Synth

The five minutes which Decon’s fleet granted had long run out by the time DH finished their broadcast. Of course, Noss wanted the camera to keep rolling either until they got away, or until Decon disconnected the stream.

“I’m surprised they haven’t cut the broadcast.” TO signed to Flit, the pain in their arm a mere dull throb thanks to the medication that DH gave them earlier.

“I’m not.” Flit signed back, “King Decon created the emergency broadcast system as a failsafe, something an enemy couldn’t stop or take down. I’m certain that was a much greater concern when he created this system.”

Another moment passed. DH’s ears flicked nervously as they looked at the screen. “We’re waiting.” They said once the silence became awkward, “I… I don’t know if they’re going to let us pass or–“

An alert came in on their chip. They opened it, their eyes flicking over the message before them. After a moment, their ears lifted and their eyes widened.

“They granted us passage.” DH said, looking at the camera in total shock. “I… I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s going to happen to Arkane, but they have offered us safe passage from the solar system.” They looked over to TO, whose eyes and ears showed as much surprise as DH’s. Still, their mind raced with the possibilities of King Decon’s deceit. King Decon lied, so maybe they were just waiting for them to think they were safe. They quickly signed a message to DH, “We… We will end the broadcast for now.” They said as they watched TO sign, “And we will post another broadcast once we’re safe. As for Arkane…” They watched TO, but TO had stopped signing. They didn’t know what to say about the planet below, and its people.

“… As for Arkane..” DH said, “I… I’m sorry we have only one ship. I’m sorry we couldn’t take more people. I’m sorry we couldn’t stop this.” They looked down at the table before them. “Believe me when I say we tried…”

Off to the side, Noss allowed the silence that followed DH’s apology to linger a little longer before he turned off the camera. “Perfect.” he said, “Perfect place to end it! It’s hopeful, sad… The apology was inspired”

“Glad you approve.” Flit grunted as their ears quivered with their sarcastic lie, which Noss clearly didn’t understand given the smile that spread across the minister’s face. “DH, set our course and get us out of here.” They looked to Noss. “You stay here though. Once we’re safe, you can do the next broadcast–”

“We’ll have to lose the fleet before we leave the solar system, then.” Noss said, “After that, I’ll be out of range.”

“I’m working to get their tracking off us,” Vik said, typing away at the tiny keyboard he brought with him. He had set up a little workplace at TO’s desk and now seemed just as content to work here as he did back in the common room in the underground. “I’m going to try to bounce our signal around so they can’t track us when we send the next broadcast. ” They looked at DH, who had jumped from their seat and rushed to their own workstation where they fired up the main navigation controls. “Hey, D, your permissions won’t work on that mother-ship, will it? I’m not saying I can’t hack it, but your ships use an entirely different coding language that I’m not used to. I can get through it with permissions, but without it’ll take more time than we have.“

“DH would only have access to our ship.” Flit said, “No reason for them to have access to others.”

Conversation continued around them, but TO let it morph into a meaningless noise. The ship lunged as it began movement, picking up speed and moving away from Arkane. Would the synth combat ships give chase, or would they be left alone? Was there anything that TO could do, any other plan they could think of to ensure their safety?

It hurt to think, which was a very odd sensation to TO. It was as though mind was walking through water, and thinking beyond a certain level now hurt their head. They lay back, watching the flurry of movement before them without really seeing what was going on. The pain was coming back now as well, waking and turning the dull, numb, cold sensation into searing pain. More and more, the sounds and movements around them faded into meaninglessness as they tried to manage the pain.

They had no idea how long it was before DH finally sat down on the bed next to them, a long needle in hand. They said something, but TO didn’t pay any attention to the words: The only thing they cared about was how low and worried DH’s ears were, how nice their hand felt as they reached out and gently rubbed TO’s right ear before cupping their cheek.

Through all the other pains in their body, they didn’t even feel the needle slide under their skin. Moments later, they were unconscious.

======

The Galactic Broadcast Anchor on Arkane often appeared as a feathered civilian with a blunt hooked beak and short wings. Sometimes it would appear as male, sometimes female based on who was around. In private homes, it of course shifted to appear like its viewers, using the same language and speech patterns, but in a public place like pubs, it took on that bird-like visage.

Today, in the CottageCore pub, the GBA took on a female form at first, but shifted to male when a man from the smoke shop next door came in. He stopped and stared at the news, playing on that screen which normally looked like a window into a countryside.

“Hey, Fen.” He said as he looked over to the bar and say the tiny owner working there, “You got the news in your window!”

“Hilarious.” she said, keeping her focus on the knife she was sharpening. “There’s lots happening today, so I felt it best to have the news on until we heard something.”

“Doesn’t really fit the place, does it?”

Fengari sighed. True, having the news broadcast didn’t quite fit the aesthetic of the CottageCore pub, and she was normally more than happy to allow for the escapism, to create this place where people could pretend to be someone else somewhere else, at least for a little while. Today wasn’t a normal day, though. She had to know what happened, had to hear any little piece of news that came up. The Emergency broadcast had played on every single screen in the pub, so the face of the synth had stared out at them from every single fake window, and even the fake fireplace as they talked about their impending destruction.

Her tiny hands slowed as she carefully drew the knife over the sharpening stone. A synth. It hadn’t been Tio; she knew that as Tio didn’t have scars on their face. Still, the synth on the broadcast was clearly the same species as Tio, which meant that Tio was a synth.

There had been a synth in her pub. No, that was wrong. There had been a synth in her safe room, and two synths in her pub back several weeks ago when one came in, apparently upset after a fight with their mate. The other had come in and got entirely plastered after drinking one of her special brews.

Two synths had spent the night in what she fondly called her drunk tank.

She started laughing, putting the knife down, so she didn’t accidentally cut herself. When a nearby bug-like patron looked over, their antennae lifting in confusion, she only shook her head.

“Just remembered a joke.” She lied. Really, it sounded like a joke! ‘Two synths walk into a bar.’

Before the patron could ask what the joke was, and before she could even think up one of the passable jokes she’d heard before, the GBA suddenly slipped out of the pre-recorded looping stream of current local events and weather, and took on a far more stern countenance.

“We provide for you now an update regarding the distressing emergency broadcast which aired earlier today.” The anchor said, speaking clipped Galactic Common with an Arkanian accent. “The broadcast from earlier showed a creature claiming to be a synth in a spaceship over Arkane.”

“Claiming? it was a synth!” A different patron said from next to the fake fireplace, “They had the armor, and–” before she could finish, the other patrons shushed her so they could hear the rest of the announcement.

“We have confirmation that, despite a local planetary lockdown, a ship did, in fact, leave the planet earlier today. The launch was unauthorized and illegal, as authorities had initiated a lockdown on the planet to contain dangerous insurgent activities.”

Behind the anchor, an image of what the Synth had called a Terraformer appeared, “A nearby Terraforming ship with a small defensive fleet which was en route to intercept an asteroid witnessed the illicit launch and moved to stop the insurgents. At the time, it was unknown that the insurgents had taken a collection of civilians as hostage. This information discovered during attempts to pacify the insurgent vessel, and attacks on the rogue ship halted.”

A collection of murmurs rose in the pub, mostly softly cursing on the insurgency. Fengari kept silent, her small tail swishing behind her as she picked up her knife once more and continued her work with more force than necessary. She remembered Tio asking her to come with them, to leave the planet with them, warning that Decon might kill everyone on the planet.

They weren’t hostages; they were refugees.

“King Decon wishes to calm the fears stirred by these imposters, and assure the public that there is not, and has never been, any attempt to eradicate life on any singular planet.” The anchor continued, “Experts believe that the insurgents planned their takeoff to coincide with the arrival of the Terraformer so that they could spread lies about its presence here and stir fear and distrust in King Decon.“

Fengari didn’t believe that either, though most everyone else in her pub did. She couldn’t say she blamed them; the idea that they might have come so close to death, to planetary extinction, was hard to wrap her head around. No, the lies that the GBA was giving them offered them a much easier, much more comfortable version of events.

“The insurgents were allowed to leave the vicinity of the planet in order to preserve the life of the hostages. The synth forces are working to rescue the civilians and apprehend the insurgents. If anyone has information regarding these events, or has a friend or family member missing, we encourage you to report to the local authority.”

The GBA fell silent for a few minutes, its face blank before brightening up as it took on a brighter, casual tone. “Looking at weather in Okoia today, the temperature-“

Fengari turned the screen back to the window view it had before. Showing the swaying flowers and rustling trees in a fake countryside. Conversation shifted, people now talking about the insurgents, bringing up any little thing they could to link themselves with the events of the day.

“You know. Irene’s kid hasn’t been home in a while-“

“There was an odd delivery at the cyber-bar the other day.”

“Remember that prison break the other week?”

“And the insurgent attack on the underground. I bet that’s where they got most of their hostages.”

“Honestly, serves the squatters right. If they lived in real housing–”

Fengari closed her eyes, shook her head, and went back to her work. She remembered the way the Synth named DH had apologized to that they couldn’t do more to help the planet. Was that synth a friend of Tio’s?

She hoped they’d discover that Arkane, at least for now, was ok.