and i try again

Sometimes, a bit of elbow grease was the only way to get the job done.

Purgatory seemed a crucible that hardened dirt like cooling lava, pressure and heat compacting murk into scabrous swaths. With it came a persistent crunch under inmate footprints, heightening the swish of mops, the rattle of bars, the animal sounds that filed through hallways in unsteady lines. Such was the essence of captivity - a reduction of people to their rawest parts. How much hurt could they take before their humanity left them? How much work? How much violence? How much shame? Just the other day, Robyn had passed a guard who reeked of loneliness, seen a blanket of fear cocoon a woman, metamorphosing her back into a girl. Feral instinct was an exoskeleton worn by people forced to live underground like insects, homogenizing them more than any uniform. But chip away at their layers and find dignity. Strain their tears and find hands cupped with the purest spring water. Scrub away all their anguish, their anger, and find names buried under numbers systems had raveled over skin. 

Hold them. 

Remember them. 

And know this was the first step towards mending.

Robyn wiped her forehead. A bead of sweat bloomed on her sleeve, sticky and warm as a young heart. The canteen, while caked in grime hours earlier, seemed to sparkle as much as anything could behind these walls, and mountains of trash found themselves gathered neatly in bags. “Why do you do it?” Inmates asked, guards wordlessly beside them. “Day after day, if it just gets dirty again?” Custodial tasks seemed busywork to those who hadn’t spent their lives pursuing them, but to Robyn, they meant the difference between hope and abandon. Anything, given enough mettle, could be breathed life into. Anything, given enough effort, could be made anew. And so this place of convergence found itself clean after every meal, labor she hoped would reconvince people of their humanity. Because this was her life now. This was her finest heroic mission. And despite want, despite dreams that’d only actualize in false memory, her minnow heart continued to lash its tail against the current, beat her lungs through the relentless task of swimming upstream.

Her hands clutched the life raft of the kitchen door and pushed it inward. No sooner did its tired groan cart her in, though, did she find a spoon angled at her chest, a chef’s saber that threatened to skewer her - still wriggling - and roast her on a spit. But the weapon lowered as Cairo’s eyes flickered with remembrance, and Robyn bounded towards the sink as she was welcomed inward. 

“Don’t worry about it. My mop lance would have totally beaten your spoon sword, anyway.” She cast down her equipment, flexing an arm before catching sight of the suds streaking the woman’s face. A slump. A sniffle. And yet here Cairo was, still strong enough to extend kindness.

“Brora’s,” Robyn replied, her voice soft, pulling the bucket out only to offer it to the other. A wistful smile graced her face, suds multiplying as she scrubbed slime off of dishes. “God, you should’ve seen it, Cairo - all those colors - sunsets like you’ve never seen. When we get out of here, I’ll take you up. We could go anywhere, see anything, taste the universe on our tongues.” She slowed her washing, hope mixing in with the pain of never knowing. Hunger gripped her, cast her gaze to the ceiling, threatened to spill need from a clenched fist. “If you could, uh…if you could eat anything…what would it be? What does it taste like? And do you find it on a moon or on a planet or in the ground or, uh….?” 

There was a better time than this. A time of fish eggs and ripe fruits spilling juice into her hands as she peeled away the hard, blue skin. What was there now? Surely no flesh to butcher. No leafy greens. No worms to pull from the earth, wind around sticks, and let dry in Brora’s relentless suns. And even those blonde annelids — even when thoroughly scorched, and plucked coiled and brown from their wooden shafts — even they gave off a memory of life. A soft indentation in sand. Something whispered as if to say: there used to be a degree of breathing, a heartbeat, here.

Here was none of that. There was only thrice-frozen gelatinous pulp that didn’t slide down your throat so much as cling to it. She wondered about the ingredients. She didn’t want to know. 

She smiled weakly at Robyn. She smiled at Robyn’s mop too, which she noted wasn’t being held properly to cause any real damage, but of course, she’d never admit that. Maybe one day she would— and for a moment, Cairo’s eyes flickered with something she’d presumed to be dead. Some primordial flame that had blazed inside of her when she’d held her infantry’s arms, straightened their aim, showed them how to punch the trigger. 

In many ways, Robyn was much the same. But then again, they were all the same once. Twelve indistinguishable soldiers — no — targets, marching through maroon sand. Marching through the same igneous layer of hell. Same uniform, same suffering, same gnawing hunger, and mortality. Tears, the same degree of salt. Blood, the same color, viscosity, and implication. And maybe they did have names once. Names and stories. Limp had been Benjamin, a tailor in Wrotham. Equis and Snafu had been Giselle and Bernadette, twins and dancers in the Royal Ballet of Crest. There was Domino, who had been Kali, and Cairo remembered her well. There was Cairo, who had been- well. What did that matter now? Call a coward something else for long enough — even a series of numbers — and she might just transform. 

(Behind her shirt collar, the Corporation’s symbol burned.)

And like a good approximation of a person, a good soldier, she returned to her work. Or maybe her work returned to her. After so long, the difference was a mouse versus a meal, and the detail was moot anyway. But Robyn made it seem less so. Cairo knew this as Robyn moved past her and plunged her hands into the sink. Robyn would have seen all the difference in the world. (Scrub, scrub) First of all, she would have cuddled the mouse. 

She heard Robyn’s voice work over the ugly syllables, not knowing they were ugly. It was pure — like a baby accidentally cooing out a swear. The word lost all of its power when she said it, and Cairo dropped herself onto the lone blue bucket. Brora’s sunsets had been a gunshot. Suddenly black. She liked Robyn’s version so much more. 

"That’s incredible,” she said softly, “Let’s.” She dried her hands with a rag and watched Robyn’s whole demeanor shift. And recognized the expression on herself 30 years ago, when she was still too small to fit her oversized uniform. When her heart still ached with the horrible unknowing of whether she was going to die out here or not. Her uniform, at least, she’d grow into. “There’s a cake my parents used to make,” Cairo began. “They’d grind grain into powder and turn it into a dough, and take seeds from a lotus and turn them into a paste. I watched them make it every year during the Old Planet’s full moon. They’d cut it apart and give me a taste- and it tasted like eating a sun, Robyn. You know that glow. Picture it in your mouth. A salty red yolk surrounded by stars. I’ll make it for you one day.” Words could be weapons. “Once we get out.” 

date & time : january 23rd, 7:00pm  location : purgatory, the kitchens status : with @robyn-kane

Cairo was never the sort of woman to do things indelicately.

Even now, standing before the mouth of Purgatory’s massive kitchen sink, the bubbles that foamed there made a delicate cushion around the dirty dishes and silverware. Any other kitchen hand would have made the soap monstrous, lathered into a mountain, threatening to drip from every edge (it’s how her blonde, pig-mouthed supervisor had shown her how). But even this was art she’d learned. The bubbles glinted in the dim light, layered atop each other, shouldered their round cousins to either side; eventually, she had a wet chrysanthemum staring back at her. Cairo pulled a bowl from her pile of filth and worked a sponge around the rim. Grey sludge softened and fell, plopped into the water, spun down the drain. 

If she was anywhere else, Cairo thought she might have been humming to herself. Even singing. She knew if she made a sound here, though, it could have been too nostalgic to bear. It would have conjured up a dangerous illusion of hope. 

So she washed her dishes — hair pinned tight against her skull, sleeves rolled high above her elbows — and tried very hard not to imagine herself in the Concord. It wasn’t long ago she’d been afforded this privilege, of privacy. At first, she thought she’d like it. You got accustomed to the endless energy of Purgatory — to everything loud, in constant motion and color even at night when nobody really slept. Not really. Perhaps a break from that would be a breath of air. Maybe she’d be able to really think. She hadn’t taken into account that this would be the first time in months she’d be alone. 

There were no devils in her ear now, no scraping plates or chatter; just the sound of her sink, filling and draining, filling and draining, her heartbeat, and her breath catching in her throat. But that was stupid! This wasn’t a time for mourning, for that raw feeling like a gutted fish.

She hadn’t lost yet. 

Right?

Cairo’s grip tightened on the sink’s metal lip. She brought an arm up to her brimming eyes and left a streak of soap there. 

The door opened and Cairo reached instinctively for a grimy spoon. What she was going to do with it was beyond her, but she turned swiftly to face her intruder, eyes aflame, spoon drawn. But when she saw Robyn, mop in hand — Robyn who had always offered her crooked smiles and tall tales but never any harm — Cairo let herself breathe and lowered the spoon. She slumped against the sink and sniffled. 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I bet you’re getting really tired of me doing that... There’s a blue bucket by the wall over there. You can sit on it and tell me one of your stories. Tell me again, was it Ailea’s moon you visited? Or Brora’s?”  

Waking after what was assumed death was terribly similar to waking after creation; but unlike the lab his first fluttering eyelids opened to, the scientist inhabiting the lab he suddenly found himself in were not soothing in touch nor words. Where Theon’s voice had been soft in the lyrics of his reassurance, the scientists currently looming over him spoke with a cool calculation, eager for discovery and ignorant of the consequences experienced by that which they were discovering.

Sharp edges cut synthetic skin, flinching away from the surprising presence of something eerily similar to blood; but neither shock nor consideration was enough for the scientists to cease their search of a control panel necessary for every android’s ability to function. Instead, the scientists continued their intimate exploration of the intricate wiring system present beneath his skin. Whispered praise accompanied every new instance of pain, yet DATA remained still in the binds that held him to the table. He did not wish for them to know that such sensations were possible by something they held no concern for.

It was not until the persistent hum of electricity joined the careful procedures that DATA allowed himself to reveal the emotions he had learned. Fear was something he rarely experienced, pain less so. However, the sudden shock of electricity overwhelming his systems broke the impassive mask placed over his features until a gasping grimace was all that was left. The writhing of his limbs only resulted in tighter bindings as they continued their task of finding a way to manually reset his code to match those of the countless other mindless droids they employed.

In the end, it was easier to pretend that they had been successful.

—

Jolted laughs of cruel humor, sharp slurs of half-bitten insults, and barbarous echoes of barked conversation reverberated through the hollow halls of the prison, creating a chaotic cacophony that invaded every sense with an unwanted, overwhelming welcome. Each cell brought a loathing leer or piercing glare from those that were confined by the cool, steel bars. The other androids, mindless in their existence, paid no mind to the din that surrounded them, staring ahead with empty eyes and unbroken gazes. DATA, in contrast, would still jump at the occasional unanticipated noise; however, such a motion had to be hidden from the watchful gaze of the prison guards.

The routine imposed upon the robots rarely allowed room for irregularity. DATA had grown used to the absent-minded state that was expected from him, following orders to gather at the prison dining hall without a curious query as to why. His gaze, inhumanly blank without the occupation of higher thought, did not divert to the raucous noise surrounding him lest the threat of reprogramming resurface upon the sight of his obvious discomfort. Androids were not meant to feel uneasiness- they were not meant to feel anything.

A slight stumble faltered his movement as his leg caught on the outstretched limb of an inmate, a man smiling with an innately animalistic brutality that accompanied the cruelty of finding amusement in others’ suffering. Although DATA had learned many emotions over the years since his creation, he had yet to master the skill of masking such emotions from playing out across his features. Fright, for what they would do to him for something as simple as a stumble, widened his eyes and tugged his lips in a downward motion. An apology, unwarranted and unwanted, was stopped at its beginnings by the influence of the corrupted code of the prison. Staring at the man for merely a moment more, DATA quickly turned to take his place among the other droids at the table.

An unanticipated touch to his shoulder resulted in a violent flinch, his body moving away from the perceived threat before his gaze could register the recognition that accompanied the sight of a friend. The pressure of a friendly touch, absent in the loneliness of his prison sentence, brought a shocked smile to his face. “Cairo?” he asked, unable to accept the reality that perhaps some of the crew had survived beyond himself. Shaky arms slowly found their way to the soft curves of her spine as he buried his nose in the familiar scent, washed out by the mandated products of the prison but still persistently present. For the first time since his arrival, DATA allowed himself to feel the first tendril of comfort.

There were so many reasons to live. It all came flooding back now. But that was a crude word, live. Cairo knew there was more to life than a cardiovascular system and lungs. She knew it demanded martyrdom. And a degree of penance. In truth, Cairo pondered life a great deal, because that’s what people do when they think about leaving it. And that’s what people think about in dirty combat, when with every breath you take there’s the sour uncertainty that along with the gunpowder, you’re inhaling bits of your friends — nevermind the state of the brigade, these were her friends. It was when she finally pulled away from DATA and gently cupped his cheek into her hand. That’s when it all came back.

Her brain supplied her with faces, names, titles, and ranks. She thought of the first team she’d led — of clumsy privates and a Junior Sergeant who flinched frequently but sang them all to sleep. They were her first, but far from her last, and there was sacrifice every time. How could there not be? She’d defended them every day. Sometimes her protection took the form of a scathing voice, careful and low, like she had a mouthful of blood. She was the callous superior who would sooner slap her subordinates into marching on than let their paralysis kill them. Other times though, it was starving together, and drying the tears when they fell. It was stitching wounds with dental floss, and feeling enemy fire heat the ground as she carried the wounded on her back. There was nothing noble about living for them, she’d always thought. That was only protocol. 

But slowly or all at once, she began to understand — her missions had nothing to do with protocol. This was unconditionality. Purpose, agony, adaptability. This was life. And when people crossed paths with her, although there was wariness at first, she still knew she would try to save them if given the chance. In the short time she’d been on the Concord, she’d grown accustomed to Theon’s desolation, Augustus’s questions, Eretreia’s tolerance. Against herself, she was even happy to cook for them. She’d been told it had something to do with instinct, all carnal and base. She looked at DATA adoringly, relieved, and wished that it were true. It would have been so much easier to excuse this for instinct. But, no.

This was sentimentality.

Leather skin, a synthetic heart, and Cairo still cared.

She had a thousand things she wanted to say to him, but not here. Not in the marrow of the crowd, where anyone could hear. Information sold better than cigarettes in prison. Sometimes it sold even better than sex. The androids in her peripheral were already beginning to acknowledge her presence. She could hear the mechanical clicks as their heads began to turn. She could sense their eyes on her.

Cairo pulled DATA to her side. She said in a hushed voice, “Come with me. Too many ears here.” She gave his shoulder a squeeze. “But don’t worry. We have each other now.” 

There was no more time to bask in being reunited. That could come later. The fact that he’d survived was less important than the fact that he was here. And they had work to do — DATA needed to rid himself of that dreadful android uniform and be fitted into a proper prisoner one. He needed a new name. Now, more than ever before, he needed to learn how to be a person.

send me a ✧ and i’ll bold all that apply to your muse.

saturn - what’s your biggest fear?

“Fear?” In another life, she’s a spitting snake and her mouth tastes like the word sounds. Her forked tongue’s a slippery mass bleeding into something corrosive and wet. How dare you? she doesn’t say. Who are you to ask me that when I’m here?

She knows fear, can practically hear the whistling mortar shells. And how could anyone doubt it, when she was blown apart in the woods, losing so much blood her skin turned grey? When her own parents lacked the decency to recognize her? Or now, when the only good, consistent thing in her injurious lifetime was torn away like slitting a throat? 

What more did she have to fucking lose? 

Cairo blinked away the thought of him, empty-eyed and cracked apart. She couldn’t think about that here. Not now. Not between four cold walls, where she can see the metal bars glinting against the fluorescence. 

She has to steady herself before she speaks. “I’m too angry to be afraid anymore.”  

Her breath catches. “I’m… assuming the situation demands it, otherwise I wouldn’t be saving the rest. So-” 

She thinks of Raven briefly, but memories crash against her hard — of her simple smile and necessary hands — Cairo only feels shame. The crew needs her after all. They need her expertise, her sharp wit. So she considers Theon, and that feels like being shot. He who could bend their metal world, he who made life… which- 

“DATA.” The instant she hears herself say his name, she knows she’s right. “I imagine he can be brought back, but if he can’t-” the possibility suddenly feels very real, “He’s the youngest, which makes him vulnerable. We can’t protect him forever.” 

The last thing she remembered in the golden room was almost making it. 

A dark-eyed man with the grin of a wolf stepped into her dreamland, but this time she recognized him. She locked eyes with Kit Beisel and all of the air left her lungs. She ran to meet him, but the cores of his pupils glowed red-hot. They became a flash of fire and light and Cairo was thrown painfully against a wall. 

She woke up in handcuffs.

--- 

Their prison was an organized monster. Columns of rooms lined every wall, weaponed guards chaperoned the halls, but more imposing than the imagery was the noise. Chatter was an infernal dinn here, but at least the shouting meant there was life beyond her four walls. Most days were incomplete without the sounds of swearing and sobbing. It brought her home. Suddenly she was back in the chewed-out terrain of Brora F31. She was back in the death machine that was war. Because what was home, after all, if not the place you would know deaf and blind?

The familiarity was useful to her. She knew what horrors to expect here, and made no effort to postpone the inevitable. She knew that sniffling was futile, and it would only further her wardens’ irritation. So for the first few days, she was all ice. Her demeanor was completely still, completely numb. Brow together, brooding. She sat with her silence in the corner of her cell, with her arms wrapped tight against her chest, because maybe if she thought hard enough, maybe if she bit her tongue, losing Kit wouldn’t feel like a ripe gunshot inside and out. She tasted blood and tried to remember his voice. Tried to remember his rich cadence and any information that might bring him back to her. He couldn’t be dead for two reasons. One, because Kit Beisel would never do that to her. And two, because she wouldn’t what to do with herself if he did. 

For the first few days, she walked stoic and slow. Her attention wavered constantly, but her soldier brain did manage to pick up a few details. It noted that the prison was short on kitchen staff — not desperate, but short. The prison was understaffed generally, or at least her section of the prison was. The only guard that patrolled her hall rarely checked on her, but when he did, he sucked his lip and stared. And that was the catch. Cairo let him. 

In her state, she struggled to kick herself back to life. It helped that a day in, the officials put her in the kitchen. Being in front of a stove allowed her the privilege to show the prison how useful she could be for them. She cooked flavorless filth into something edible. For the first time in years, she was told, the prisoners didn’t gag when they ate. Being in front of a stove also reminded her of several things: that she was imprisoned, but not a prisoner; that she knew how to escape places like this; and that she was furious.

She stood behind the serving table, spooning thick syrup over a prisoner’s plate when another cook nudged her in the ribs. “Look,” Carmelo said and pointed at a troop of androids entering the room. His Mandarin was brightened by a thick Mantoda accent when he spoke. “Those are the robots I was telling you about. The ones the prison reprograms to work for them. They come from every star you can name, Cairo. I dare you to find two that look the same.”

Cairo brought her gaze up to Carmelo’s twinkling compound eyes, then to the droids — to the twelve speckled bodies made of metals and plastics, marching neatly to one of the tables and sitting there. Cairo saw one stumble slightly, glimpsed his face and everything stopped. Everything. “I have to go,” she breathed. “Take this.”

aries: what are you passionate about?

taurus: name 3 of your favorite books.

gemini: what was the last text you sent?

cancer: if you could choose your child's zodiac sign, what would it be?

leo: name something you love about yourself.

virgo: what's your #1 pet peeve?

libra: describe your dream partner.

scorpio: do you trust easily?

sagittarius: if you could travel to any place in the world, where would it be?

capricorn: what's your dream job?

aquarius: do you believe in aliens?

pisces: describe someone you love.

sun: describe yourself in 3 words.

moon: what's your favorite song?

rising/asc: how would you describe your style?

mars: are you easily angered?

venus: what's your aesthetic?

mercury: what color do you talk in?

jupiter: what moral do you live by?

saturn: what's your biggest fear?

uranus: are you rebellious?

neptune: share one of your dreams.

pluto: what's the biggest thing you've learned so far in your life?

lilith: do you have any guilty pleasures?

chiron: have you ever broken a bone?

ceres: are you a momfriend?

pallas: do you have a good relationship with your parents?

juno: do you believe in soul mates?

1st house: are you confident?

2nd house: if you could only keep one of your personal items, what would you choose?

3rd house: do you like to read?

4th house: what does your bedroom look like?

5th house: name your favorite movie or show.

6th house: do you participate in community service?

7th house: if you could choose, what zodiac sign would you like your dream partner to be?

8th house: do you believe in reincarnation?

9th house: what's your favorite quote?

10th house: are you good at public speaking?

11th house: what sign(s) is your best friend/squad?