Mira slid into the empty seat next to the person Beck had pointed out, nudging him with her thin elbow.
“Hey friend.” She said, her voice taking on an uncharacteristic sing-song tone. “It’s been a while.”
From his head to the tips of his tentacles the man turned deep red for a moment, then when he turned and saw Mira the color relaxed to a blue. “Mira.” He said, a smile flickering across his face, “It has been a while.” He frowned, his color darkening, “What, if you’re in here-“
“Your family’s fine.” Mira said quickly, lowering her voice, “I’m just in here visiting with some friends.” She gestured to TO and Pearla, who stood behind her. “This is Tio, and I think you know Pearla already.”
“I do.” He said, nodding to Pearla, “Shame you’re in here. You did a lot of good for people in the outer ring; my family included.”
“Pearla, this is Leanaran; He came here with his wife when they were young during one of the migration events.”
“I think I know your wife.” Pearla said, “Anomora, right?”
Leanaran brightened as he heard his wife’s name, “Yes, that’s her.” He said, “Is she doing well? I saw that there was a lot of trouble in the outer ring. I know she’s not in the underground, but even so…”
“She’s fine.” Mira said “I checked on her. She’s keeping her head low for now.”
“That’s good.” He said, his color shifting once more to a lighter blue, “So what are you doing in here then?”
Mira lowered her voice to a whisper and murmured to Leanaran for a minute. Normally TO would have been able to hear but because of all the surrounding noise they couldn’t make out anything. A few times, Leanaran glanced back at Pearla, but he ignored TO mostly.
“We can do the same for you.” She said after a while, dropping the careful whispers. “You, and your family. You can go on a trip once you’re out of here.”
“… I take on ‘extra work’ because I want to get out of here.” He said, “And I’m very careful because I know if something happens to me, if I die before I work off my debt, or if I were to, say, disappear, then they’d go after my family instead.” He raised a hairless brow, “I’m happy to help you with the communicator- I owe you that much at least, but if something goes wrong with the other stuff-”
“I can’t talk about a lot of details.” Mira said, “But you and your family should come with us.”
“The risks though… if we got caught-“
“It’ll be worth the risk, and much better than the alternative.” She reached out and grasped his arm with her thin hand, “We have a small group of people we need to find, but after that we’re getting who we can out. “
He frowned, glanced back at Pearla, briefly at TO, then back to Mira, “… Something’s going to happen, isn’t it?”
“I can’t say that right now.” Mira said.
“How bad though?”
“Bad.”
“… And I’m guessing you haven’t told too many other people, have you?” Leanaran asked as he glanced around.
“We haven’t.” Mira said. “… Though on that note, we told Beck. She was absolutely not interested. Do I have to be worried about her-“
“Oh, no.” He said, “She keeps herself to herself. She skirts the rules to make life liveable, but does nothing to get herself more time or make life harder. Nah, I don't think you have to worry about her.” He paused, frowning at the bowl of sludge that he was eating. “Though… I can remind her it’s best if she keeps quiet about things that don’t concern her-”
“No, no.” Pearla said quickly, “She’s sweet, I don’t want her hurt.”
“She wouldn’t get hurt, but fine.” He said. He lowered his voice further so once more TO couldn’t hear him. When he was done, Mira nodded.
“Alright.” He said as he went back to his meal, “I’ll give you everything tonight. Go to the cage around midnight; I should have everything by then.”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Alright.” Mira said as she got up, “Enjoy your supper.”
“This slop?” Leanaran gestured to the beige substance in the bowl, “Not a chance. You’d better go grab some before they're out; it’s the best food you’ll get in here.”
“Alright, thanks.” Mira said as she got up and pulled Pearla and TO away. Someone else was already loitering around, trying to get their seat, waiting to talk to Leanaran about something, and Mira had hardly left the seat before they slipped in and pulled them away.
“Come on.” She said as she pulled them towards a queue at the other end of the room, “We should eat something; I’ll fill you in once we have some food.”
======
By the time they got to the front of the line the beige slop had run out and they were serving a strange looking grey slime in its place.
“Is this edible?” TO muttered to themself as they eyed the somewhat gelatinous substance as settled in their bowl. .
“Barely.” The server said––from their uniform, it was easy to tell they were also indebted. “You’re lucky though; we’re almost out of the defrosted stuff. Soon we’ll be selling slime-pops.”
TO’s ears pinned in disgust. Was this really what they were serving the indebted? How was this allowed?
They of course knew the answer to that.
“Come on TO.” Pearla said, pushing TO forward, “let’s go.”
They took their ‘food’ and finding no tables available they instead found a section of freed up wall where they could sit and eat and talk.
“Couldn’t we go back to the dormitory and eat?” TO offered as they shook their bowl, watching the goo jiggle. “It’d be quieter-“
“Yeah, that’s the problem.” Mira said. She held the bowl up to her face and sniffed it before dipping her finger in. A small amount stuck to her fingertip, and she gingerly licked it off. “Eh, I’ve had worse.” She declared before she started eating.
“You doin’ alright?” Pearla asked as she put a hand on TO’s shoulder, “headache?”
“It will be.” TO muttered as they rubbed their head. “Why is this better?”
“Because it’s harder to make out what people are saying here.” Mira said, “Be careful what you say, and keep your voice down. Nobody cares much about what we say here, so nobody’s going to pay much attention to us.”
“Makes sense.” TO grumbled. They didn’t like it, but it was the same principle as playing music in their bunk when they wanted to talk to DH, GiDi, and Avery back in training; any devices recording them would struggle to pick up what they were saying.
“So what’s happening?” Pearla asked. “He’ll help us-“
“He’ll help us, Yes.” Mira said, “He’ll help us get our communicator back, and find the people we’re looking for, but in return he has a list of people he wants to get out.”
“Well, we can get them-“
“But they’re not all in here.” She said, “He said some of them have families on the outside like he does. So, him and his family at least; that’s four people.”
Pearla sighed, “I was hoping to get more people out of here…” She said, “but really we’re in here to get people caught up in that raid on the underground, so we can reunite some families. I suppose it’s the same idea…”
“Basically.” Mira said. “I didn’t think it was a problem, and of course without him we won’t have any help.”
“And it was a good idea to tell him?” TO asked, “You were worried about Beck telling the Superior- sorry, no, the guards that we’re planning something, so aren’t you worried about him?”
“He owes me, and he knows if I’m in here, I can’t help his family.”
“Right.” Pearla said, “What's with that?”
“Oh, his family went into debt after a bout of sickness in their kids. The medicine was free, but not the extra food they needed. Anomora had to stay home to take care of them since they couldn’t go to school until school doctors passed them. Things piled up, they went into debt and lost their rental. They had one of those little worker flats near their workplace in the second ring.”
“So.. they came to the outer ring?”
“Well, they were going to be taken into the indebetted system, but he took on all the debt for him and his wife so the kids wouldn’t go into the system. She went to the outer ring, and he went into the system.”
“And you help them now?” TO asked as they poked at the slime in the bowl. What was even in it? Was it something a Chilacian could eat?
The thought hit TO suddenly; Chilacian, not synth. When did that happen? When did they consider themself a Chilacian before a synth?
“I was friends with Leanaran beforehand.” She said, “There was nothing sinister or shadowy or anything like that; we were just friends. We got along well, went for drinks. I watched the kids a few times. When shit went sideways, I told him I’d take care of his family as best I could. Made sure they had a roof over their head, food to eat, and medicine when people got sick.” She glanced at Pearla, “Of course, half of that was me going to Pearla and giving her the supplies to bring to them.” She looked back at TO, “But yeah, he’s safe. He’d do nothing to cause me any grief.”
“Wow Mira.” Pearla said with a grin, “I didn’t think you were so trusting.”
“Hey now.” Mira said as her expression hardened, and her antenna twitched, “Don’t get me wrong; I like him, and I trust he loves his family. If something happens to me here, then nobody is watching out for his family. He has a personal interest in helping me.“
TO didn’t know him, and didn’t know how close he actually was to his family, but if Mira trusted him… well, at the very least TO knew what they themself would do for their own ‘family.’
Speaking of, if DH was here, they’d be telling TO to at least try to eat something. They followed Mira’s lead, dipping their finger into the slime and letting a small amount of it stick to their finger. It had such an odd texture; squishy to a point until it gave up and stuck to the skin, and formed a long trail of goo from the bowl to TO’s fingers, shaking in the air for a moment before it gave way and snapped in two.
With a resigned sigh, they popped their slime covered fingers into their mouth. It had an oddly sour taste that made saliva flow, and an awful texture that made them want to spit it out.
A moment later, a firm beep came from their hand, sharp and high pitched, design to be heard specifically by synths.. They spat the awful food back into the bowl and then wiped at their tongue with the sleeve of their uniform.
“Dark waters TO!” Mira snapped, “I know it’s not great, but you have to eat-”
“I can’t eat this.” TO said, their ears flicking with panic, “There’s something in it; I don’t know what yet, but there’s something in it that’ll make me sick-“
“How do you know that?” Pearla asked.
TO gestured to their hand, “My chip.” They whispered, “It alerts me when I eat something that might hurt me-“
“…. What.” Mira said. She looked at TO's hand, saw the chip still stuck to their skin, and then gave a smile too wide and toothy to be friendly. “You mean to tell me that after all our worry about the communicators, about contacting someone, you had your little chip in this whole time… and you never told us?”
Oh.
Since their placement had started, from the moment they got on their ship and left the training center, TO had been working hard to get used to using the communicator to access their chip. It wouldn’t do if they suddenly activated it while out of armor among a bunch of civilians, so it was important to act like they couldn’t just use their chip as it was! It was so important to use the communicator, to train themself to rely on that.
TO had done their job well. Too well. With everything going on, they had forgotten that they didn’t need their helmet or their communicator to use their chip.
In response to Mira’s accusatory glare, TO could only mutter one thing.
“….oops?”