Synth

Once TO had scraped the sludge off their armor and off the bot, and after they had taken a long shower in hot water until they stopped feeling the non-existent layer of scum on the skin, they brought the medication to Goretta to examine. She wasn’t in the dorms with the civilians anymore. No, apparently she had returned to the private, makeshift medical room.

“She probably went to pack up some last-minute things.” Vik said when TO asked why she had gone back there. “I mean, she wouldn’t want to pack up all her supplies until the last minute in case something happened, right?”

That made sense, at least to TO.

TO opened the door to the medical room and looked around. Most everything did indeed seem packed up and Goretta wasn’t around. They opened the door wider and let the robot scurry past, carrying the box of medication under them. It hadn’t been hard to get the medication in the end. They hadn’t seen anything else in the tunnels after that heat signature the first time, and didn’t see another person along the way. Even the tunnels were devoid of insects, which, while odd, did at least calm TO down. The box of medication, while heavy, was even smaller than TO thought it’d be making it very simple to transport with the bot. The entire way back, they had been on guard. They were certain that things were simply too easy right now, and that something had to go wrong. For a change, it hadn’t.

“Goretta?” TO called out, their ears twitching as they listened carefully. They heard muffled talking from behind a nearby door and approached. They nearly opened the door, but they remembered earlier when Goretta had the sheets hung around Mark’s bed, and had been cleaning up after the procedure, so they knocked just in case.

The door opened, and Goretta peeked out. Over the short doctor, TO could see into the room, and see what she was tending to. Kei was there, laying on the bed in the center. They were strapped down at their wrists and ankles, and a large strap went over their chest, holding them down against their wings. While there seemed to be tools nearby for some kind of IV, they weren’t hooked up to it just yet.

Kei looked up and caught TO’s eyes. Their ears pinned back, but oddly, they lifted as well in a smirk as they stared TO down. It only lasted a brief second as Goretta slipped out of the room and closed the door behind her, but the look that Kei gave TO set them on edge.

“Sorry.” Goretta said as she closed the door. She looked down at the spider bot, and her expression brightened. “Oh! you got the meds!” She said as she bent down to examine them.”

“What’s going on?” TO asked, glancing back at the closed door.

“I’m still working with them.” She said as she detached the crate from the bottom of the spider bot. “I’m making substantial progress, too. They’re actually eating solid food.” She smiled as she patted the spider bot. “Good bot.”

“Are they now?” TO muttered, pulling their eyes from the door.

“Yes.” She stood up as she set the box on the closest table. “But I’m not entirely sure that they did it in the spirit of cooperation.”

“Why not?”

“Well, they said they’d eat, but seemed very disappointed when I sat down and started feeding them. I thought they’d refuse to eat then, but they didn’t.” She shrugged as she opened the box. “Maybe they just didn’t want to be fed, but were too hungry to argue. Still, I was worried that the second I loosened their bindings, they’d try something.”

“Wise.” TO said. They sighed and leaned in to look at the medication. It seemed to them that most of what was in that box was dense packaging surrounding tiny, thin glass vials. “Is it enough?” They asked.

“It should be along with the rest that we have.” Goretta said, “I calculated extra on what I thought was the precise amount needed, just in case something happened and we ended up taking longer to get to our first stop.”

“Right…” TO said, their ears dipping, “… How important is this medication exactly?” They asked.

“It’s absolutely essential if we want to keep Kei asleep on the trip.”

“Aside from that,” TO said, their wings tightening around their shoulders, “How important is this medication in general?”

She sighed, “Fairly important.” She said. “For most species, it’s needed to put them under for a surgery.”

“And what happens if you run out?”

“Well, for us, it means we have to wait until we get to the first safe port to do any surgeries-“

“No, that’s not what I meant,” TO said, clutching their arms under their wings, “I meant… on Arkane. If … if Decon doesn’t kill everyone, but the blockade stays up. What happens if they run out of this?”

“Ah…” her fingers drummed against the table as she considered this, and for the first time TO noticed that she had no fingernails, nor any claws. They couldn’t help but watch and stare at her fingers as they danced along the tabletop moved. Watching those claw-less fingers made them check their own fingertips, as though checking to ensure that their own claws were still there.

“Well… I’m not involved with the official medical systems anymore.” She said, “But once Gyrini implemented the lockdown, I assume that they indefinitely postponed any non-essential surgeries.”

“Right, they wouldn’t start again until the lockdown lifted, right?”

She shrugged. “Maybe longer than that.” She said, “The first surgeries would be just the cosmetic ones, or the elective ones. The longer they stay in lockdown, though, the more they’re going to cut back. They’ll start looking at how long a person can survive with certain issues and start doing surgeries based on that. If it lasts long enough, only immediate procedures with top rates of survival will happen.” She reached into the crate and pulled up a padded tray of medication, setting it down carefully on the table and examining every vial. “When I was in school, I learned of a planet where something like that happened; An issue with their local sun made it impossible to deliver shipments there for several years. Before they ran out of the essential drugs, I think they were only allowing surgeries that had immediate and life-saving urgency, which had a success rate of 70% or above, and a survival rate of 90% or above.” She paused, and tapped at a vial, checking for something, some flaw that TO wasn’t certain of. “So, if you were over a certain age, and you suddenly had a heart attack and needed a bypass, you’d not get it, as your recovery wasn’t really assured.”

It reminded TO a lot of how it had been in training; of how they carefully weighed stats to see if a medical procedure, or even if continuing to develop a young synth, was worth it. Of course, here all the treatments had to do with how effective they’d be long term, and not how capable or worthy the person was. “And… what about when you run out entirely?”

She paused, one of those clawless fingers resting on a vial. She looked up and watched TO carefully for several long minutes.

“Why do you ask?”

“I’m curious.”

“It’s… not pleasant.” She said. “And I know you’re averse to-“

“Just…. In the most sanitized terms, please.” TO said as they sat down on the nearest chair.

She gave a heavy sigh and turned to look at TO as she leaned back against the table. “Most surgeries stop. Those that can technically be done without the use of anesthesia…” she shrugged, “Well, it’s patient’s choice at that moment, really, and most won’t opt in for it unless they’re in a life or death situation. But they have to sign papers beforehand, because they’ll scream and ask us to stop during the procedure.”

Her meaning was clear. All TO could think about in that moment was of when DH got their eye replaced. It hurt badly enough when they had to stop taking the good painkillers, so TO wondered how bad it would have been if they hadn’t been put under for the procedure. They could only imagine their precious mate strapped down to a table, their head held in place by metal clamps as they screamed and begged for the medical officer to stop.

A cup of water appeared before them, and it took TO a moment to realize that Goretta had gotten them the cup, and was holding it before them.

“I warned you.” She said.

TO nodded and took the cup from her, sipping it carefully as they tried to focus on the feel of the cool liquid running down their throat, and the faint aftertaste of the various minerals added to the drinking water of Arkane.

“…You going to be ok?” she asked.

“No.” TO said, “We’ve stolen all the medication to keep Kei sedated. We got that to keep Kei from finding a way to kill us all in space.” They shook their head, “…It if wasn’t for Avery…I couldn’t do this.” How many vials were in that case, anyway? Was each vial a single dose? Was each vial a single surgery which could be performed without agonizing pain?

Goretta sighed and pulled up a chair in front of TO, her writhing tentacles draping over the edge and twisting on the floor as she sat down.

“Look.” She said, “… When it comes Kei as a person, I don’t have a say.” She said, “I don’t have any involvement in that decision.” She slowly reached out and put her hand on TO’s wrist. “But… I have an investment in a test subject.”

“That doesn’t make things easier,” TO muttered.

A long silence drew out between them, one in which TO could hear the various sounds that made their way to them from all around: large bugs behind the walls, rare rodents, pipes that still carried water through the dirt and distant machinery doing who knew what.

“Do you have anyone you left behind?”

“What?” TO blinked as they looked up, their ears twitching in confusion.

“Someone you left behind in the training center, or just under Decon. Do you have anyone you had to leave behind who maybe didn’t escape the brain alterations?”

TO nearly said no, but then they remembered Q10, how heartbroken they had looked as they were led away to be corrected, and how empty they were afterwards.

They had never been friends, but Q10 had been different, had been strange, and what happened to them wasn’t right.

“…Yes.” They said. “Someone who got corrected.”

“TO, I want Kei to cooperate and work with me because it’ll help me in studying them, their brain, and how it recovers. It’ll help me perfect the procedure so I can do it on others. There are synths that we already brought to Apoikia who were different, but still had alterations done to their mind. I can help them. Maybe one day we can even help synths who were like you, the others that Flit and Snout disconnected from that system and then got corrected. Maybe I can restore their minds.”

TO remembered another synth, the one that they had protected from the awful sludge in the Maintenance section of the training center. The one that had been on the other side of them in the tanks, and who had been corrected early on.

What were the chances that they, like Avery, had their brains intact? What might they had been like before being corrected?

Why did they get corrected?

“I’m hoping I can help a lot of people.” She said. “And… Yes, if Decon doesn’t kill everyone, and if they extend the lockdown in an attempt to catch a handful of insurgents and don’t allow so much as medical supplies to reach the planet…” she sighed. “…I don’t feel good about what I’m doing with this stuff, but I also don’t feel bad. Nor do I feel bad for the food we got, even though food shortages will be another issue the planet will suffer after a while.” She looked at TO. “In the end… I’m just doing what I think is best. Not what’s right: what’s best.”

“… Right.”

“…Do you think he won’t attack?” She asked. “Do you think Decon won’t kill everyone?”

“…I don’t know.” TO said, “I… I can’t imagine them doing it at all, honestly.” Their ears pinned back, “But before I came here, before I learned everything I did… well, there’s a lot that I never could have imagined Kind Decon doing, which it’s very clear he did.”

Goretta nodded, giving TO’s wrist a little squeeze, “You know… I kind of wanted to post something somewhere.” She said, “I don’t know… send a mass email to everyone I know, or post something on socials. I wanted to just tell everyone what King Decon had done, you know? I wanted to tell them about the planned mass murder, about what he did to you synths, and how he’s perfectly happy to let people suffer so long as it keeps the people running each planet placid…” She shook her head, “But, it wouldn’t matter. If I sent that, it would be censored right away. Heck, even if I could send it to everyone on the planet, it’d get stopped before it could go anywhere else in the galaxy.” She shook her head. “I mentioned it to Vik… and they said that the translation system would block it, and that doing that was a great way to get us tracked down here.”

“I don’t even know what it would do.” TO muttered, “It would just anger King Decon, and the synths coming here wouldn’t believe the message.”

Goretta shrugged, “I know.” She said as she let go of TO’s wrist and stood up, “Maybe I just want to shame him a little, or get the rest of the Galaxy angry. Maybe if enough people saw what he was doing…” she chuckled and shook her head, ”But… I guess if he’s got control of all the communication systems, and the translation system, so that’d never happen.”

“It wouldn’t.” TO said, sighing. “Even if you could get that information out, the narrative would be that you’re just an insurgency spreading discord.”

“Yeah… I know.” Goretta said. She went back to the box. “… I’m going to use this on Kei in the morning.” She said, “I don’t want to use any of this until it’s absolutely necessary.”"

TO nodded, then stood up to leave. They had all their work done now, and they could rest with their mate and their family.

As their hand rested on the doorknob, they stopped. The conversation was replaying in their head, and a question rose in their mind. They turned to Goretta. “…What do you think is right?” They asked. “The right thing to do, in this situation.”

“I’d rather keep that information to myself.” She said. “I hope you understand.”

TO nodded, turned, and left. Most likely, what Goretta thought was right was also what TO thought was ‘right’.

And they couldn’t bring themself to surrender and see DH get hurt.