Petra led them to the back of the bar, to a table that was obscured from sight by a half-wall. It was cramped, difficult to get to, and TO honestly felt as though someone had shoved the table there after finishing everything else; like someone had found one more table that had to be put out and they simply crammed it anywhere they could. Still, once they sat, TO found that the wall muffled the awful caterwauling enough that it was mere background noise.
“Sorry.” Petra said as she sat down, “If I had known it was open mic night, I’d have suggested somewhere else.”
“It’s fine.” TO said as they slid into the narrow seat at the booth. They didn’t have enough space, they could feel their shoes sticking to the floor, and the smell was worse in the back corner, but there was one enormous advantage; they could hear here. Thanks to the music, it would also be difficult for someone to listen in on them. They didn’t know if they had to worry about the Insurgency spying on them here, but it was best - in their mind- to be cautious at every step.
They had let their guard down once in the Outer Ring. That wouldn’t happen again.
“Where’s Lendulin?” DH asked as they slid into the booth next to TO, hissing in pain as they smacked their knee off the underside of the table.
“She thought she had her chair fixed, but something broke off the wheel while they were heading to the tubes. She sends her apologies though and says she was looking forward to seeing you again.”
“We wanted to invite Pearla too.” DH said, “But we didn’t have her contact information.”
“Yeah... Sorry about her the other day, by the way. She’s always cautious around… well, around strangers.” She shrugged apologetically, “She’s nice, but she has a ‘Better safe than sorry, better paranoid than dead’ Kind of mentality.”
“It’s fine.” TO said, “Maybe you can talk to her about this afterwards.” What would happen to Pearla once this was over? Once they dealt with the insurgency and everything was getting sorted out in the end, would she be exiled? Executed?
“Right. What’s this about?” Petra asked as she tapped a clawed hand on the table, her tail flicking. In the seat next to her, “You made it sound like you wanted to do more than just have a drink with a friend.”
“Ah.. right; Drinks…” TO looked around, thinking they should call someone over, but because of the half-wall they couldn’t see anyone. “How do we-“
Petra smirked and tapped on the table, which displayed a menu. She looked over it, and double tapped on something. “You go through this, and just tap on what you want. What, you’ve never been to a normal bar?”
“Normal?”
“You know, one with interactive menus instead of servers.”
“Something like that.” TO said as they looked at the menu, pretending to read. They were really thinking, preparing themself for what they were about to do. Their entire plan right now involved them lying a lot, and though TO was certain that Petra couldn’t read ears, the idea of lying made their stomach knot up.
It wasn’t like she could do anything about it, even if she did. Still, TO was nervous.
DH finally double tapped on a drink, and without reading it, TO ordered the same drink. Petra then tapped at an icon near the bottom and the menu disappeared.
“They’ll be here soon.” She said, “Now; what do you need?”
They had practiced this in the same way they had practiced their conversations with other synths when they worked in Operational Efficiency. They had practiced with DH, and in their head over and over.
“Well… As you know, we’re here hoping to start a business-“
“Yes, and probably you’ll be fine. I mean, since you ended up at the government house at the welcome for those damn synths”
TO winced at the venom in her voice, “Well, they didn’t catch you that night, so they’re not a problem, right?”
“That’s not…” she sighed, “Nevermind. Go on.”
The bite in her voice had thrown TO, and it took them a moment to gather themself one more. “Well, I think we mentioned we came here without an actual plan. We wanted to see what things were like, and what business we might run here first before making an actual plan.”
“Must be nice to just go to another planet without a plan. Go on.”
TO felt their ears sink back; was she angry with them? It was hard to pick up on her tone.
“We want to do something good.” DH said, picking up where TO had dropped the conversation, “We want to make things better.”
She gave a short bark of laughter. “You want to make things better through a business?” She shook her head, her tail slapping the seating, “You won’t last long here then.”
A circular hole opened up in the center of the table, allowing a platform from below to rise, bringing with it three drinks. Petra had ordered a beer; amber and foamy, while DH and TO had ordered bright orange drinks in a tall glass.
“Hammerheads.” DH said in Synthspeak, “I already checked them; they should be fine for us to drink. High alcohol content but nothing we can’t handle.”
TO nodded, took a sip, and set the drink down. They’d wait a few minutes before they tried any more; by then they’d know if it was dangerous for them, or if it had been poisoned. “Why do you think we won’t last?” TO asked.
Petra took a long drink of her beer, setting the glass down heavily on the tabletop, “Because you won’t.” She said with a shrug, “You want to run a business? You have to fuck someone over. That’s how businesses run- no... that’s how they survive.”
“That’s not true.” DH said. They gestured to the blue dress they were wearing. “The shop where I bought this; only one person worked there, and they made all their clothing themself-“
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“Where’s the fabric from?” She asked, leaning forward.
“… What?”
“The fabric? Where’s it from? Where are the raw materials from? How was it woven? If it’s any kind of cotton, then the people who grew it probably went into massive debt to get the machinery and seeds for it. They probably paid the people who harvested it as little as possible to make up for that loss. Children probably wove it together.” She gestured to her own top, a plain garment that was slung over her head and tied around her thighs as to accommodate her wings. “This is synthetic; cheap as dirt. The people who made the fabric were probably working to pay off debt, not for actual money. They likely breathed in a lot of nasty shit to get it made. Since it’s cheap, kids probably wove and stitched it on some moon somewhere.”
“Why are you wearing it?” DH asked, still holding onto the fabric of their own shirt in their hands.
“Because I can’t sew myself? Because I can’t afford the high end shit people can feel good about buying? Because nudity is kinda frowned upon, and honestly I don’t have the self-confidence for that lifestyle, anyway.” She shrugged, “I need to wear clothes, and cheap shit made by the suffering of others is all I can afford.”
“OK, but there’s laws against all that.” DH said, frowning, “King Decon-“
“Ah, yes. King Decon.” She leaned forward, giving them a sickly sweet smile as she rested her chin in her hand. “Tell me all about King Decon. What does He say about all this?”
DH frowned, their ears pinning back. “Well… well, there’s a certain wage that people need to receive, depending on their planet’s economy. A living wage-“
“That’s the ideal, yes.” Petra said, “But most factories have their employees sign contracts when they start, saying they agree to working longer hours, to fewer breaks, to lesser pay…” She shrugged, “And when the alternative is a crappy job, or no job and no money, well, most people take the crappy job.” She took another drink. “Oh! That’s not counting the indebted. If you owe someone -a company or a government- money, you can make a deal with them to pay it off through work.”
“Which is fair, right? If someone is in debt, that’s their own fault, isn’t it?”
The look that she gave them made even TO shrink in their seat.
“Say someone gets sick; they get a bad flu or something. Health and safety regulations say that they have to be without symptoms for three days before returning to work, and say they cannot work sick. That’s fair; you don’t want to get sicker, and you don’t want to make other people sick.”
“Right, and they won’t lose their job if they’re out sick.” DH said.
“HOWEVER, let’s say this person we’re imagining is sick for a week. Then they wait another three days to be symptom free. All that time, they have no pay; no money. They’re short on their rent come the end of the month, so they borrow from the Housing Commission. So long as they pay that back within the next month, there’s no interest, but most people in that situation are just scraping by; every penny they make is FOR something. So, they take what little savings they have, and try to pay it off. Maybe they eat a little less, and go without a few things they need. Maybe they can pay it off in that month, but if they can’t then the interest goes up; it skyrockets. Now they have to pay back more, so they cut back more. Maybe they get sick again because they’re eating less, or not turning on the heat. Maybe their communicator breaks, and they need a new one.” She shook her head. “There’s a million things that can go wrong! Now, not only are they behind on their debt, but now they don’t have money for their rent again. Maybe they don’t have money for food.” She held up her hand, two fingers raised up, “There’s two options; Go hungry and homeless… or go into the debtors program.”
“And if that’s the worst case… that’s not too bad, is it? The debt gets paid off, and they get to go back to their normal lives.” DH said. Petra shook her head, snorting.
“You really are naïve, aren’t you?” She said, “To start, the debtors program puts you in an awful, cramped dorm. If you go in as a family, you’re all separated. You can work off your debt, but you also have to work off the money spent to house and feed you, and interest on top of all of it. Many people go into the program, and just live there for the rest of their lives.”
“… That happens?” TO asked, their voice quiet.
“All the damned time.” Petra said as she took another drink, “And it all follows King Dick’s grand plan for the galaxy.”
DH, who had been taking another sip of their own drink, choked as Petra spoke. TO put a hand on their back, gently patting them and trying to help them.
“I’m sorry, what?!” they said, their voice hoarse and raspy.
Petra shrugged, “I reserve the right to call anyone a dick if I think it fits.” She said, “He sets up these plans that let well-off people like you- “She pointed an accusing finger at DH, “Feel happy about things. Makes you think that people on the bottom are there because they’re lazy, or it’s their own fault. It’s just enough to let you feel better about yourselves.”
“‘You lot?’” Despite their anger, DH’s ears quivered in confusion.
“You lot. The rich. People who can just fuck off to another planet and scope it out to see if it fits their wish to start a business.”
The conversation reminded TO of Ark-1. Of how certain sacrifices had to be made to keep the peace of the galaxy. They kept certain laws vague to placate the civilians.
Which civilians? Clearly not civilians like Petra. Clearly not the ones getting into these situations.
“Don’t you worry about talking about King Decon like that?” DH hissed.
“Not really; I’m sure he has better things to do than chase after me. What’s he gonna do, send his damned synths after me for calling him a dick?”
DH’s ears pinned back, and their upper lip curled to reveal their teeth. TO put their hand on DH’s thigh under the table, giving them a squeeze to calm them. Scaring her off wouldn’t help them get closer to her friends; to Pearla.
“We… I never considered that…’’ TO said, keep their tone even though even their ears pinned back in anger, “But we want to do good. We want to do what we can, even if it’s small.” They took a sip of their drink before continuing; it had a slightly fruity taste, but TO could easily feel the alcohol burn as it went down their throat. How strong did the civilians make their drinks? “I was thinking about the whole thing with Lendulin’s chair.” They said, going back to their practiced lines, “And thought maybe that could be a starting point. That’s why I was hoping to talk to her… Well, her and Pearla.”
“Why Pearla?”
“Well, she’s legless too. I figured there might be mobility things she struggles with as well.”
Petra looked at TO, confused. “You… You want to focus your business on the legless?”
“There’s a need for it.” DH said; they had calmed down a little, even though their ears were still pinned back, “Celesto said that he couldn’t make clothing to accommodate Lendulin. If other businesses aren't accommodating the legless, then we could.”
“This…” TO lowered their voice, as though afraid of being overheard; it was all an act of course, “This all really started when we were discussing… The insurgency.”
“Is that so?” She leaned on her hand, watching TO carefully.
“Well, they have a lot of civilian support-“
“For good reason.”
TO nodded, “Exactly! For good reason! We want to find out what that reason is! We want to help! If an issue is bad enough that it creates an insurgency, then it’s important enough for us to help with, right?”
Petra gave TO a hard stare as she took another drink. She finished the contents of her glass, set it down on the table, and double tapped next to the glass. A smaller hole opened up on the table and took the glass away.
“What if I said you’d never make money doing this?” She said, “There’s no money to be made from helping us; we have no money. Most of us have negative money.”
TO gave a grin, and answered truthfully, “None of this is about the money.”
She stared at them, not breaking eye contact even as a fresh glass of beer came up. Finally, she took it, took a drink, and laughed.
“Dumbasses.” She said, “But sure. I’m curious to see where this goes. What do you need?”