Beryl felt the strange taste of her sister’s lip balm, it reminded her of when her mother still used it, when her father was still alive. They would put on the best clothes their meager points would afford them(not that many people in the warren could afford better ones anyway) and spend their off days in one of the few places they were allowed at the Main Habitat, the park. These places were better known to her as the surface and the forest, but humans made the rules and so they also got to name everything.

Well now, she was again heading to the surface, and again feeling the smell of perfume and lip balm lingering in the elevator, but the only ones here with her were other cunimorphs heading to the bar and her sister. Looking down at herself and the others they all wore that terribly skimpy uniform, and all but a few covered themselves like her and her sister did, since the humans kept the areas they didn't go to colder than the rest. She didn’t actually look forward to being out on the surface again, it would be nice there if it didn't mean being around humans, and having to smell them, talk to them, be courteous to them. She just hoped Emerald was right about this.

The elevator stopped, after the loud ding everyone's attention shifted, all were alert and ready to leave. The doors opened to what she could best describe as a giant concrete balcony, framing a blank orange background that went on forever, its light bleeding into the

smooth tiles of the balcony and tinted everything that it touched. Beryl was looking at her first sunset in seven years. She went closer to the parapet and held on to it, now her vision contemplating more than just the framed orange sky. She saw the lake under them and a carefully groomed prairie on its margins, the outlines of buildings visible almost out of view, along with a blurry pillar in the distance, that went upwards as far as she could see. Beryl turned around and looked up, realizing that she had come out of a similar pillar, looking up she couldn't tell when the pillar ended and the sky began.

“Don't look at it for too long, it’ll make you dizzy, it makes me dizzy at least.” Her sister said, Beryl looked down and there she was, right in front of her. “Goes all the way up to the other side, until up becomes down again.”

“This all never made much sense to me.” She straightened herself “How the whole thing spins.”

“It's true that if you throw a ball down it wont fall straight though.” She crossed her arms, leaning into the rail. “The light comes from a centralized cylinder, and the fabrication sectors are inside it, the low gravity there is supposed to help.”

Beryl nodded and looked around, her surroundings were all smooth concrete and very neat, deliberate unlike how things were set up inside the crust. The railing on the parapet was so smooth and polished her sweaty palms had difficulty staying in place, the polished floor made a loud clack every time her heels touched it(and made her feet feel so sore already). She was so out of her element that she could not enjoy the fresh air and the nature right in front of her, she just wanted to get this done with already. “Okay, let’s get going”

They headed west along with the others: some rabbits, some foxes. Just barely out of her peripheral vision she could see many humans watching over them, not wearing masks and combat uniforms but still intimidating as they had holsters on their hips and of course towered over her by several feet. Heading down a long set of stairs and distancing herself from the structure she could see it was a mezzanine jutting out of the massive pillar, and she finally had the sky over her head for the first time in several years though, when she stared at it for long enough she could see the outline of the central shaft above the cloud layer, almost imperceptible, and it broke the illusion.

Beryl, Emerald and the workers were directed to get inside a van and it took them along a narrow road for a few minutes until they reached the town. Her sister chatted with her fellow workers but Beryl could not keep her eyes away from the window and all the activity in the streets. It was just how she imagined the cities to be, just way bigger, it was hard to imagine what the humans even did with all those huge buildings. She could never imagine there could be this many humans in one place and immediately regretted coming here, closing her eyes and nervously scrubbing her palm with the other hand.

The vehicle stopped and she heard the door open. Emerald put her hand on her shoulder and told her they arrived, her smile reassured her. In the time it took for them to get there it got colder and Beryl pulled down her jacket so it would cover her down to the knees, her chin dipped into the warm collar, it looked funny apparently as a few of the girls chuckled at her. She was too nervous and worried to care and couldn't stop thinking about how much this could matter to her future, and her sister did not disclose how things were supposed to go once they entered the bar.

The bar was… interesting to say the least, draped in obscene amounts of black velvet, with the marble of the flooring and the walls clashing with it, making her eyes hurt as they reflected all the lights projected everywhere from the ceiling. She didn't get to see much then as the girls got in what she could tell was the service area and stopped at a wide room with lockers and a few mirrors.

Emerald unzipped her jacket and threw it inside what Beryl could tell was her locker. “So Beryl, we can talk more freely in here” She pulled a strange mask out of the locker “This goes on your head, it gives you some privacy while at the same time preventing the regulars from recognizing you.” She handed it to Beryl, the first thing she noticed was how light and pleasant to the touch it was, it was somewhat triangular and form fitting to a rabbits head, the casing was engraved with a diamond pattern and she saw that the cameras were cleverly hidden under the crease along the middle.

“How do I put it on?” Beryl asked, noticing the corners felt sticky.

“It just velcros to your fur, dont worry its not going to pull on any of it, and it has hidden directional microphones and a HUD so management can give you instructions without the customers noticing it.” She fastened it to her own head, the display turning on immediately. She now had a map with the numbers of the tables and tasks scrolling up on the left side of it.

“Kind of disorienting, but comfortable i guess” She answered while her sister brushed her fur and sprayed her with perfume that smelled way too strong.

“So your mission today is to just look busy enough until August arrives, he's the son of a councilman that's fighting for our rights and there's a few of his son’s friends that come here too” Emerald briefed her as she hurriedly got herself ready to work “Just be polite enough and listen to peoples orders, then repeat them. When you do, they'll go straight to the bar and kitchen, you don't have to do anything else. Don't let customers touch you because they are not supposed to, at least not in the bar, but ignore anything rude and offensive they say because unfortunately they like doing that too often for management to care about it.”

“Not in the bar?” Beryl repeated, not really wanting to process what she just heard.

“Yea so, the bar has these private rooms on the second floor so the clients can have private dances and other things… Neither me or you are marked as available so don’t worry about it. When it's time Mr. Thompson, that's the owner, will send you to room number 7 and we will meet August there.”

Beryl just nodded, wide eyed and feeling the acid come up her throat. It was not a good time to have realized why cunnimorphs were made to be so cute and flexible. The room began to spin around her and she waddled towards the door with the flashing restroom sign. The door opened before she could push it and she felt an arm holding her up, she blacked out and when she came to she felt her sister’s hand holding her cold, wet forehead, she had vomited on the toilet. Emerald helped her get back on her feet and washed her muzzle on the sink, but she was still coughing when she put the fur dryer in front of her.

“Welp, we almost didn’t make it, but it's fine, and nothing is going to happen to you. One thing we got going for us is that it's not exactly legal for them to use us like that so it deters them, usually. Their laws are too uptight to allow that.” She told her apologetically. “Should’ve told you that before but it's not like we had a lot of spare time since then.”

A rabbit and a fox spied into the restroom and asked them if they were alright, Emerald just gave them a thumbs up. They still approached her when she was back on her feet, asking if she was okay, Beryl guessed they were in on the conspiracy. Leaving the dressing room made her head pound again, more due to the loud music this time. Exiting close to the dance floor let her see the customers properly as well as the staff, but it was relatively empty as it was early in the evening still. There were a few groups gathered around the vulpine bartender and some at the tables, in the center a tall vixen with the most luxurious pelt she had ever seen in a zoimorph danced inside a large cage, her sheer bodysuit left very little of her exposed. What surprised Beryl was that unlike all the other staff she could not read her name over her head with her HUD.

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She caught glimpses of her sister as she went around the tables, taking orders. It was easier than she thought, or at least the visor made it easy as it showed her the right paths to take to each table and it was linked to cameras letting her know if any of the patrons waved at her. Some patrons would notice she was new there, probably noticing her short stature, that made her stutter, and they would joke about that too. All the comments of “Oh that's adorable actually” or “Is it your first day, shortie?” and worse “Would you go upstairs with us?” disoriented her, made her bump on other waitresses. At some point she heard a loud booming voice in her head tell her to go to room number 7 and she pranced there as fast as her pointy heels allowed, panting and stumbling her way up the stairs.

It was quiet in the room at least, most of the walls were covered in foam: a good sign that it was truly secured. It had a large and low round table inserted into a pit on the floor, which she assumed was for dancing on top, but on top of the table there were only a few drinks and stretchtabs. Emerald and a few of the workers, mostly foxes, were sitting on the recessed seats around it, and opposite from the door sat a human that she guessed was August. They all looked similar to her, but she could tell he wore glasses and had short brown hair, two things Zoimorphs never had. They probably made them without the genes that caused the defects and as for the hair she could not imagine it being practical at all and it was probably more time consuming than taking care of her thin fur. He looked young though, definitely in his 20s

“Come and sit, you look like you had a rough week, didnt you?” He asked, and his candidness surprised her. She removed her visor and sat opposite to him, when she looked down to place the visor on the mirrored top of the table she saw how much of a mess she looked like, her eyes were tired and bloodshot, the skin on her eyelids shading her fur a darker color instead of blushy pink.

“I could say I did” Beryl agreed, nodding.

“And it's why you’re here, i'm guessing. Here, have a drink.” He pushed a cup and it slid across the surface to her. Reaching for the bottle she realized it was that same bottle of whiskey she would see often at the waste processing facility. The smell that came out of it was the same of the crap she used to clean the tanks, and when she drank she guessed it tasted the same too. She did her best to swallow it, after noticing how it affected her.

August chuckled “there's always a first time, don't worry!”

The door opened and Beryl turned around to see who it was, it was that fox from the cage, just now covered in a red silk robe, she stayed by the door and kept her visor on. August nodded to her and kept talking.

“So what can I do for you?”

Beryl rubbed her eyes, maybe she was too sore and tired for this “Have you heard of that accident at the waste treatment plant? zone B2.”

“Why, yes they still haven’t restored the water supply at my home”

“I was involved in that, it was not my fault, and i’m sure they are doing their best so i take all the blame”

“Who would ‘they’ be?” He asked

“That's what i need to know, but what i know for sure is that there was some manipulation done to the data recorders, because according to the Overseer’s office, i was not there, when actually i was scheduled to work. They did not send a rescue team and the construction guys that came in to survey the area were surprised I was there.”

“So you think this was political in nature? sabotage?” He sounded like he already knew the answer but actually saying it was complicated, Beryl knew that feeling very well, so she just nodded. “It's what I thought it would be when Emerald told me what she knew…”

“So, Beryl right?” She nodded, “Alright, do you know the history of the Zoimorphs?” It was a trick question because he surely knew more than her, she played his game anyway.

“Humans require more resources, the ship would never sustain as many passengers if we weren’t here to work.” She told him what she was taught. A little part of her brain always told her it was bullshit, it had to be.

“And that's a blatant lie” He told her with a grin, at that moment she felt her sister’s hand holding hers. “Our ship, the Atmos, was perfectly capable of functioning with a fully human crew, if our consumption of resources was carefully controlled, if however class segregation was established it could allow a small percentage of the population to consume way more. Some thirty years after the launch, not long after communication with Earth was no longer possible, the ideological make-up of the council changed a lot and became more conservative.”

“But how do you sell that idea to people, I mean, creating an underclass, when things were working just fine? The propaganda at the time blamed the current model for that generation’s poor fertility rate, of course.”

“So by selling the idea that we would consume less than the human workers, there would be more resources for the rest?” Beryl guessed, pouring herself another glass of whisky.

August went on to answer “time, they argued. People with more time on their hands would be less reluctant to have more children, that wasn’t true and it didn't work. The Atmos human population never grew back to what it was at launch.”

“That's vile,” Emerald said.

“And a lot of humans don't want to think about it too hard, they don't want to deal with the fact that they could be doing something about it, that it's unjust.” August said raising his voice

“So there's a lot of people in the council that are willing to use that to their advantage?” Beryl asked.

“Yes,” August concluded. “they will pander to these people as much as they can, people who think the more you suffer, the more resources are left for them, so when a catastrophe like what you went through happens-”

“Then making our lives worse would solve it? really? people think that?!” Beryl shouted, her sister moved the cup away from her.

“Sadly yes, but dad has been risking his ass for his whole career to change that, and so do i.” He did appear moved by the subject at least.

Then Beryl asked him “Why? What's in it for you?”

August looked in the direction of the tall dancer for a second and smiled fondly. So they were together? Maybe the vixen was just desperately holding on to someone that would keep her safe, but she was not in position to judge her since she was doing the same thing.

“Maybe I’ll tell you later, sadly we don't have the whole night. For now we will just jailbreak your implant and your stretchtab, you will not be monitored anymore and we will be able to send information to you when necessary. Then you’ll have to find a way to get clues from what really happened at the plant. My side of it is to find clues in the habitat, from whatever leads you find. I would not call it a deal though.”

“It is in the sense that if i don't do this something terrible could happen to me.” She reminded him.

“Okay that's true, but not from us.”

She could be arrested, and she didn't really know what happened to anyone that was arrested for longer than a few weeks, and she really did not want to know.

August got up and walked to where she was “So, hand me your Stretchtab?”

She took it out of her wrist and handed it to him, the vixen brough over a device that latched onto it and began to type things on it. “So no more monitoring?” She asked.

“None of the automated kind, same for your implant, speaking of that, you’ll have to undress. It's not invasive, I swear.” he did not sound like he was eager to do that, so she complied and sat on the table. She went back to biting her lip, the wound opening again.

“Does it hurt too bad?” She asked meekly.

“I have to stick my fingers into your exit sphincter to reach the magnetic port of the implant, so it should be uncomfortable” Hearing that made her cower and cover the area with her palm. “Sorry there's no other way to do software updates without it going to the wireless network.”

Her sister sat beside her “It’s really quick, don’t worry”

She uncovered the area, watching him carefully as he put on a glove and squeezed a wire between his index and middle fingers. August glanced at the vixen and confirmed that she had plugged the wire into the same device that jailbroke her Stretchpad. He covered his fingers with gel and pushed them inside. He pushed them inside, in the end, his hand didn't go in further than his wrist. Beryl groaned and panted when he spun it slightly, searching for the right spot until there was a click and he pulled his hand out, the wire staying in.

“Didn’t hurt right?” He asked, looking worried, Beryl just shook her head.

“Still awful.” She commented, cringing.

“Just give us a few minutes to run the program.” He said sitting on the table as well, now holding her Stretchtab in his strange hands.

This was so new to her, not only having a wire coming out of her like that, but feeling safe next to a human. Still, August was not like other humans she had spoken to so maybe he truly cared, it was just so hard to accept that. She looked over at her sister, who still held to her hand, hers missing her own’s dark spots. She wondered what made August join the movement, but didn’t think of asking why her sister did it.

“Emerald, what made you join these people?”

There was someone pounding at the door, August pulled on the wire and rolled it, shoving all his equipment back into a bag in a hurry. The vixen moved away from the door and pulled a pistol out of her robe, keeping it pointed at the only exit.

The door slammed open and a bright flash blinded her, then it all went dark.