The bot moved quickly over the debris still littered on the ground as it made its way through the streets and around corners, passing by small groups of indebted workers who toiled under the watchful lens of the ever-present drones.
Drones that, unbeknownst to the security guards, were under Vik’s control.
“Everyone on your list is working in the waterway today.” Vik said, “The same one that we escaped through the last time. Honestly, I’m amazed that they haven’t found our exit yet.”
“It’s well hidden.” TO grumbled, focusing on maneuvering the bot through the narrow streets, “The room is tiny, and the machinery in there is far too loud. Unless you knew what you were looking for, it’s easy to overlook.”
“Nobody’s going to question thirty people going into the waterway?” Mira asked.
“Nope.” Vik said, “I mean, no more than they questioned a giant spider-bot being packed up for street cleaning. If it’s in their orders, then I promise that most of them won’t think much beyond that.”
“And what if they check down there to see what’s going on?” She asked.
“Why would they?” Vik scoffed, “Every indebted person down there is chipped and tracked, so they don’t have to check anything! At least, not until the signal from their chips shows them moving away from the location. Of course, by then it’ll be too late.”
They turned a last corner and came to the now familiar location; the street with the sectioned off hole in the ground leading to the waterways underground. It looked a lot better than the last time TO had been here; The ragged edges of damaged cement were cut away, leaving a neat square that was more ideal for repairs.
“Is that going to be big enough to get through?” Mira asked as she glanced at TO. “I mean, honestly I’m surprised that you’re doing this well with the bot… But that entrance looks small.”
TO gave a sharp nod. The bot had been fairly easy to figure out, with intuitive and simple controls designed for civilian use. The biggest issue for TO was the many functions. There had been so many, and most of it looked potentially needless for their purposes, so they only skimmed the instructions on them, rather than really taking it in.
“There’s a function for narrow locations.” TO muttered. “Vik, are you able to find that and activate it? It’s in the manual under ‘mobility functions’”
“And you didn’t memorize how to use all the functions in the short time you had the manual?” Mira said, smirking, “Tsk, you’re slacking.”
“I got it.” Vik said. “Just let me know when you’re ready for me to activate it.”
Parked on the other side of the road from the entrance to the waterway was a large transport vehicle; the kind that TO, Pearla, and Mira had snuck into in order to get to the indebted center. Next to the vehicle were four guards sitting on crates aligned in a circle, all looking inward and shouting. As TO got a little nearer, they could see what they were doing; their communicators displayed projections of monsters that were currently fighting one another in the middle of a projected combat ring.
“What are they doing?” TO muttered as one guard turned to watch the spider-bot approach. They were only watching for a moment before one of the other guards gave them a mostly friendly punch in the arm and drew their attention back to the battle in the center of the circle.
“Just a game.” Mira said, “People gamble with it. You start with pretty basic little blobs with like, one or two features. Maybe one has teeth, or claws, or horns, right? Anyway, you fight, and if you win, your little blob kills the other one and takes their feature.”
“People like to gamble with them.” Vik said, “And in the right circles, blobs with a lot of features can sell for a lot of credits. Anyway, they’re eight rounds deep into this. They won’t care about you.”
That seemed correct, at least; only the one guard paid them any attention, and his focus was now back on the fight between them.
“I’ve never seen any of you play it.” TO said as they positioned the bot over the hole, placing the eight legs equally over the entrance.
“That’s because it’s expensive to get into, and you can lose all the money you put into it with a single terrible battle. It’s bullshit.” They heard Vik’s irritated sigh from the other side, “Anyway, I see you're in position at least-”
“Yes.” TO said, “I recalled seeing the information on entering tight spaces, and I remembered how to set it up, but I didn’t bother to get into all the specifics of it.”
“No problem,” Vik said, “I can set you up. Mira, hold on to something.”
The body of the bot moved. The elongated, egg-like shape of the body shifted, the front pointing down towards the hole and other parts of the cockpit itself flexing and growing narrow. Mira only had to hold on to the wall with her feet and she stayed in place, but TO’s seat went from being on the ‘floor’ of the cockpit to the ‘wall’ as they looked down, the screen before them showing the dim entrance to the waterway.
It was uncomfortable, but they had suffered much worse. Compared to entering Arkane’s atmosphere, this was practically enjoyable.
Then, with the nearby guards paying absolutely no attention to what they were doing, they slipped underground to the waterways.
======
The small section of waterway was far too small to have thirty people working simply to clean up what was already a mostly clean area. Maybe if the guards had checked down here before the indebted came down, they would have noticed something odd. The guards clearly weren’t concerned about where they were sending the indebted and clearly preferred to rely on the three drones hovering above.
“Three drones seem like overkill.” Mira said, “I mean, for a location this small…”
“It’s not based on area size.” Vik said, “One drone per ten people. We have just over thirty people down there, so we have three drones.”
As the spider-bot settled in place as its body shifted back to normal. The surrounding people edged away from the bot that was clearly too large for the area, and a few legless who were more capable in the water had been swimming in the half-purified water, but swam away and dove beneath the surface as the bot settled into place.
“Alright. I got this now.” Mira said. “Open the door.”
TO pressed another button, and the door opened. They set the bot to standby as both TO and Mira climbed down from the cockpit, observed by their indentured audience.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“OK!” Mira said, her voice a lot louder and a lot firmer than TO expected. “You all know why you’re here, so line up!”
A splash of water drew TO’s attention down, and they saw Leanaran rising from the surface, their tentacles grasping the edge of the walkway as they pulled themself up. “Mira!” They said as they went up to her, “I’m honestly a little surprised you made it! I half expected something to come up and ruin everything.”
“Trust me, so did we.” Mira said as she pulled out her communicator, “Now come on, show me some neck”
Leanaran turned around so that Mira could see his neck. She placed her communicator next to the incision for the chip and waited as Vik worked remotely through her communicator.
“So, what happens once my chip is offline?” Leanaran asked, “Normally, if a chip goes offline, that means someone died, so they’d send someone down to check on me.”
“Yes, normally.” TO said as they climbed down from the bot. “But we’re not just deactivating the chip. It’s being copied to Mira’s communicator.” They couldn’t understand exactly how it was being copied, but they remembered how DH had explained it to them, and how it would work.
“Right.” Mira said, “So, I’ll get all your chips deactivated and copied onto my communicator.” She said, “Then, once that’s done, I’ll toss it into the water purification system. They’ll see all the chips go into the water purification system before suddenly going offline.”
“Wait.” another insurgent came forward, another Nagarajin with a brown and beige pattern on their scales, “So… we’re actually getting out of here?”
“Yes.” TO said as they glanced around, taking in all the indebted around them. Thirty people seemed like a lot more when they were all crammed into a small area, and Mira had the only communicator that could do the job. “So, I need everyone to line up here.” They said, gesturing to the walkway, “If you're in the water, just have a hand or tentacle on the walkway to represent your spot. If you’re on the walkway, be careful not to step on appendages, and respect people’s places!”
Leanaran looked at TO as Mira waited for his chip to transfer. “Do you think you can find our friends?” He asked. “Can you take care of that for me?”
“Of course.” TO said. They spread their wings and took off to the other side of the waterway so that they could look about without being in anyone’s way. Once over there, they found one of their two targets right away.
“Beck.” TO said as they saw the smaller, reptilian woman now hiding in the corner and watching the spectacle on the other side of the waterway. They jogged up to her. “How did you get over here?” TO asked. She wasn’t wet at all, showing that she hadn’t swum over at least.
“I climbed.” She said, glancing at the bars which blocked the entrance backwards towards the outer ring. TO glanced down, and saw that the shoes were off all four of her feet, and that small, hooked claws were still unsheathed at the end of each long toe. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Come on.” TO said, “We’re going to deactivate your chip, and-”
“I said no!” Beck said, taking a step away from TO, “I said no. I’ll stay here, thanks.”
“You want to stay here?” TO asked, gesturing to the surrounding area, “You want to stay in the indebted center-”
“Well, I don’t even know if I can do that!” She snapped as she looked around, her tail whipping back and forth, her eyes wide, pupils dilated. “Shit. what are they going to do to me when they come back and see that everyone but me is gone!”
TO could follow the logic that went through Beck’s mind in that moment. Yes, her sudden glance at the exit to the street above and the way she eyed the people lined up before Mira as though they were dangerous beasts did work to confirm her train of thought, though it was entirely unnecessary.
“Beck.” TO’s voice was firm as they shifted to stand in front of her, blocking her sight, “You need to come with us.”
“No, I don’t.” She said, taking a step back into the wall. At her hands, TO saw her unsheathe a set of claws- long, narrower than TO's own, and colored in deep blue. “I need to keep my head down, pay off my debt, and get back to my normal life.”
“Listen.” TO said, keeping their voice as low as possible; All the others would know the details soon enough, but there was no point in panicking people yet. “Even if someone paid off your debt today, and they released you, you might not be able to go back to your normal life; not for long, anyway.”
“I don’t care what the statistics say.” Beck said, a growl playing under her words, “I won’t be like that. This happened once because I was careless. I’ll do everything right this time. I’ll save money, I’ll be frugal, live in my means-”
“That’s not what I mean.” TO said, “Besides, I don’t think you being here was because of a personal failure, just bad luck.” They glanced over their shoulder to see how work was progressing with the others. “You might not be able to go back to your normal life because there might not be ‘life’ on Arkane in a week’s time.”
her tail froze in mid-air. “W-what?”
“I can’t go into details now.” TO muttered, “But you have to come with us, ok? I’ll explain everything-”
“No!” she snapped. She jumped sideways, leaping off the walkway and onto the bars where water poured through from the ocean. Her clawed feet grasped the bars easily, and she practically walked horizontally over the bars to the other side.
She was fast, but TO was faster, and very well trained. TO followed her, flying over the water, tackling her to the wall, and holding her to the wall. She called out, clearly trying to get the attention of the guards above. The first syllable of her cry for help hadn’t even formed properly on her lips before TO applied pressure to her temple.
They hated hurting her, but if they did nothing, she’d scream out and alert the guards. If they did nothing, she’d stay on this planet and get caught in whatever attack the synth army would launch.
She stiffened in TO’s arms, then fell limp in their arms.
“What do you do!” One indebted near the back of the line shouted as they backed away from TO, “How did you move like that-”
“Practice.” TO muttered as they picked Beck up as gently as they could, “And I applied medium force to a pressure point at her temple to render her unconscious so she couldn’t shout and alert the guards.”
Mira looked up from her work, watching the exchange. After a moment, the person shrugged and turned around once more, waiting for their turn.
With a sigh, TO got in the back of the line, cradling Beck in their arms. They didn’t want to hurt her, but they also didn’t want anyone else here to get hurt, and they couldn’t stand the idea of Beck being on the planet when things got back.
They could only hope that she’d eventually forgive them.