears, too many eyes; this was not a safe place to talk. Beck, however, had a safe place, and they needed to follow her and not draw unnecessary attention to themselves.
At least to TO, this environment was one they were already used to.
======
A small, dark room with cement floors, cement walls, no windows and an unfinished high ceiling was the location of the dormitory for the indebted. Bunk Beds covered most of the floor, leaving little to no room between them for navigation or privacy. Some bunks had thick curtains roughly hung around them, others were entirely open. A few people had hung their sheets up along one side of the bunk bed, but they weren’t large enough to encircle the bed or thick enough to muffle sound or to dull light.
Beck went to a bed and unzipped the front. “Here.” She said as she pulled the flap aside, “Squeeze in.”
“Hey Becky.” the woman in the next bunk over said as she watched the others pile in, “Having some fun without me?”
“Newbies, Vana.” Beck said before she crawled into her bunk, “The purple one got chipped at the gate.”
“Lost the opportunity.” Vana said with a shrug, “Though, not like there’s very far you could have gotten if they didn’t chip you.”
They could have gotten so far. Even chipped, TO knew that they could get away without too much concern in the end but they needed their communicators for that! The guard had Pearla’s, but TO’s and Mira’s…
Well, Beck had a plan to save their communicators, apparently.
Once everyone crammed into Mira’s darkened bunk, she turned on a tiny screen that was stuck to the underside of the bed above her. A low tune played - one TO vaguely recognized as a local, popular song, and the light from the music video illuminated the bed itself. It reminded TO very much of their old bunks back in training when they would go to sleep with the dull light of the screen for illumination. Here though, there were no alternatives to light save for the harsh overhead lights of the room. Privacy and illumination were at odds here, one sacrificed for the other.
“Can we talk here?” TO asked as soon as Beck finished zipping up the curtains.
“Yeah, we should be fine-”
“Good; where's our communicators?”
Pearla gave a strangled squeak as she turned to TO, her movements stiff and unnatural. Her hand was still on the back of her neck, and when she moved TO could see a smudge of blood on her hand which appeared nearby black in the dim light. They looked away, focusing instead in a particularly dark shadow in the curtains.
“What do you mean where are they?” Pearla asked. “We need them-”
“Honestly, you’d probably lose them eventually, anyway.” Beck said as she dug blindly into a hole in her thin pillow. “I mean, you don’t have a private bed, so anyone could grab ‘em.” After another moment, she pulled a long strip of fabric from the pillow. “Tio, in the corner on your side, there should be a tin water bottle..?”
TO’s low light vision made it easy to find what she was talking about, which was good because it was hard for them to move around with how cramped the space was. To avoid hitting their head, TO sat with their legs up to their chest, their head ducked down, and their wings pressed tightly to their back. If they had to look around much, they’d never have found it.
They passed the bottle to Beck, who opened it up and drenched the rag in water before passing it to Pearla, “Here.” She said, “Try to clean it up before your uniform gets too stained. If it’s bad enough, they’ll issue you a replacement, and that gets charged to your outstanding debt-”
“Our communicators.” Pearla said, echoing TO, “Where are they?”
“Right, so uh. Orkas took yours. He’s ok, but he won’t give your communicator back, no matter what you offer him. He got dinged for accepting favors from us before, and he’s gotta be careful now.” She looked at TO and Mira, “Yours though; there’s a small gap where the tunnel meets the transport. I dropped them in there. If you want them in here I can make that happen, but you’ll have to work a shift for a friend of mine.”
“That’s fine.” Pearla said quickly. TO was about to protest her quick acceptance, saying they didn’t have time, but it didn’t matter as they’d not actually be sticking around for too long.
“Alright.” Beck said, “We eat, then we shower, then we sleep. The alarm for supper will sound in a bit so you three will follow me, we’ll sit and eat with my friend at supper and we’ll get you sorted out.”
“Where do you eat?” TO asked remembering how quiet the cafeteria always was back in training, “Will it be safe to talk there?”
“Oh, of course.” She said, “As long as we’re quiet; there’s too much chatter and too much noise from the kitchen for people to overhear us. Besides, nobody’s really too concerned about what we’re saying, we just don’t want to be overheard by the wrong person.” She crossed her legs and rested her elbows on her knees, “Still, I think it’d be a waste to get them back; they’ll get found eventually, or they’ll lose their charge and there're no chargers in here, right? Your communicators, it’ll die before long.”
TO hadn’t even thought about that. In their head they had been going through the time they had; worst case, they had a week - no, only six days to get back to the ship before the synths arrived. Now that Beck mentioned it, TO realized that they had until the charge on their communicators was out. Thankfully, they had been fully charged, and Vik had tinkered with them so they had longer battery lives, but TO wasn’t entirely sure how long they had. If the communicators died though, they had no way to deactivate any chips, and no way to contact Vik.
They were so deep in thought that they nearly missed how intently that Pearla was staring at them, catching their eyes as she jerked her head at Beck.
“... Are you ok?” TO asked after a moment, “I... can’t really help with your wound.” Their ears dipped. “I mean, I can try but-”
Next to them, Mira sighed and gently patted TO on the knee. “It’s ok dear.” She said, a smirk lifting the corners of her mouth. “And yes, Pearla, go ahead.”
TO caught Pearla’s quick smile before she turned to Beck, and then finally understood what she was trying to tell her. TO nodded as well; they needed help in here to find the people they needed and now to get their communicators back. There were also changes that were new, that neither Mira nor Vik knew about so they needed someone to help them stay out of trouble.
“So… Beck.” Pearla said as she wiped at her neck with the cloth, “How would you like to get out of here a bit earlier than you thought?”
