It was considered the best idea to not loiter in the laundry room anymore. While it was a private place and they now knew how to jam the door closed, Leanaran pointed out that other people might want to use it, and may cause them problems if they stayed there much longer.

“I don’t know why.” TO muttered as they left the room, “We needed to hide, and the eyes and noise hurt my eyes.”

“Yeah, well, other people want to use it to have sex.” Leanaran said, “Not everyone has a private bed, and not everyone will pay for one.”

TO suddenly regretted leaning on anything in there.

“Now.” Leanaran said, “I’ll inform my people, and get them ready. You two deal with yours-”

“I’ll deal with ours.” Mira said. “I saw them once, I think I can find them again.”

“I’ll be with you anyway.” TO said, “So I can help-”

“You need to stay somewhere dim and quiet.” Mira snapped, “Tomorrow is a busy day, and the last thing we need is you waking up sick from a migraine.”

“Take my bed.” Leanaran said, “I’ve been too busy to lend it out today. You can hide there until I’m heading to bed.”

“Yeah, good idea.” Mira said, “you can keep in touch with Vik, and make sure everything goes to plan. It’s not like you can use your communicator; Mira has that. You have to use your chip.”

“A question.” Leanaran said, his voice a whisper, “I thought you told me your communicators were safe before they were linked to you directly through your fingerprints. How can Pearla use Tio’s?”

“Tio’s is connected to that weird chip they have.” Mira said, “The benefits of a rich family, right?”

TO gave a nervous chuckle and nodded. They had presented the chip on their hand to Leanaran as some kind of trinket from home; something their imaginary rich parents had given them.

Would Leanaran be angry when it came out that they were synths? Lendulin and Petra had been angry, but they considered TO friends at that point. Leanaran wasn’t a friend, they were an accomplice. Would that make things better, or worse?

Well, no point in worrying about that right now. That point would come, and hopefully Leanaran would be glad just to be out of the indebted center.

“Well, enjoy a bit more privilege.” Leanaran said, pulling TO from their thoughts, “Use my bunk to rest your eyes and keep up on Pearla. She’s a good person, and I’d hate for anything terrible to happen to her.”

“Me too.” TO muttered as left to go to the dormitories. That anxiety was building up in their stomach again, and they knew they wouldn’t be able to relax until they knew Pearla was safe. 

======

GiDi had, apparently, seen the surveillance tape of what happened in the morgue. 

“How could you let that happen to her!” They snapped over the video connection. Despite their distance, and despite knowing that GiDi would do nothing to hurt them, TO recoiled. They had seen GiDi angry before, yes; when they shouted at their Overseers that they were not a tool for instance. That alone had been scary enough, but this was different. This anger had a passion to it, a fire that promised violence.

It was almost like a more controlled version of how angry and feral Kei had been after their procedure. 

“It was her idea!” TO protested, “Besides, Gyrini knew what she looked like! We had to get her out of here-”

“I’ll kill Gyrini.” GiDi hissed, “With my own hands. I’ll rip out her throat! She slapped Pearla!”

“GiDi, I don’t like it either.” Tham said. They stood next to GiDi, but seemed to arch away from them, “I hate that she’s in a morgue, and I hate that she got slapped, but she’ll be fine. She’s just drunk and hibernating, so-”

“YOU DON’T KNOW THAT!” GiDi screamed, their ears pinned flat back and their lips pulled back in a snarl so that they could see every single tooth, “You don’t know that she’s fine!”

“GiDi?” TO heard Flit’s voice before they appeared on screen, “Come with me.”

“No, I won’t leave here until I know Pearla’s ok! I refuse-”

“You’ll hurt someone if you stay here.” Flit said, their voice sharp and serious. “Come with me.”

“GiDi wouldn’t hurt anyone.” TO said, “Not their friends anyway. I can understand them wanting to hurt Gyrini! If anyone hurts DH, then I’d want to deal with them myself!”

“TO, Trust me, they need to get away right now.” Flit said.

“I’m not leaving.” GiDi hissed.

“Well, then I’m sorry, GiDi.” Flit said.

Before GiDi or TO could ask what they were sorry for, Flit moved quickly around GiDi and pushed a hand to the space just behind their ear. TO didn’t know exactly what happened, but suddenly GiDi yelped in pain, then their eyes unfocused and they fell limp.

TO had a vague idea of what might have happened; a pressure point behind the ear that could easily disrupt blood flow and knock them out. Flit had mentioned it once in training, but they never taught the trainees how to use it.

It was then they realized that they never really saw Flit fight before. They were faster than expected given their fake leg.

“Flit!” TO wanted to dash through the screen to help GiDi. “What did you do! Why did you-”

“I’ll explain later.” Flit said, a light flush over their ears, “I promise, this is the best solution for now.”

“I want to know now!” TO snapped, “You hide too much, you-”

“Later. As soon as you’re here.” Flit said. “... With Snout. I promise.”

Before TO could protest any more, Flit was gone with GiDi.

“... So that was weird.” Vik said as they settled back into position before the screen. “I’ve never seen GiDi that angry before.”

“I don’t think I’d be thrilled if I saw DH getting hit.” TO admitted. With GiDi apparently unconscious and Flit gone there was now no point in worrying too much about that at the moment. At the very least, TO was certain that GiDi wouldn’t be further hurt under flit’s care. “Where is DH anyway?”

“Goretta needed them for medical stuff.” Vik said as they stared at their screen. “I don’t know how long they’ll be but I’ve told them to contact you as soon as they’re done.”

“Thank you.” TO said.

“No problem. Can’t keep the lovebirds from saying their goodnights.” Vik’s ears suddenly stood up, and their tail flicked rapidly. “Oh, and it looks like the orders went through to lift the lockdown.”

“You mean you’ll have Pearla out Now?” TO asked.

“No.” Vik said, “Soon, but not immediately. It’ll take a minute for it to be implemented.”

“Right.” TO said, “And… when it’s lifted, what happens to Pearla?”

“Well, for some odd reason that has everything to do with me, the first delivery prioritized to leave the center is corpse removal. They’ll get some indebted down there to load up the transport, all supervised, of course. The transport is going to take a detour to the outer ring to that warehouse, where we’ll get Pearla out and fill the bag with a dummy that Lendulin rigged up for us. Once that’s done we’ll send the transport on its way.”

“Alright, but what about when it gets to the-” they paused, unsure what word to use. “What do you call people who handle dead civilian bodies?”

“Morticians.”

“What happens when they get to the mortician, and they find a dummy? It’s my understanding that they collected viable organs from civilians too, right?”

“Most civilians have a choice.” Vik said, “Indebted don’t… but the keyword here is ‘viable’” They grinned, “Pearl’s body isn’t considered viable for organ donation because the paperwork says she died because of an overdose. They’ve slated her body for incineration. Also; since she’s coming from the indebted center, they won’t even bother collecting her ashes. If she had any family they’d contact them, but she doesn’t.” Vik stretched, “We get Pearla back, safe and sound, and the morticians get a dummy to incinerate. They won’t even open the bag, they’ll just burn it.”

“Hooray for gross negligence towards Arkane’s indebted, I guess.” TO grumbled, “It’s a situation where a lack of concern works out I suppose.” 

“Hey, if the government here is going to neglect us, then we should use that neglect to our advantage!” Vik said, “It’s how we get half our stuff done.”

TO was about to question that, to ask how else they use that, but they got an alert on their communicator that made their ears perk up, and the hum of their heart increased.

“Sorry. DH is trying to contact me.” They said, and without waiting for a further response, they switched over to see their mate.

“TO.” DH said, a smile breaking over their haggard face as soon as they saw their mate, “Hi.”

“Hi.” TO said, letting their own smile creep over their face as their ears rose. “You were busy?”

“It was Kei again.” DH said. “They’ve been refusing to eat, so we’ve had them on an IV… but they pulled it out today. I won’t get into details, but they needed medical help.”

“They’re still not cooperating then.” TO said, “I’m not surprised.”

“They don’t trust us to eat anything we give them.” DH said, “When we eat later, I’m going to eat with them, and show them that the food won’t hurt us.”

“They won’t attack you?”

“No, thankfully. They’re hostile, but not aggressive anymore, I think their logic is kicking in again and they’re realizing that there’s no point in attacking me right now. I mean, where would they go? They don’t have a map of the underground, and it’s confusing down here!” They sighed, “Goretta’s hoping that Flit and Snout can get through to them, and convince them to cooperate with us.”

“Right.” TO said. “I doubt they will. Anyway, have you been spending any time with GiDi?” TO frowned.

“A little…” DH said, their ears suddenly flicking down, “They’ve been odd lately.”

“Odd how?” TO asked.

“Well… They seem angrier? Anxious? It’s like everything irritates them.”

“I was just talking to them with Vik and Tham.” TO said. They relayed GiDi’s reactions to the video footage from the morgue, and the strange, terrifying rage that overcame them. DH listened patiently, their ears twitching in thought as they did.

“Interesting.” DH muttered.

“Did you learn anything about this when you were in your medical placement? Or any of your other independent research?”

“No, I haven’t.” DH admitted, “But if Flit just knocked them out and took them away without seeming concerned at all, then they must know something.”

“They wouldn’t tell me about it.” TO said as their ears pinned back. “They said they’d talk to me with Snout-”

“Well, maybe it is a medical thing, but not a concerning one?” DH offered. “Snout would be the better person to talk about that, right? Flit’s not familiar with medical information, so maybe they just don’t know how to talk about it.”

“Maybe.” TO mused, “They seemed more awkward than worried. Maybe it is just something they don’t know how to explain…”

“Maybe.” DH said. They then smiled, “So, putting all that aside…” they put on a wider than natural smile, “Why don’t you tell me about your day, darling.” They said in a tone that was very reminiscent of the older romances they used to watch. The exaggerated nature of it drew a chuckle from TO and made their ears twitch happily.

They were certain that DH already knew the important parts of their day from Vik, but TO smiled and settled in to tell DH about every little detail. Maybe parts of it would be boring, but that they were talking to DH made it the only thing they wanted to do at the moment.