Outside, back in the sun, Scarlet felt herself calm some more, as if she had just left the den of a vicious beast. She wasn’t quite sure why she had been so disturbed by the Doctor’s talk, it wasn’t as if he was the first who wanted her in a specific role, maybe gaining his patronage and protection would even be the best for her. But it disturbed her and if there was one thing she had learned on the streets, it was to trust her instincts.
Looking around, she noticed Keera standing together with the gate-guard, smiling and talking. Just in the short moment she was watching, Keera moved closer to him, putting her hand on his chest, the very picture of a flirting woman. Slightly shaking her head, she understood that Keera was planning to use the next few days in town to establish herself, using whatever means necessary to get a position for her, even if it was on her knees or back. It was the one thing Scarlet had always avoided, even if she wasn’t quite sure why. It was the one thing she had never done, even when she had been forced to beg or, more often, steal, she had never resorted to that. Looking back, she knew that she was more willing to murder than to let anyone have their way with her.
“There you are. Come, I’ll show you where you can sleep.” Aida’s voice spoke up behind Scarlet, causing her to quickly turn and internally curse, she had been too distracted by her thoughts and failed in her vigilance. Luckily, it was only the Doctor’s assistant and not someone with a knife destined for her back.
“Sure, thanks.” Scarlet answered, forcing a smile and her mind into a vigilant state so nobody would be able to sneak up on her.
“Your friend seems to have found someone else to flirt with.” Aida said with a soft snort, causing Scarlet to raise an eyebrow in question.
“Oh, she tried it with me the first day. Did she never try her moves on you?” Aida continued, almost causing Scarlet to stumble. Just remembering what she had done to keep Keera off balance and in her place, made it a necessity to clamp down on her embarrassment, or she would have blushed bright red.
“No, she never did. Maybe I’m just not pretty enough.” Scarlet allowed, trying to laugh it off.
“Don’t worry, that’s not it, Sweety.” Aida answered, with a smile, her tongue darting out to softly lick her lips. Now, Scarlet did stumble and blushed brightly red.
“Don’t joke with me, please. You said you’d show me where to sleep?” Scarlet managed to keep her voice steady as she admonished Aida.
It was not something she wanted to even think about. Letting people in, letting them that close to you, it was not healthy. Even if she was able to dominate a normal person like Aida, turning her into nothing more than a puppet, unless she was certain it wouldn’t get her killed by an enraged Doctor, she wouldn’t risk it.
“You are a shy one? Fine, fine, don’t get your underwear in a twist.” Aida smirked and they continued on in silence.
Scarlet looked around, noticing that there were two types of buildings, one were modern looking, prefabricated buildings that looked incredibly uniform, as if they were all built from the same mold, using duracrete, glass and plasteel, and the other were… not. The second type of buildings were all unique in their construction, the only commonality was that they were all built out of wood, rock and some glass. It made her curious, obviously, those buildings were not built by the Federation or by their orders, so who lived there. Breaking the silence, she asked Aida.
“Those? Once you established yourself, you’ll probably leave the barracks. That means you want something for yourself, especially for the guys that’s true, they use the combination of having their own building and a promise of protection to lure one of the girls into a relationship. The rest of the normal girls, without a protector, have banded together, protecting each other as best as they can. I told you before, there are not too many females here on Verdun, so there is some competition between the guys, competing who’s the top dog. But they are all dogs.” Aida explained and Scarlet noticed some anger in her voice.
Scarlet understood, it was a transaction as old as humanity itself. And not one she would ever voluntarily take part in, at least not as commodity.
“Here, there we are.” Aida announced, opening one of the larger prefabbed buildings and gesturing for Scarlet to enter. Inside was a long hallway, a box similar to a mailbox on the wall to their right. Down the hallway, was a multitude of doors and on each door was a small box.
Aida reached into the large box, pulling a sheet of paper out. Scarlet could make out a list of sorts, but not more, due to her position and the dim light in the hallway. Aida grumbled for a moment, before pulling a pencil from her pocket and writing on the sheet.
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“Great, we’ve got you a room. The rooms are numbered one to twelve, even numbers on your left, odd numbers on your right. You’ll sleep in room seven, there was an opening. If you are interested, Keera is in room four, I prefer to spread the psions out, just in case.” Aida explained, even if she failed to say in case of what. Scarlet had a pretty good idea, it was in case of attack, either of two-legged foes or many-legged foes from outside the walls.
Aida went ahead, to the fourth door on the right side, opening it and letting Scarlet witness her new, official quarters. Not that she was planning to spend a lot of time here, but it was where she would sleep when in town.
The room was empty, apart from the furniture. There were five bunk beds, one on the far side, between two windows, and two each on either side. On one end of each bunk bed was a closet, each with two doors. All but one of the closet-doors were closed and all but one mattresses had some bedding on them. The one exception was the upper mattress between the windows, making it quite obvious where Scarlet would be expected to sleep.
“If you want, you can take a load off and I’ll introduce you to one of your dorm-mates.” Aida told her, grabbing a sheet of paper from the box outside, one that was looking similar to the one in the first box. Again, she read for a moment, mumbling to herself.
“Ah, yes, there it is. Come, I’ll introduce you to Butch.” Aida said, a smirk back on her face. Scarlet was wondering what was going on in the others mind.
“Come, come, you’ll want to meet her, right?” Aida gently grabbed her hand when Scarlet made no move to put her pack down and pulled her out of the room and even the building. Once they were back outside, Aida let her hand drop waiting for Scarlet to move beside her.
“Butch is currently on laundry duty, that means she’s at the river. We’ll have to go outside, but that shouldn’t be a problem.” Aida announced, quickly walking to another part of town that Scarlet had not seen yet, until they got to another gate. Only this one was open, with a guard standing slightly outside of it. He, as the Doctor and the guard at the other gate, had a belt-pouch that Scarlet started to associate with Psions. Reflexively, she looked for the telltale signals and quickly found them. The guard was no powerhouse but he wasn’t a slouch. He gave a friendly smile and nod to Aida, before a measuring gaze settled on Scarlet.
“That’s one of the Newcomers?” he asked, looking at Aida.
“Why, yes. Dale, meet Scarlet. I was just about to introduce her to Butch, the two of them will room together.” Aida explained, causing a surprised expression to settle on Dale’s face, if only for a moment.
“Are you sure…?” he started, only to be cut off by Aida.
“Of course I’m sure, it’s a great idea.” Aida explained, the smirk back on her face. Dale just shrugged, causing Scarlet to wonder what the deal was, as there clearly was one.
Outside town, Scarlet was able to see the fields, row after row of plants, with men walking around everywhere. It looked almost like some old documentary from earth, but there were no beasts of burden or technology visible. Just manual laborers, toiling with their hand and body, using quality versions of primitive tools. A bit apart, next to the river, was another group of people, standing at the water, causing suds to float downwards.
“As a general rule, you want to go to the middle part of the river to wash yourself, or to the small channel inside the walls. To get drinking water, better go upstream of town. If you piss or shit into the water upstream and near town, expect to get lynched. Simple rules, really. Just remember that the river is our main water source and if you or anyone soils it, the town might just die.” Aida explained while walking towards the washing people, looking around every now and then. Scarlet mirrored her vigilance and noticed that quite a few guys stopped to point, but she wasn’t sure if they were pointing at her or Aida.
Soon, they were at the river and Aida called out to someone. “Butch? There you are Butch.” she said, her smirk back in full force.
Butch, the, likely, woman she was walking towards, looked up and Scarlet instantly understood where the name came from. She was easily as tall as Keera, maybe even taller, standing almost two meters tall and looked, in a single word, mean. She reminded Scarlet of a few of the female gang-members she had seen while living on the streets, not the dolls that some of them kept around for other things but those that had gotten their place in the gang the old-fashioned way. While Keera looked to have more muscles, that Butch-woman looked like she knew her way in a streetfight and Scarlet would have placed almost any bet that she had at least one knife hidden on her person.
“Aida?! What do you want?” The woman asked, her voice curiously controlled, making Scarlet wonder what emotion she was forcing down.
“Why, I wanted you to meet your newest roommate. Meet Scarlet, she came here just five days ago, so tonight is her first night in town. When I saw that the room you live in had an opening, I just had to put her there.” Aida explained, her smirk getting deeper.
For a moment, the woman’s eyes stuck to Aida before scanning over Scarlet, her eyebrows rising just a little when passing her middle.
“Well, hello, I guess. Gotta go back to work.” she explained, not letting Scarlet get a word in. Aida frowned for a moment, before turning back to Scarlet.
“I’ll go back to town. Want to join me?” she asked, her face showing a bit of disappointment
“No, I don’t think so. If Keera, or anyone, asks, I’m back out there, probably back in a week or so.” Scarlet announced, before starting off, this time walking south instead of north. Going without Keera was a risk but also an opportunity to get some power that nobody knew about. It might be the difference between living and dying, if it ever came to that.