Redstone Ch. 18 Pt 1

Notes: Aaand, new perspective! I think I've written more POVs in this story than in any other I've ever attempted. We're starting to wind things up, and yes, Robbie's situation is...mostly resolved. Enjoy!

Title: Redstone Chapter 18, Part 1

*** 

As soon as Isidore woke up, he knew something was wrong. Going down hadn’t been a surprise; Wyl had signaled that the prison was going to be gassed today, and Isidore had been careful to keep them down in the heart of the prison, veins prickling but heart easy in the knowledge that he, Kyle and, frustratingly, Pence would be safe from the chaos that was certain to emerge when people started waking up.

Pence’s adoption of their living quarters—not all the time, because after a while the iron got to him, but for a few hours every cycle—was annoying but not, Isidore had to admit, the worst thing he’d ever experienced. The man was a gifted storyteller and kept Kyle distracted, and he had more than a few skills that might be useful under the right circumstances. Not that it really mattered; as soon as Garrett had the information that Hummingbird was stealing out from under the nose of the Warden, he’d be able to negotiate for Kyle’s release. Perhaps another week, two at the outside, and they’d be free of this place. Pence wouldn’t be, though.

He’d given up the story of how he’d come to be here so easily that Isidore was more than half convinced it wasn’t true, but it was entertaining nonetheless. “I lived footloose and fancy free in the Central System for years,” he’d expounded while Isidore and Kyle had worked their way through some sticky meal bars. “Thanks to the help of a brilliant little bug I wrote, I worked out who in whatever city I’d have the best luck imitating, then did a bit of work on my appearance and passed myself off as them for a while. Businessmen, trust-funders, even politicians: people will give you a lot of leeway if they think you’re someone important. I hardly ever had to provide identification, in the small provinces. It was a glorious scam,” he said with a pleased sigh.

“Of course, eventually I imitated the wrong man. He caught me at it, actually; I was in one of his penthouses. He was supposed to be gone, but.” Pence shrugged. “Such is life. And after a bit of wrangling, I ended up here.”

“This doesn’t seem like the right place for someone who basically committed identity theft,” Kyle said doubtfully.

“Very astute, little lamb.” Pence refused to elaborate any further, though, but he gave them a wink to soften the lie. When they all fell down the next day, the sleeping gas working too fast for much preparation, Isidore spared a brief thought for how he might actually miss Pence once he and Kyle were out of here.

Pence was the farthest thing from Isidore’s mind when he woke up though, for all the man was mumbling a blue streak over knocking his head against the floor when he’d gone under. There was too much noise filtering down the passage, way too much for the aftermath of a gassing. This wasn’t prisoners fighting it out amongst themselves; this was a concerted effort by many against a few, and if he focused Isidore thought he could detect the whine of bot gears shifting too abruptly to be quiet.

“Fuck.” Something was wrong in the Pit, really wrong. His mind told him the best thing to do was wait down here where it was safe and ride it out, but his instincts were screaming at him to move. He reached out and shook Kyle’s shoulder; he was already awake, just looked a little blurry. Pence was still on his back, affected more by the gas. “Come on, we have to move.”

To his credit, Kyle just nodded. Isidore helped get him to his feet, then led the way down the hall, disruptor firmly in hand. If they were being swarmed by bots right now…

But no, no they weren’t. There was a swarm, for sure, but it was prisoners on guards. Isidore held Kyle back at the entrance to the Pit, staring disconcertedly out at the carnage taking place. It looked like two separate fights had been going on, although one was already over; he could smell the blood in the air, even if there wasn’t much to see over the wave of bodies. The other guard was still on his feet, but he had only one bot left. It was inevitable he’d die, at this point, despite how fiercely he…fought…

Recognition hit Isidore like a shot to the heart, and he actually lurched forward a step before he got control of himself again. Isidore recognized that fighting style; he’d seen it back on Paradise when he’d been a mechanic working on the Federation forces’ fleet of vehicles. Robbie. That was Robbie, which mean something had gone terribly, awfully wrong.

“Fuck.”

“What is it?” Kyle murmured, staying discreet even though he was clearly disturbed by the scene.

“Give me a moment; I need to think.” He couldn’t do anything, he couldn’t. Protecting Robbie wasn’t his mission. He had to take care of Kyle.

The bot went down, and Robbie was bowled over after another few seconds of fighting like a madman. Isidore almost bit through his tongue when he lost sight of him. No, no, nonono—

Then Rory happened, saving the day only to ruin things himself. Isidore knew he was breathing too fast, knew even as Kyle tugged at his arm, worried and wondering, that he was going to do it. He was going to spoil everything because he couldn’t just watch this, he wouldn’t. He’d sooner die himself.

“Stick with Pence,” Isidore heard himself say, the sound feeling very far away as he walked into the room. “Garrett will get you out.” He reached a hand up to his mouth, toward the tooth that would cause a big enough explosion to take out a good half of the people in the Pit. Rory wasn’t looking at him; no one was, all the focus on Robbie and the macabre scene playing out between the two men. He could do this. He had to.

The second before Isidore activated the grenade in his head, a shower of sparks erupted from the main door. It clanged to the ground a moment later, and a security bot rolled into the room. This bot was like none Isidore had ever seen, though; it had some weapons sticking out of it that were downright illegal for security bots, and even as Isidore ducked, it started to fire a mini-laser which burned tiny, perfect holes straight through people. “Alert! Alert! Sound the alarm! Alert! Alert! Sound the alarm!” it blared over and over, burning a swathe through the prisoners who dared to move toward it. It reached Robbie’s side and tore him out of Rory’s slack, astonished grasp, picking him up and cradling him even as it injected a syringe straight into Robbie’s neck. “There there. There there. There there.”

Rory growled and reached for Robbie again, and had a hole burned through his hand for his trouble. All around the Pit people were groaning in pain, most of them alive but all of them wounded. The bot swirled its head in a circle, eyestrip glowing menacingly as it surveyed the prisoners. It paused on Isidore, but moved on after a moment. “There there. There there. There there,” it repeated as it turned and rolled right out of the gaping hole it had left in the Pit, taking Robbie with it.

“What the bloody hell is going on here, petal?”

Pence’s voice shocked Isidore out of his fugue. He shook his head, silent as he weighed his options. This was…a fucking mess, was what it was. No guards were rushing in to shut things down, more than half the prison population was going to need Regen for bot-inflicted burns, and Robbie was possibly gravely injured. If Isidore waited to do this all the right way, the closest to legal way, there very well might be new leadership in place that would refuse any and all requests for transfers while they figured out what the hell had just gone down.

Isidore couldn’t take that risk. If not even Robbie was safe, then there was no way Kyle would survive that long, especially not with the prisoners in a state of upheaval. And besides…the door was open.

Isidore reached out and grabbed Kyle’s hand. “We’re getting out of here,” he said. He could still see the bot in the distance. If they stuck close to it, they could follow it through the doors. From there, he’d be able to find his way to the hangar. Robbie and Wyl’s ship would open to him, and if anyone was going to forgive him for an act of piracy, it was them. “Come on.”

Another hand found his. “You’re not going anywhere without me, darling,” Pence said grimly.

“Then shut up and keep up,” Isidore said, and he tugged them into a run as he chased down the bot. Hopefully it wouldn’t turn around and shoot him when it saw the three of them behind it.

Surprisingly, the bot led the way straight to the ship hangar. Wyl was already there, completely blind to everything except Robbie as he lurched forward toward his husband. “ZeeBee, status!”

“Alive and recovering. Currently, he is under the influence of Regen. Expected return to consciousness in three-point-seven standard hours.”

“Oh.” Wyl shuddered and leaned against the bot’s sturdy body, bringing his head close to Robbie’s. “All right. All right. Fuck, it’s all right.”

“Not completely,” Isidore said. He could see it took effort, but Wyl eventually lifted his head and looked at him. “Hi.”

“Oh. Oh, shit, Isidore!” He was being hugged before he could stop it, something that was sure to cause conniptions in the central security room, but Isidore couldn’t care less. “Fuck, are you okay? What are you doing here?”

“Seizing the day,” Isidore said, feeling a little like falling apart now that he was in friendly arms. “There’s bound to be an inquest, they’ll ask questions, it isn’t safe—it never was, but now—”

“No, you’re right,” Wyl agreed, finally letting him go to look at his companions. “Mr. Alexander. And…”

“Pence, mate.” He almost sounded normal. “Just Pence.”

Wyl looked at Isidore. “He’s with you?”

“He is now.” Whether Isidore wanted it or not, apparently.

“Then he’ll come along. Let’s kick this shithole to the curb. ZeeBee,” Wyl addressed the bot, “get Robbie situated in the ship. You guys, follow him. I’ll be right there.”

“What are you going to do?” Isidore asked.

Wyl smiled darkly. “Since there’s no reason to be subtle anymore, I’m gonna kill every fucking camera and tracking system in this fucking place before we leave. Let them try to send someone after us once I’ve punched their eyes out. Go, go.” He waved them toward his and Robbie’s little ship, then headed to the nearest control panel.

Isidore followed ZeeBee on board, still clinging to Kyle and Pence. They settled into the tight quarters right behind the pilot’s chair, and Pence turned to Isidore with a raised eyebrow. “Interesting friends you’ve got, my dove.”

“You have no idea,” Isidore said dryly.

“We’re really leaving?” Kyle asked. He sounded dumbfounded. “Right now?”

“It’s an opportunity we might not get again.”

“But what about my lawyer? And what about—” He stopped speaking when Isidore shook his head.

“They’ll weather the storm better than we would. This is just a course change, Kyle. We’re not throwing away the map.”

“What map, pet?”

Isidore breathed a sigh of relief when Wyl joined them, firing up the engines and heading for the nearest airlock, which opened obediently to his command. “The one that leads to the end.”

Whatever that was, now.

Redstone Ch. 16 Pt 2

Notes: What a morning. Seriously. I'm not entirely sure I'm going to make my afternoon clients, given how the roads are right now, and the fact that I'm driving in a spare. Because REASONS, because karma, because flat tires on snowy days, joy joy joy. I want to punch something, but my hands are too cold.

Anyway. Our last Tamara segment: from here we move on to Robbie, who...oh, baby. What have I done to you?

Title: Redstone Chapter 16, Part 2

*** 

One of the enduring fads on Pandora was an incessant fascination with all things Old Earth. Naturals were, in some ways, the most Old Earth of any people alive in the universe today. They, like pre-Regen Earthlings, had to heal the old-fashioned way, with time and care. They got sick, they got broken, they fought through pain and physical and mental hardship in a way that few people on Regen had to concern themselves with. There were the occasional Regen-ready individuals whose body chemistry was so turbulent it led them to physical harm, but they were rare.

That fad facilitated the creation of the Library, a building in Pandora City dedicated to Old Earth memorabilia and mementos. It had media in it that was inaccessible with an implant; you had to actually hold the books in your hand to read them, or play the various types of discs in ancient machines. There were traditional clothes from over a hundred Old Earth countries, and games and dolls and shows of all sorts.

A popular fascination during the early twenty-first century in some Old Earth countries had revolved around creatures called zombies. Tamara tried, but she couldn’t quite divorce herself from being ginger and quiet as she stepped around fallen bodies in the halls. If she imagined herself holding a katana while she did it, that was her own business.

ZeeBee trailed along just behind her, silent except for the whirr of his wheels. She got to the admin halls without difficulty, and wound her way to Warden Harrison’s office as quickly as she could. His door was locked. Oh, of course it was.

Tamara pressed the disc, which she’d stuck to the end of her index finger, to the pad outside the Warden’s office as she checked the time with her implant. Twenty-six more minutes. She should be able to finish this well within the half hour time limit.

The pad suddenly glowed, and the door to the office slid open. Tamara stepped inside and made a face. There was something about the Warden, some faint undertone to his scent that made her think of desiccation. Maybe he kept his clothes vacuum sealed, maybe he forbid the cleaning bots from entering his rooms. Whatever it was, it made her nose itch. She did her best to ignore it as she hastened to the desk in front of her. Warden Harrison was slumped over it, obscuring the control panel on the desk.

“ZeeBee, can you move him?”

“Yes.” She waited, but nothing happened.

“Oh.” Darn these literal bots. “ZeeBee, move the Warden out of the way.”

“Affirmative.” The bot slid his arms underneath the man and laid him out on the floor just to the side of the desk. Tamara took his place, wincing at the smear of drool that hit her fingers as she touched the surface of the pad.

“Nasty.” Nevertheless, she pressed her index finger down hard and waited for the program to access Harrison’s personal files.

There were a lot of them. Tamara narrowed her eyes as she stared at the flashing screen. Wyl seemed to have chosen to take way more information than they could possibly use rather than banking on getting too specific and finding nothing, and so everything was being copied and stored on the tiny chip, and from there to several of their personal devices. It was the best way to be sure they got what they needed, but it also took more time than Tamara really liked, especially since she still had to wipe the footage. ZeeBee would help with that, though.

Twenty minutes left. Seventeen…the program indicated it was finished before its tiny icon, a laughing flame, vanished with a virtual poof. Tamara found her way to the camera feeds, then stood up and turned to ZeeBee. “Okay.” She held her arms out from her sides. “Scan me.”

Using a completely current image of her was the only way to be sure they were actually getting her out of the visual feeds. Tamara had been prepared to use a saved image from her implant, but since Wyl had come through with the bot, she didn’t have to. She turned and ZeeBee scanned, a brief flash of green light indicating it was done, and then he stuck the very tip of one of his probes against the panel. Tamara watched as the program winnowed through the footage of her, everything from the moment before the gas was deployed to now, and deleted it. She was erased from the next thirteen minutes of future footage as well, which was a problem she’d solve by taking off her jacket to change her physical profile, just in case the time ran out faster than they’d intended. ZeeBee cleared itself as well, and Tamara grinned as she removed the tiny chip and stuck it beneath her collar.

“Perfect. Let’s get back to the infirmary.” She headed for the office door. The bot didn’t follow.

“ZeeBee?” It didn’t respond, just stared at the camera feed for a long moment. All of a sudden the alarm in the top of its head started going off, startling Tamara so badly she almost fell.

“Baby protocol discontinued! Alpha protocol engaged!” ZeeBee turned and shot past her down the hall, zipping around bodies like it was a sport. Tamara watched it go in complete astonishment, which turned to horror when she heard Warden Harrison groan. Oh, fuck. Fuck. The gas was wearing off early, and ZeeBee was waking people up with his noise. Tamara ran down the admin hall as fast as she could, tracing her path back to the infirmary. She had to get there before Doctor Kleinman woke up, she had to—shit, she had to make sure Wyl was all right, what else could the alpha protocol be?

Tamara was breathing hard again by the time she got back to the infirmary, but while people were stirring, no one was entirely awake yet. She pulled off her jacket, lay down on the floor close to where she’d been with ZeeBee and then, for good measure, smacked her head against the wall hard enough to make herself see stars. That hadn’t been in the original plan, but she needed to make sure no suspicions came her way. It helped that the doctor was so vehemently anti-natural, but it paid to be certain. Dizzy and worried, she calmed her breathing as best she could and waited.

“What in the name of…oh, good grief!” She heard the doctor push himself up off the floor. Demarcos followed with a grunt a moment later, and then cold fingers pressed against the pulse point in her throat. Tamara whimpered.

“Just what I need, another—” They’d never find out what derogatory thing he needed, because at that moment another alarm went off, this one rippling through the walls. Tamara recognized it. It was the alarm that sounded when there was a riot in the prison. “I don’t have time to deal with her; put her back in her room! I’ll return presently!” Doctor Kleinman rushed off, and a moment later a much warmer set of hands found their way under her head.

“Hey,” Demarcos murmured. “Tamara. You okay? Tamara, talk to me, damn it.”

“Mm fine,” she whispered, even though she wasn’t. “Take me to the general infirmary, not the private room.”

“Tamara—”

“I need to see if someone is there. Please.” She wasn’t too proud to beg. She’d have kept at it until he agreed out of sheer exhaustion, but Demarcos just rolled his eyes.

“Of course you do,” he said. “You’re more cryptic than the president himself, you know that?”

“There’s no need to be rude,” Tamara said, but she smiled a little bit regardless. “Thank you.”

“You owe me so many explanations.” He sounded angry, but he was gentle as he assisted her to her feet and put one of her arms over his shoulders. It was a bit of a stretch but she didn’t say anything, just let him lead her like a docile little child into the larger treatment room in the infirmary, where the Regen beds were kept.

She actually went a bit limp with relief when she saw Wyl lying there, one hand rubbing his throat, the other looking around curiously. He smiled politely when he saw the two of them, giving no indication he’d ever seen either of them before. “Hi there. What the hell happened, huh?”

Fortunately, Demarcos set Tamara down right next to Wyl, where she could make a bit of conversation about what really interested her. “Where’s ZeeBee?” she asked, almost soundlessly.

A slightly panicked look came into Wyl’s eyes. “ZeeBee was supposed to find you! Didn’t…what about…”

“ZeeBee did find me. It was very helpful, but...it ran off at the end! Something about alpha protocol, I thought that meant ZeeBee would be back here with you.”

Wyl frowned. “Alpha protocol comes into play in case of imminent physical damage for the primaries, that’s me and Robbie. But I’m fine, and Robbie should be…” Wyl didn’t just panic this time, he went completely white. “Oh, fuck. Robbie’s on duty. He’d on fucking duty and now there’s a riot, what if he was in the Pit when the gas went off? When did ZeeBee leave?”

“Right after we finished with the visual feeds.”

“ZeeBee must have seen something happening to Robbie.” Wyl got up like he was going to march off into the penitentiary himself, but Tamara jerked him back onto the bed. Demarcos watched the two of them like they were both crazy.

“Running around busting doors down to go after Robbie will only draw attention,” she whispered. “If ZeeBee saw something, it’ll hand it. Besides, Magpie is in there. He can help Robbie.”

“How?” Wyl demanded. “How can he possibly handle anything without blowing his cover? Robbie us a guard; no prisoner stands up for guards. He’s going to be killed.”

“You don’t know that,” she insisted. We don’t know anything, she thought, a bit helplessly. At this point, all she could do was keep Wyl from ruining the game.

Robbie would have to look after himself.

Redstone Ch. 16 Pt. 1

Notes: One more segment with Tamara after this, and then I segue to Robbie, who is really going to get the short end of the stick. Fortunately he's a badass and can handle that. Happy Tuesday, darlins!

Title: Redstone Chapter 16, Part 1.

*** 

Tamara had always had good hearing. Even for a regular person, her ears would have been good, far better than her eyes, which had taken three surgeries to correct to their less-than-perfect state now. She had also had a great deal of experience in her youth at pretending to be asleep when she was in hospitals, mostly to avoid dealing with her father and the look she knew would be on his face when she woke up. She could even modulate her heart rate, which was a useful trick when she wanted to listen in on a conversation. Especially such a heated one.

“Absolutely outrageous.” She had heard that voice before—not often, but more than once.

The next person to speak spurred a much more immediate sense of recognition. “Keep your voice down.”

“It’s my infirmary, Mr. Gyllenny, and I’ll raise my voice however and whenever I choose to! What sort of idiot goes gallivanting about the universe with all of these disabilities? Honestly, a natural? You might as well plop a baby down in the middle of an ocean and expect them to know how to swim. Their terrible immune systems must make traveling with them an utter nightmare, not to mention their absolute inability to respond to more than the most basic of therapeutic techniques!” The doctor sounded like he was on the verge of despair. “I have too many idiots with major wounds being brought in to deal with something as ridiculous as an allergic reaction right now!”

“But she’s going to be all right?” Demarcos pressed. He sounded genuinely concerned. It was rather nice, actually.

“She’ll be fine. Regen couldn’t do anything for her but the proper antihistamine injection did the trick. She should wake up momentarily. I expect she’ll come up with all sorts of excuses to stay here,” he added derisively. “Naturals are fragile creatures. If you’re staying, then you keep her calm and under control. Any sign of hysterics and I’ll render her unconscious and have her delivered back to her room immediately.”

“Did they not teach you any sort of compassion in your medical training?”

Dr. Kleinman snorted. “You think compassion is what anyone in this hellhole deserves? They deserve to lose power and freeze to death, as far as I’m concerned. My job is to keep the people who end up here alive, not to coddle them, Mr. Gyllenny. If it bothers you so much, I suggest you avoid ending up a patient.”

“I’ll take it under advisement,” Demarcos said. Tamara heard the door swoosh open, and the doctor briefly cursing at some damn robot, these things are always malfunctioning before it closed again.

“Well,” she croaked, not quite feeling like opening her eyes yet. Her face still felt a little swollen, and her lips were numb. She could breathe without assistance, though. That was good. “He’s a fucking prince, huh?”

“Holy shit.” It came out more like a sigh than a curse, and when Tamara finally looked up she saw Demarcos staring down at her, a combination of relief and anger written all over his face. “What in the lowest ten was that?” he demanded. “You poisoned yourself?”

Tamara winced. “Keep your voice down.” She made as though it hurt her ears, but in actuality she wasn’t pleased that he was trying to give the game away while they were being surveilled. Not that she wasn’t going to do her best to get rid of this footage, but it didn’t pay to get sloppy. “And those were a new brand of crackers; I’d never tried them before.” Obviously.

“Right, right.” Demarcos subsided a little, sitting down on the edge of her bed. It didn’t automatically compensate for his weight like it should have—apparently the leveling system embedded in it had gone to hell and no one had bothered to fix it—and she rolled into the side of his hip. He felt warm even through her jumpsuit. “So what now, Carson?”

“Well, first…” She glanced around, then suddenly put two and two together. “Shit! Open the door!”

Demarcos frowned. “There’s a bot out there acing weird, are you sure you—”

“Open the door! I’m feeling…” She cast about for a reason that a casual observer would accept. “Severely claustrophobic! Open the door, now!” Demarcos rolled his eyes and obeyed, and the bot immediately rolled into the room.

“Close it,” Tamara hissed just as the robot swept her up into its arms and cradled her against its metallic chest. The green eyestrip glowed brightly as it rocked her back and forth and said, “There there. There there. There there.”

The door opened a moment later, and Dr. Kleinman bustled in angrily. “This thing is all wrong! It doesn’t respond to standard commands in a timely fashion. Put her down.” The bot paused in its rocking, and then gently laid Tamara back down on the bed.

“I’ll have this thing deactivated and torn apart,” he muttered. “And you’re awake. Good. Get back to your quarters, and—”

“I feel nauseous.” It was the first excuse she could come up with, but Tamara knew she needed to check her clothes, now, and she couldn’t afford to leave the infirmary to do it. “I can’t go yet.”

“You’re fine, and I have other people to tend to and need this space.”

There was more excuse coming, but Tamara had already heard enough. One of the most useful, and least appealing, parts of her training under Admiral Liang was building in a neuro-sensory feedback loop that would provoke illness. It wasn’t fun, but throwing up backed people off like nobody’s business. Shuffling her feet together, Tamara pressed the ball of her right foot hard into the instep of her left, while simultaneously squeezing the fleshy section of her right hand between thumb and forefinger.

The sudden rush of sickness made her double over, retching as the scant contents of her stomach hit the floor. At least her throat didn’t swell up, although from the look of disgust on the doctor’s face she wasn’t entirely sure he would have helped her if it had.

“It’ll pass,” she assured him, eyes watering and nose streaming. “I just need a few more minutes, I think.”

“Take an hour,” Dr. Kleinman muttered, and he turned and left without another word. ZeeBee didn’t follow him, just stood there placidly.

“What the hell?” Demarcos said quietly. “Are you okay?”

“I need to be in the bathroom.” She held out her arm like she just couldn’t make it all of five feet without his help. Wisely, he took it and escorted her over to the tiny toilet, where Tamara knew they only passively surveilled, in case of an emergency.

As soon as the door was closed, she turned her back to him. “Look for a disc on my clothes, something small, probably transparent,” she instructed as she pulled a fresh water line out of the wall and stuck it in her mouth. She swished viciously, and let the current carry the dirty water back into the piping, then swished again. “Fuck, that’s nasty.”

“You’re telling me.” Demarcos’ hands were a little tentative, but he swept his fingers methodically over her back and arms, working his way down her body. Tamara did her best not to blush as he lightened his touch over her rear, then started on her thighs. “Ah. Here.”

She turned and saw the delicate lens sitting on the end of his pinky finger. “Perfect. Now I just need access to a care portal.”

“Planning on writing up the record of your own illness?” he asked, doing his best not to sound as flustered as he looked.

“Not exactly. Look, you’ve been…very helpful, but it’s best you let me manage things from here. I promise to do my best,” she added when he looked reluctant. “I’m invested in getting Kyle out of here, I swear.”

“I shouldn’t believe you, but I don’t think I really have a choice.” His teeth were gritted as he said it.

“No, I guess not,” Tamara agreed. “Let’s get out of here.”

She was both surprised and incredibly relieved to see ZeeBee still in the room, apparently just finishing cleaning up her mess. The bot straightened and glowed at her. “Baby,” it said.

“Oh thank you, Wyl,” she murmured. She hadn’t been sure that Wyl would make it so ZeeBee would stay with her, but apparently the baby protocol he’d described was still in place.

“I will take good care of you.”

“What is going on here?” Demarcos asked.

“I know you will,” Tamara said, ignoring her human companion. “I need to access a care portal.”

“The closest is 2.4 meters away, in the main hall.”

“Is there anyone in the main hall right now?”

“Dr. Kleinman is approximately 4 meters away.”

Tamara whirled on Demarcos. “I need you to distract him. Just long enough for me to access the care portal and release the gas.” She was already removing her elaborate collar and folding it into the portable fumigant mask it doubled as. From a camera’s distance it would be hard to tell what she was doing, but she kept her hands low anyway.

“You’re releasing the gas on this place?”

“It’s the only way I can get access to the right office. Please,” she added when he looked like he wanted to fight about it.

“You do realize how many laws you’re breaking, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And you get that they could put you away here and you’d never see starlight again, for however long you managed to survive?”

Tamara shivered but held her ground. “Yes. I know.”

Demarcos sighed. “Then I guess I can’t scare you into changing your mind. Give me a minute to work on him.”

She reached out and put her hand on his arm. “Thank you.”

“Tell me that when you get out of this thing alive,” he replied, then opened the door and raised his voice. “Hey! Haven’t you heard of liability before? I’ve never seen so many violations of—” The door shut on his impending argument, and Tamara took a moment to shut her eyes and lean into ZeeBee, still feeling a little sick, and shaking with nerves.

A metal hand found her shoulder and patted. “There there. There there. There there.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. They stood in silence for another minute before she asked, “Is there anyone in the main hall now?”

“No.”

“Good. Escort me to the care portal and then support me in front of it.” She made a show of stumbling a bit as she moved into the hall, walked a little ways and then sagged against the wall. ZeeBee trundled up right behind her and propped her up, and Tamara transferred the chip from her finger to the sensor of the care portal.

It was a clever design, just enough to bypass the routines that required passwords but not enough to treat her as anything other than an employee. Tamara had already researched and trained up on this particular care system, and so she knew just where to go to find the emergency security protocols. She might as well have been Dr. Kleinman herself, the way the chip hacked through the safeties and accepted her assurance that, yes, there was indeed a riot going on and yes, gassing was necessary. And oh yeah—suspend Redstone’s inter-zone filtration system for the duration of the active gassing.

The hall lights went from plain white to flashing red and orange. That was all the warning anyone got before the gas began to flow. Tamara brought her mask to her face and buried her head against ZeeBee’s chest, and prayed that the seal held.

“What’s happening?” Dr. Kleinman exclaimed as he ran out of his office, Demarcos hot on his heels. “What is this? I didn’t give orders for this!” He just barely made eye contact with Tamara before he wilted to the ground. Demarcos lasted a few seconds longer, but then he followed suit.

Two minutes later the lights went back to normal, but nothing else did. Tamara removed her mask and took a shaky breath, and was relieved not to collapse herself. So far, so good.

“There there.” ZeeBee patted her again, and Tamara laughed shakily. “There there. There there.”

Redstone Ch. 15. Pt. 1

Notes: Aaand thus we start the inexorable slide into the American holiday season. This Thursday is Thanksgiving, which will be a pretty easy event for us--ie we're not cooking--but life in general will get busier. I know that's true for a lot of you, so thanks for finding the time to read along. I am very thankful for my wonderful readers, guys, so... *hugshugshugs*

Title: Redstone Chapter 15, Part 1.

*** 

Today was the day. Wyl was nervous; not a strange reaction to the beginning of what he hoped would be the end, but he was feeling it more than he thought he would.

It would all come down to timing, every piece of the puzzle having to snap into place at just the right time. There was a little leeway in a few places; as long as Wyl got to the infirmary before Tamara, he could plant the data chip in the drop spot for her. Then she’d need to get to it before anyone else found it or it was cleared away, but she seemed confident that she could. The chip was smaller than a fingernail and completely transparent, so the odds of someone else finding it when they weren’t actively looking weren’t good, so. They had some breathing room there.

After that it was up to Tamara. She was the one who’d been spending time in the administrative wing, so she had the best idea of when to open all the vents and trigger the gas so that the fewest people would be between her and Warden Harrison. Once the gas was set off, people would fall where they stood and be out for a good half an hour, or at least that was what Robbie thought. There were uncertainties there as well. The supply of gas was finite, and it would be dispersed throughout a wider portion of the prison than usual, so it was entirely possible that it would be less potent than the data suggested. Half an hour wasn’t much time for Tamara to break into Harrison’s office, steal the data she needed to and wipe the cameras. Less time than that meant her success would be a toss-up.

If it all went well, then they’d get hard evidence of malfeasance to Garrett by the end of the day, and be off this fucking rock in another 48 hours. If it didn’t…well, Wyl didn’t care to think about that. He didn’t have time to think about it, either. It was time to get this caper started, and that meant getting hit in the face. Thank fuck Robbie was on shift right now.

“ZeeBee,” he told his robot, whose eyestrip shifted obediently to face him. “Enact one-time only five second delay on defensive protocols.”

ZeeBee’s strip dimmed. “Defensive protocols are not to be tampered with, per previous commands.”

Wyl frowned. “What commands?”

“Per Christopher Robin’s alpha command. As follows: ZeeBee, no matter what, don’t let Wyl talk you into turning off your protections, okay? You stay on him and you watch him and don’t let anybody hurt him.”

It was creepy; ZeeBee even did Robbie’s voice perfectly. Wyl hadn’t known these robots had that capability. It would be cooler to have found out when Robbie wasn’t cockblocking his plan, though. “Override Christopher Robin’s alpha command, authorization Wyl-bonder-thirteen. Enact previously stated delay on defensive protocols.”

“Five second delay enacted. Per Christopher Robin’s beta command, I am instructed to tell you: goddammit, Wyl, don’t be an idiot.”

Wyl grinned, shaking his head as he battled with the nerves that made his hands want to tremble. “Thanks, ZeeBee.”

So much that could go wrong here…it wouldn’t take a lot of digging to work out that he’d built the chip if it was found, and if that happened, then it would be easy to dump Wyl and Robbie in the depths of Redstone to fight it out long before Garrett could do anything about it. Not to mention Tamara, who as a natural had far fewer of the inbuilt resources that the rest of them had. She would be royally fucked, and then Kyle would never get out of here and Isidore’s faith would be repaid with utter chaos.

Wyl wondered, not for the first time, if Garrett really understood what he asked of people. He was clearly getting used to maneuvering on a grander scale than Wyl could see. He wondered, when would they stop being his friends, and start being pieces on a board?

Not fair, he chided himself. Garrett was a spoiled, elitist jackass sometimes, but he never evaded his responsibilities and he never forgot about his friends and family. There was no doubt that he loved his husband and kid more than anything, and the rest of them, those who had been brought into the sphere of his affections; they were more than lip service. Wyl knew that; it was just hard to remember it sometimes, when they were so far apart, and things seemed so fraught.

Nah, it’d be fine. Or at least, it would if Wyl got himself carried to the clinic in the next five minutes or so. He reached over to his Morse machine and tapped out a final message: Going now. Ten-fifteen minutes.

Understood. Good luck.

Nice and succinct, good. Wyl made sure the chip was securely attached to the back side of his earlobe, then headed for the door of their apartment. It was time to pick a fight.

He was in luck today. Of his two most forward suitors, if violent-minded rapists could be called that, only one of them was downstairs in the common room, zoned out in front of the holoscreen. There were a few other men there with him, but Wyl didn’t care about them. They might follow the man’s lead, but Wyl had ZeeBee as his ace in the hole.

He walked down the stairs to the main floor, and made it almost all the way to the lounge in the center of the room before the man—what was his name, Fortay, that was it, Horace Fortay—even noticed him. And then when he did notice him, well. Wyl hardly had to do any work at all.

“He lives!” Fortay said, grinning widely. Nobody should have a mouth that wide. At further glance, Wyl could see that the edges of his lips had been cut and extended, deliberately creating the skin-tight rictus effect he was seeing now. It was one of the simpler, creepier mods he’d ever seen on a person. “Hey there, little lady. Are you looking for you daddy?”

“No,” Wyl said, affecting a sigh. “He’s working and I’m bored in our rooms.”

“Well, sweetheart.” If his grin had stretched any further it would have overtaken the rest of his face. “Why don’t you come and sit down next to me? I’ll keep you company until your daddy comes back.”

“Thanks,” Wyl said with a simper. He sat down on the edge of the lounge and scooted in toward the middle, where Fortay was spread out. The man reached a hand out, grabbed his upper arm and pulled him in even closer, until Wyl was reluctantly plastered against the man’s hard, bony chest.

“There, baby,” Fortay murmured. His breath smelled like stimulants and burnt hair. Wyl didn’t want to imagine what he’d been eating. “S’better like this, yeah? You wanna get a little more comfortable?” He pressed his groin against Wyl’s hip; he was already hard. Fuck, what kind of drugs was this guy on? Did he walk around with a perpetual boner? “We could get really comfortable. I could show you a real man’s cock, not that old, gray thing you’re used to.”

Oh, so astonishingly original. Wyl was already done with this. He pursed his lips and pretended to think about it. “Hmm, we could. Except I think my eyes might fall out of their fucking sockets if I have to look at what you’re deluded enough to call a real man’s cock.”

Fortay was caught off guard, his jaw actually dropping. One of the onlookers laughed nervously. “I mean,” Wyl continued, warming to his subject, “you look like more of a stretcher than a fattener, so you’ve either got a filament-thin little poker of a dick coiled up in your mommy’s underwear or it’s long and floppy and hangs down to your knees, but I can’t get any traction with that, if you know what I mean.”

“Wha—you—my dick ain’t fucking modded, you little cocksucker!”

Wyl smirked as he eased back toward the edge of the lounge. “Oh no? Then I guess I’d be lucky to be able to find it at all, it’s probably so itsy-bitsy—”

“Bitch!” Fortay lunged, and Wyl helpfully stuck his face forward, hoping for a nice, smooth punch right across the cheek. Instead he got fingers around his throat, and the weight of Fortay’s body crashing into his, propelling him to the hard ground.

Wyl gasped and clawed at Fortay’s arms, trying to break his grip, but the guard was far stronger than Wyl. He tried to remember his training but it had been a while since he’d practiced, and was he blacking out? Fuck, blacking out wasn’t part of the plan…when would the five seconds be over? When would…he…

“Alert! Alert!” One bright green zap later and Fortay had been literally blasted off of Wyl’s chest. Wyl tried to inhale but somehow couldn’t, and after another moment he went unconscious.

 

 

Waking up in the infirmary was good. Waking up and not knowing how long he’d been there, that was bad, really fucking bad. Waking up and seeing the doctor standing over him, staring down sourly as he pulled a syringe straight out of Wyl’s throat, that was extra bad.

“Try not to cough,” the doctor advised a second after Wyl started coughing. “You dislocated your hyoid bone. It’s been stabilized and I’ve given you an intramuscular injection of Regen to jumpstart the healing process, but you’re not going to want to speak for another few hours if you can help it.”

“…long?” Wyl managed to wheeze.

The doctor glared at him. “What did I just tell you?”

“How long…here?” Wyl persisted.

“Fifteen minutes. Your husband has been informed, but his duties prevent him from visiting you right now. I’m keeping you under observation until I can relinquish you into his custody.”

Oh shit, Robbie knew. Robbie knew that Wyl had basically had his fucking throat crushed. He was probably spitting iron.

“This unit brought you to me,” the doctor went on, turning his glare on ZeeBee, who stood calmly in one corner of the room. “It has since refused to leave. I informed the techs that it’s malfunctioning, but they say it’s a low priority, so you’re going to have to put up with its company for now.”

Wyl waved a hand to indicate fine, and silently promised himself he’d modify ZeeBee’s code to hide his tampering better. The last thing he wanted was for the robot to be taken away and reprogrammed from scratch.

“Now, I have another patient to see to. What a day,” the doctor muttered. “First a spouse, now a natural; I don’t even have a treatment plan for someone so primitive.”

A natural. Oh, shit, Tamara was here already, and the doctor was going to see her now. The doctor turned and left, and as soon as he was gone, Wyl motioned for ZeeBee, well aware this was all being recorded. Fuck it, he’d deal with it somehow, and in the meantime he’d make this as innocuous as possible.

He reached up to scratch his ear, and came away with the chip in his hand. “ZeeBee,” he whispered, touching the robot on the arm and sticking the chip to it. He patted it once. “Go make Tamara your baby.” It was a fairly complicated command for his bot, since it had never met Tamara before and could only work off of conjecture, but after a moment of perfect stillness apart from its eyestrip pulsing, ZeeBee said, “Accepted,” and left the room.

Wyl sank back into the bed, conscious of the burn in his throat and his creeping fatigue. He’d done his best. It was up to ZeeBee and Tamara now.

 

Redstone Ch. 8, Pt. 2

Notes: More Redstone today! A little bit longer than usual, and a hell of a lot darker. This chapter includes graphic depictions of violence and a non-graphic depiction of rape/non-con. No, it's not between any of the main characters, but it does happen and I don't want to trigger anyone, so...please. Don't read if that's going to be an issue for you. It's highlighted, so it's easy to skip.

This is going to be a rough story in some ways, but I swear there will be plenty of moments of light as well!

Title: Redstone, Chapter 8, Part 2.

***

Robbie Sinclair, unbeknownst to most people, was a hell of an actor.

It was an odd skillset for a career soldier to have, he knew that. Weapons expert, yeah! Close combat aficionado, definitely. Even linguist, those who were acquainted with him could get behind. Most people didn’t bother learning any languages other than Federation Common these days, because it was the lingua franca of the human-inhabited universe, utilized by every central system planet and most of the Fringe for doing business. Hell, most people didn’t even know what language lingua franca had originally referred to anymore; it was a dead metaphor.

But Robbie, well, he was old school. Old blood. His parents were Martians, for heaven’s sake; that was as old system as you could get. He had learned French and Spanish from his mother, Russian from his grandfather, and had taught himself three other languages in his youth, all without the help of mods. It was…cute. Quaint. An interesting skillset, if not necessarily a useful one. But acting? Why would a career marine need to know how to act?

Only to ensure his own survival. In a universe that was increasingly insular and xenophobic, coming into a situation as an outsider was dangerous. Staying an outsider could mean anything from pain to death to, even worse, harm coming to someone he loved. That meant Robbie had to be a chameleon, had learned to be one from the moment he woke up out of cryo-sleep and realized that half of the people who had come with him from Mars had died, their cryo-pods malfunctioning. His parents had died. His peers were diminished. Robbie was an immigrant without a support system, and if he didn’t want to be dismissed into some menial position, he needed to appear as Central as he could, as quickly as possible. And he had, and he’d survived. Thrived, even.

The only person who’d understood this aspect of him from the very beginning was Garrett, probably because Garrett was just as familiar with the high stakes of blending in as Robbie was. Not that Garrett blended in, really, but he was resolutely dedicated to a persona that was light-years away from his true self. Wyl…well, Wyl was always himself, but Robbie could be anybody. It was a good thing that Wyl was used to seeing Robbie slip in and out of different skins depending on their circumstances, because the one he’d have to wear here was particularly slimy.

“You go in in force, and you stay together if you’ve gotta be down in the pit,” his new commander, Loven Cray, explained casually as he and Robbie looked at vidscreens depicting different areas in the prison. “Can’t let them get you alone, ‘cause they’ll try to strip the armor off of you first thing. Like fuckin’ animals, they are; buncha cannibals who’ll eat you alive just to trade your liver to some other animal for a piece of kidney.”

“They ever get a guard before?” Robbie asked, squinting a little as he examined the screens. Internally he was absorbing everything: plotting points, entrances and egresses and taking count of how many inmates were lounging where.

“Almost. Last guy in charge before me, he went down in there to teach somebody a lesson but he only took bots with him as backup, no people. The bots use strictly non-lethal countermeasures, which,” Cray snorted, “is complete fuckin’ bullshit, but that’s what’s written in the charter. Guy was swarmed, bots torn apart and he was almost choked to death before his crew could get in there. Three inmates were killed, but they got him out.”

“Rough shit.”

“You’re tellin’ me.” He shook his head. “These are the worst of the worst. I know you’ve done a stint at Caravan, but that’s a fuckin’ paradise for prisoners compared to this place. Those are little lambs, while we’ve got the wolves. This place ain’t about rehabilitation, it’s about containment.” Cray scowled at the screens. “There, you see that shit?”

Two inmates were getting into an argument, which quickly turned into a fight. A short, vicious fight that ended with one of them on the ground, bleeding from his head, and the other…

Robbie took a slow, deep breath and didn’t let any of the horror he felt show on his face as a man was rolled over, bound with his own clothing and viciously raped on vid, right in front of him. “Not gonna send bots in to stop that?”

“Nah.” Cray tapped the section indicator in the corner of the screen. “That’s in the back half of the pit; it would take a bot too long to get there to do any good. If the inmate doesn’t get up afterward, well, we might go in and get him so he can do some time in a Regen tank, but he shouldn’t have started that fight. He’s going to be that guy’s bitch for the rest of his time here. Which for that particular prisoner,” Cray consulted his personal tab, “looks like another fifteen years.” He smiled widely. “That’ll teach him a lesson.”

“Reckon it will.” Robbie kept his gaze forward but let his eyes go unfocused. “When do we go in, then?”

“Gotta go in case of murders, or really sick shit.” Robbie wondered what qualified to this person as “really sick shit” if violent rape didn’t. “We go in force, though, and we activate the blackout mode on our headgear so they can’t identify us individually. You don’t want these animals knowing who you are, they’ll just try to play games with you. Lure you in, set a trap. Some of these little fucks are cunning as shit, and there are issues with illegal mods, but as long as they only use them on each other we don’t bother too much with it.” Cray laughed suddenly. “Lemme show you one of my favorite vids. Love this one.”

He pulled up a video on his tab and activated the hologram a few feet in front of them. The scene was Redstone prison’s dining hall, crowded with people. “Watch that skinny little fucker there,” Cray said, indicating someone in the bottom left corner. Robbie glanced at the man, then almost did a double-take. That was Isidore. And that was a person creeping up behind him, reaching out and grabbing a fistful of his hair before giving it a vicious backward pull.

Robbie’s abdomen clenched with adrenaline even as he kept his face impassive, watching the scene. If Isidore had been hurt, if he was already out of the game before they’d even arrived…

But, no. Isidore went back, but his attacker was already reeling away, clutching his pulling hand with the other and staring at the blood that welled there in horror. It didn’t end there, though. Isidore turned to look at his attacker with hard eyes, then reached up to the very base of his scalp and plucked what looked like a single hair. He stood up from the table, advanced on the man and had the hair wrapped around the guy’s hand before his attacker knew what was happening. And then, he yanked it tight.

Blood. Screams. Not a complete severing, the hair wasn’t tough enough for that, but some blood vessels in the guy’s wrist had definitely been severed. He fell to the ground and Isidore let him go, watching him like he was a curiosity, and not the man who’d just tried to take advantage of him and paid so dearly for it. He was detached. Dissociated. If that was acting, then Isidore was even better at it than Robbie.

“I love it,” Cray said with a chuckle. “I mean, obviously it’s an illegal mod, but look at that shit! You can’t ask for better free entertainment than that. Plus, little guys need all the help they can get, right? It keeps things fair.”

“I hear you,” Robbie said easily. “My guy’s kind of the same. Small, but he earns his respect.”

“Yeah, your guy.” Cray let the hologram dissolve. He actually looked a little uncomfortable. “Look, about your guy…see, the guards working here are good guys, yeah? They are. But this can be a rough place to be for long periods of time, and they get kinda…stir crazy, every now and then. The line blurs a little. I’m just saying, it might be best if your guy spends most of his time in your rooms. Yeah?”

Or else these sadistic motherfuckers will go after him with just as much joie de vivre as the inmates go after each other. Robbie could read between those lines. He’d be damned if he was going to tell Wyl to restrict himself to their fucking rooms, which meant a demonstration might be in order. Wyl could take care of himself, but after seeing this… “I get you,” Robbie said. “Wyl’s no fool, he’ll do what’s best for himself. Keep out of the mix.”

“Good.” Cray nodded. “You’re in the system now, and you’ve got the basics of the schedule down. Your shift starts in four hours, so you’ve got some downtime before then. I’ll be your crew leader for the first few days, so just ask if you’ve got questions.” He held out his hand. “Welcome aboard Redstone, Sinclair. I think you’re gonna do okay here.”

Robbie smiled sharply as he shook Cray’s hand. “I expect I will.”  I expect that someday I’ll drive my fist so hard into your gut that it tickles your spine.

Getting to the central living room for the guards was easy. Getting there to see two of them banging on the door that Robbie knew led to the rooms he and Wyl were assigned to was almost enough to drop a red curtain across his vision. Three other guys were there, lazing around on couches or playing games on the holosystem, but not doing anything to stop the other two. Robbie ambled his way to the second level and closed in on the men, who were joking with each other as they yelled through the door.

“This ain’t the way to make friends!” one of them shouted with a grin. “Come on out, sweetheart, come meet your new friends!”

“The last wife we had here was a swinger,” the other one called. “You like to swing, baby?”

“That’s a husband, not a wife,” Robbie said calmly once he was close enough. Both guys swung around to look at him. “My husband, actually.”

“Yeah?” The younger of the two, a man a little taller than Robbie with stubbly black hair shaved to look like a demon was glaring out of the back of his skull, grinned manically. His buddy, a little more measured and definitely more intelligent, took one look and backed a few steps up. “Do you share?”

“Nope.” Robbie popped the “p” in the word. “I didn’t come to this shithole to share my piece of ass with every motherfucker in the joint.”

The man pouted dramatically. “That ain’t the way to make friends, man.”

“Neither is this. And trust me, you’re gonna want to be my friend.”

The man’s grin didn’t falter as Robbie drew a little closer. “Why’s that?”

“Because.” Robbie lowered his voice to something hard as diamonds. “If you’re my enemy, I’ll throw your dumb ass over this fuckin’ balcony and break both your legs, or maybe your back. And when you get outta Regen, I’ll do it again. And again, and again, until you decide you do want to be my friend. And being my friend means leaving my husband the fuck alone. Got it?”

For a moment Robbie thought he’d have to throw the guy over the wall right now; he was still grinning, something challenging in his amber eyes. But after a moment he held up both hands. “No worries, buddy! Let’s be friends!”

“Let’s,” Robbie agreed. He let the men ease past him before opening the door himself and going inside. He resisted the urge to slam the door shut as hard as he could, and leaned back against it instead. Their apartment was tiny, and strewn with parts and half-unpacked bags of clothes. He saw Wyl in the corner, fiddling with something, one of Redstone’s bots standing patiently at his side.

“Hey!” Wyl said as soon as he noticed Robbie. “I got the array set up, so communications are a go. I also adopted a pet; his name is ZeeBee. Say hello, ZeeBee!”

“Hello, Christopher Robin.”

Wyl appeared to be waiting for something. When Robbie said nothing, he frowned. “What, no groan? No threats of bodily harm for teaching the robot to call you—oof!”

Robbie couldn’t take it anymore. Not the distance, but especially not the thought of Wyl and threats. He was across the room and hugging Wyl to his chest in an instant. Wyl got with the program fast, turning into the embrace and hugging Robbie back as hard as he could.

“Hey,” Wyl said gently. “What is it? What happened?” He kissed Robbie’s collarbone. “Baby?”

“We’re going to have to be careful,” Robbie said softly. His voice broke on the last word. “So fucking careful.” He couldn’t put the horror of the past few hours into words: what he’d learned, what he’d seen. Luckily, Wyl didn’t need him to.

“We will be,” Wyl whispered. “I promise, I swear, Robbie. We’ll be careful. I’ll be careful.”

Robbie sighed heavily. “Good.”

It was a start, at least.