|Viraliv|[17-21]Ciusir-Bi|Umaek|Sol|Mars|
12,763,892,458cy
Black site “Last Resort”, Medium Mars orbit
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The time has come. With a few days worth of strategic cutesy eyes and insistent questioning of when she’ll be able to explore on her own, plus the killer move that this place would surely be rich enough to protect a bunch of kids; Glena was able to secure her total freedom. The ability to move around the station as Glena wants would allow her to see all sorts of sites that she wasn’t before, not to mention being able to see Theo. Speaking of Theo, he’s likely hungry by now, the multitudes of sandwiches Glena gave him wouldn’t have lasted this long. She wonders at how Theo usually gets by, maybe he has a job here?
The next day, after getting a preemptive lecture by her parents, Glena went to the spot where she had originally met Theo. Looking around for him, she couldn’t find him but maybe he was busy. After all, last time she met him it was around lunch time and right now it was closer to breakfast. Deciding to waste some time until then, Glena goes to look for some clothes for Theo, his patchy worn-out clothes from before probably don’t do a very good job at keeping him warm. Finding a basic jacket and a random t-shirt with some jeans, the ones with lots of pockets, she looks at a clock and sees that she still has a lot of time left. She decides to just walk around, maybe she can find something interesting to pass the time, or find Theo in some other spot.
Walking around, Glena spots a curious little creature in a nearby bio-dome. It looked like some kind of a small rodent, the sign says it’s a rat, and it’s currently running around in a little wheel. Other rats are in the dome as well, though they don’t seem as energetic as the one Glena first noticed. The sign says that these are the types of rats that scientists, before humans became a multi-system race, used to do experiments on. It seems like the wheel was one of the many types of test these rats were subjected to. Glena thinks it’s funny, in a morbid way, how one could be living their lives not knowing whether they were just in one big experiment or not. How would one tell that the things around them are a fabricated setting and would one care since it would be true to them?
That would be scary, Glena shakes her head as if to shake away the thoughts too. She continued to walk around until it was midday and went over to the spot again, hopefully Theo would be there by now. Though she can’t be mad if he’s not, seeing as how it’s been a little over a week since their first encounter. Luck has it that this time Theo wasn’t there, just in case Glena bought some food and put it in the spot. Maybe Theo will come across it on his day to day.
The next day was different though, Glena decided to go to the spot midday and wasted time by going to an arcade and playing around. Playing the latest VR games was fun even if she normally doesn’t play those kinds of games. In the arcade she found some kids her age and talked to them a bit, maybe they could even become friends. Before she knew it it was already midday, she quickly made it to the spot through the metal jungle that is the station. When she got to the spot where she last put the food it wasn’t there, just then Theo poked his head out of the dark and said, “Hey”.
Just a simple hello had made Glena happy, maybe this time she can learn more about him or at least gain a little more trust. “Hello, did you like the food last time? Oh, also I got some clothes for you but I don’t have them on me right now so next time I’ll bring them.”
“Thanks, It’s not like I was waiting for you or anything, I just happened to come across it. I thought it was you anyway, you’re the only one who knows I'm here.”
“I’m the only one who knows you’re here? What do you do all day? I thought you worked somewhere on the station.” Glena asks, quite innocently.
Theo looks shocked and asks Glena, “What!? Why would I work on this damned station?”
Glena looks shocked by this too and says, “Then what do you do here and how did you even get here, this is a resort station you know?”
Theo looks at her with a sour face and says, “Whatever, I don't know how I got here all I know is that something isn’t right with this station. Whatever you think this station is, it isn’t.”
Glena asks him what he means but he doesn’t answer and just tells her that he doesn't really want to talk about it, only that Glena should be careful around everyone, security personnel and the people who wear masks especially. Before Glena could say anything else, Theo runs back into the darkness. Glena decides not to follow, she thinks it would be best to focus on gaining his trust before pushing for more information. However, she does take his advice to heart, she hasn’t noticed any masked people before but now that she’s aware of it she does see a few. Maybe one in every one-thousand people has a mask.
Glena’s curiosity inflates once more but to learn more she has to gain Theo’s trust. And so that’s what she sets out to do, over the coming week she spends more time with him, getting him food, and even playing basic games together. Glena’s efforts have paid off and Theo promised to tell her some information, it was obvious that he didn’t want to but that he was doing it out of some responsibility to protect his friend. Theo started with telling Glena how he got on the station to begin with, he obviously didn’t fit in. It turns out that Theo is from the neary planet, Mars, and that his parents are amongst the plethora of traders who provide resources to the station. He snuck aboard his parents ship to see the station that he has been told about so much yet had never seen. To do this he hid in one of the cargo boxes and planned to hop out once it stopped moving.
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However, luck would have it that his specific box he was in was transported differently to the majority of other cargo, he was put on a heavily guarded automated belt. This belt led to the black site where he was discovered when the workers were checking their orders. The lab needed human test subjects to continue their research and Theo happened to be the perfect candidate, a boy out of place with no link to the resort. He was experimented on for what he felt was a long time, he didn’t know how long really because he wasn’t treated like a human, placed in a clear box in the middle of the lab to be observed and with nothing to do he was turning more insane and desperate.
Theo got his chance to escape when some test subjects were being transported into the cage, frightened faces all around and some were attempting to fight back. In the midst of all of that chaos Theo thought this chance was the best he would get and rushed out of the cage, biting and kicking out of the grasps of any who dares to stop him. He escaped the inner lab but was still within the black site and with his escape known he knew he had very little time to find a solid escape. The next hour of his life was spent frantically running around, hiding in various rooms, and eventually scrabbling at a gate that he had found hoping that it led him somewhere safe. It did, somewhat, it was connected to a labyrinth of vents; some of the vents led to bare rooms that were often the homes of various small creatures living there.
Theo was lost in those tunnels for days, doing what needed to be done for survival; he often resorted to eating those small critters raw, single-mindedly living on with the hope of finding a way back home. Eventually he found a grate that led to the busy life of the station, seeing the various people filled Theo with hope again. He destroyed an already weakened panel in the attempt to get out of the tunnels. However, with his freedom gained now he had to think of his next step, how could he get home? He didn’t know back then and that was nearly three months ago, he still doesn’t have a solid plan; just surviving everyday requires most of his attention. Not to mention, with how big this station is, he doesn’t even know where the docks are, nor what ship is going to where, nor how to pilot a ship.
Glena’s face crumpled throughout the story, not knowing how miserable he must have been throughout and understanding why he refused to tell it until now. What shocked Glena the most was about the testing they were doing in this blacksite. Glena wasn’t sure if there was anything she could do about it, a child doesn’t have much of a voice and if she did say anything she would instantly become a target. Glena could tell that Theo didn’t want to talk anymore, about anything, so she decided to let him leave and think about ways that she could help him go home while waiting for their next meetings.
Glena left food at the meet-up location for several days, not wanting to talk to Theo until she had come up with an idea. Luckily it would be rather easy to get Theo to the docks, just getting him cleaned up a bit would do, the problem would be getting access to the hanger, finding a ship heading to Mars, and sneaking him aboard. Getting into the hanger would be a problem due to the security one has to go through to enter and exit the main station, Theo has no id nor parents nor luggage all of which is extremely suspicious. After that finding a ship going to Mars would be hard because the ships are owned by private companies or people, knowing their manifest would require getting onto the ship to begin with; Theo might be able to tell certain company logos of perhaps natural signs like Mars’ dust but that’s risky. After finding a ship going to Mars Theo would have to find a good and safe place to hide while not getting caught, though at that point it would all be up to Theo.
Glena met up with Theo and told him her plan, after hearing it he looked somewhat excited, though he still retained his sad looking face. Working out the details they decided to try to spy some weakness or some way around the hanger’s security checkpoints. Theo has gotten good at navigating the various vents and engineering shafts so they thought that might be the best way through. Even just a cursory look revealed many hatches and openings that could potentially lead to the hanger, Theo just has to check them out one by one; Glena bought him some material so he could map it out and they could make a more thorough plan. After a week had passed Theo was sure that he had mapped out all of the possible routes to the hanger and had specified a few of the easiest ones to traverse. All that was left was to find a way to figure out what ships were going where. Finding a ship that repeatedly docked would be best, especially if it came often because those are the ones that are traveling to places near the station, including Mars. This was the hardest and most risky part, both Theo and Glena would have to go ship to ship and check its logs or they could try and perceive a ship's destination which would be safer but riskier if it goes somewhere else than expected. However, Theo noticed a few ships that had various logos he had learned from his parents when they were discussing their trading businesses. The last step was to see which vessels returned often and then just take the plunge.
It took a little bit of time but Theo was pretty sure he’d found the ship that could take him back home, a Star-Bust luxury cruiser, a medium sized ship built for moving usually wealthy passengers. A ship big enough to hide away in and Theo could bluff his way out by pretending to be a passenger if caught. Theo was scared, Glena could tell because she was scared too. Even if she wasn’t the one having to do everything nor did she have to go through the things he did, fear feels infectious. They spent the last day before the escape sitting in an empty room in the vents, their hands around their knees and their knees held to their stomachs. No words were traded but they still talked, an unspoken connection that any creature with empathy could feel. They said goodbye together as they left the vents, the real goodbye would be tomorrow though.
The next day came and when Glena met up with Theo he looked a bit nervous, understandable for what is about to happen, she suggested that they should walk around a bit and have fun until then. He said no, the black site people might recognize him; it reminded her that even though she’s helping him she’s still detracted from the situation. Glena just focused on telling him stories or talking about random things to keep his mind off of it but it didn’t seem to really work. Eventually the time came to start their plan.