They would release Mark by the next day, clearing him for work so long as there were no complications. It didn’t seem like there would be too many problems given how he had been left alone since his arm was cleaned and stitched up. Besides, nobody seemed concerned about his injury, especially not Mark himself.
“I hope he’ll be alright, anyway.” Pearla said once TO and Mira returned to the laundry room and filled her in on what happened. “I’ve seen people get injured in those waters and the fever doesn’t really hit until days later. I’m sure there’s a reason for that-”
“And I’m sure it’s a reason Goretta is familiar with, and one she can treat if any issues arise.” Mira said. “It’s not a problem for now, anyway.” She gestured to the communicator in her hand, “What did you figure out with all that?”
“Right! The list.” Pearla opened something on her communicator. “There’s a bit of overlap. Also, we’re in luck since Marissa’s brother is on his list.”
“I’m not surprised. Aren’t Marissa and Leanaran from the same planet originally?” Mira asked. “I think it’s Hydroponics farm 3 now?”
“Yeah, Aktigi.” Pearla said, “They renamed it after Decon’s conversion.” She rolled her eyes, then glanced at TO. “Hey, I know it’s not your fault or anything, but why does Decon think that it’s a good idea to have the entire solar system’s population moved to a single planet?”
“Many solar systems only have one habitable planet, you realize.” TO said. They leaned back against a pile of dirty laundry. Though it pained TO to admit it, they were getting used to the smell. It didn’t even really bother them anymore. “And it’s an idea of efficiency, and making the best use of the resources we have. By relocating civilians to planets with low or no yield in terms of natural resources, the planets that can be used for production, and can remain focused on that and maximize output. This way, they can redistribute excess resources through the rest of the galaxy-…” Their ears dipped slightly as they realized that their voice had taken on a nearly practiced tone as they spoke of the benefits of planetary relocation. “... Of course, the data I’ve seen on it fails to mention the social issues caused by such overcrowding.”
“Yeah, well, Decon doesn’t seem too concerned about how his people feel about his decisions. Not the normal people anyway.” Mira said.
TO huffed, and looked away. “... You’re not wrong.” TO said before looking at Pearla. “When you told DH and I about the indebted system, I actually went to my superior with plans to deal with the issue.”
“Really?” Pearla’s brows shot up, “You really thought you’d try to change something?”
“And how did that go?” Mira said, her tone as cold as ever, but her antenna had perked up. “Did Decon actually care?”
“The information never got that far.” TO said, the words coming out in a bitter hiss and their ears pinning at the same time. “My superior said I was experiencing ‘culture shock’ and said I had to focus on the mission at hand.”
“Culture shock? Really?” Pearla snorted, “I mean, I know you’re all sheltered in training, but you have some access to information-”
“Through the GBA.” TO said. “I think my superior was more concerned about my interactions with civilians.”
Perla’s eyes flickered with comprehension. “Ahh, I see.” she hummed, “And we know what you lot think of us civilians.”
“I don’t.” Mira said as they looked from Pearla to TO, “What do you think of us?”
“It’s not important.” TO said quickly, “At any rate, they stressed the necessity of small sacrifices for the overall peace of the Galaxy.”
“Which means making the people in charge happy and keeping the people who don’t like how things are as powerless as possible so that we can’t fight back.” Mira raised a brow at TO, “Am I right?”
“... More or less.” TO muttered. “For galactic peace, apparently.”
“Not the time.” Pearla said as she waved her communicator in the air, “You can talk about this when we’re on the ship getting off this planet.” She sighed, “I rearranged the list, so it’s in order of who we should try first.”
“Nice.” Mira said, slipping over to check, “Send it to me. How did you decide?”
“Painfully.” Pearla grumbled, “I figured it best to keep families together. Mark was first, because his daughter has no other parents or guardians with her, and then there’s a brother and sister in here–just old enough for the indebted system–who got taken in together, and who has younger siblings waiting with us. Since one sibling is on the list Leanaran gave me, I put them together and set them on the list. Aside from that, I’ve sorted families by who has the most children. I thought that’d be best, since larger families will need more hands to help take care of the kids.”
“You considered it more logically than I expected.” Mira said.
“What about the kids?” TO asked. The mention of the children currently waiting underground reminded them of kids that the insurgency hadn’t rescued. “The children that got taken away? Are they kept here somewhere too?”
The sad, defeated look on Pearla’s face was not what TO was expecting to see.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“They took those children to education facilities.” Mira said, “There’s several around the planet, and the government has given them new identification numbers. With more time and resources we could come back for them, but-”
“We might guess where a few have been put.” Pearla said, “And from there, we’d have to go in and find them. Of course, given that we’re not children it would be a lot harder for us to sneak in there to find them.”
“Could a synth get them?” TO asked, “If I placed an order to release them to synth custody?”
“... we can’t save everyone, TO.” Mira said without looking at either of them. “We don’t have the time to gather up every single person and even if we could, we don’t have the space to take everyone off the planet with us.” She took a steadying breath, “The best thing we can do is keep what families we can together, and get who we can out.”
“But Flit said that the synths that are coming might just kill everyone!” TO said. “If they stay here-”
“I’m aware.” Mira snapped, “I know also that outside of the kids who were taken from the underground, there are thousands of other kids, and other innocent people and families who were never involved with the insurgency who we just cannot get off the planet.” She crossed her arms and looked away again, “... All because we wanted things to be a bit better.”
“And before you suggest it, GiDi already asked if they shouldn’t just take responsibility and turn themself in.” Pearla said, “Flit said Decon might still destroy the population at this point, if that is their ultimate plan.”
“Yeah, can’t let anyone know a synth turned from their creator.” Mira huffed.
“Anyway…” Pearla looked at the paper again, “I suppose now we connect with as many of these people as we can, and confirm that they’re willing to leave.” She shook her head, “That’s the riskiest part of all this. One of them might decide to report us.”
“Why?” To asked, “Why report us instead of get out-”
“Because they don’t trust us. And why would they? The news tells everyone that this lockdown is our fault. Also, people can get some debt wiped away if they report suspicious behavior.” Mira said. “So, let me do the talking. I’ll be able to feel them out and see if they’re interested or not.”
“Fine by me.” Pearla muttered, “I’m still stuck in here.”
“This is going to be an absolute pain.” Mira muttered as she looked at the list of people. “I can’t check my communicator outside of here or the washroom, so I’m going to have to keep dashing off to check the names and descriptions-”
“It’s only a list of thirty people, right?” TO asked. “Let me see, I can memorize it.”
Mira’s antenna twitched as she glanced at TO. “Only thirty, they say.” She muttered.
“Well, GiDi said that TO had an amazing memory.” Pearla said.
“Not amazing.” TO could feel their ears warm ever so slightly, “Just… better than average for a synth?”
“That’s not what GiDi said.” Pearla said, “They said you can read anything once, and just remember it.”
“It takes more than one time.” TO insisted. “But… It's only thirty people. I should be able to remember that for now.”
“You really think you can memorize a list of names and descriptions, and be able to pick them out in a crowd?”
“I don’t know about picking them out, but I can memorize them.”
Mira stared at TO for a moment longer, then passed TO her communicator. “Go ahead then.” She said, “See what you can do.”
======
TO read the list three times, carefully linking names to features and inscribing the details on their mind, giving themselves a comfortable fifteen minutes to take it all in. A quiz from Mira followed this where they first recited the entire list from memory, then answered questions that Mira came up with.
“Who was tenth on the list?”
“What does Lara look like?”
“What’s the name of the reptile with a hint of icy blue on her tail?”
One more perfect recital followed A handful of other questions before Mira finally closed up the communicator and shook her head, smiling.
“Are you sure they didn’t put a computer in your head or something?” Mira said, chuckling, “It would be the only explanation.”
“Well, technically, I do.” TO said, “I have the other part of my chip at the base of my skull. It works with my chip to, for example, warn me when I’ve ingested something that might hurt me. But it can’t save information for me.”
“Yeah, it’s all TO. GiDi said they all had decent memories, but TO’s was so much better than their own.”
“GiDi dismisses themself too easily.” TO muttered. “We all lived in a simulation before we were ‘born’ and they embedded certain fundamental skills into our heads.” Well, skills and other forms of conditioning; The nearly unshakeable confidence in King Decon, the will to serve, and those odd sayings that they used to repeat, and which always took on such a practiced, recited tone. “If we’re ready, can we go? It’ll be lunchtime soon, right? If everyone goes to the same place for a meal, then we should find who we're looking for there if we’re careful.”
“Between lunch and supper, yeah.” Mira said. “We should, hopefully, find everyone.”
“Then let's go.” TO said, already heading to the door. They had a lot of work to do, and TO didn’t want to waste any time. The more time they took, the more likely it was that they'd have to spend an extra awful day in the indebted center, and away from DH.