lmx_v3point3

Fic: Job Code 1138 - Apprehension of Fugitives
Author: lmx_v3point3
Written for: mizzy2k for the 2011 leverage_sesa exchange.
Rating: PG-13
Words: 8100
Pairing: Nate/Sophie/Eliot, Alec/Parker
AU: THX 1138 fusion
Warnings: Out of character (sedated) characters. AU situations. Dark themes.
Spoilers: For the original film, none for Leverage.
Disclaimer: None of the characters or locations are my own, THX 1128 belongs to George Lucas, and Leverage belongs to its creators and license holders.

AN1: This is based on a mixture of the worlds in the film THX 1138 (one of my absolute favourites, and this should be considered prequel), and the book Anthem by Ayn Rand. It is heavily based in the THX 1138 universe, but should be readable without knowledge of that film.
AN2: For ease of reading I've stylised the designations a little. When all in caps, eg NAT, the individual letters are read - N. A. T. When written with only the leading capital, the designation is read like a name (Nat). The designated numbers are always read as single numbers (4 8 7 5, rather than four thousand, eight hundred and seventy five).
AN3: Yes, there is a tiny tiny White Collar crossover here. It won't bother you if you don't know it.
Thanks to: hannasus for a fantastic rather-short-notice beta. :D All remaining mistakes my own, as always.

- = -

"You need to be honest with us, or we can't help you." NAT 4875 sat back in his seat, passive and friendly. "We know the camera unit in your living quarters was broken, tell me why neither you or your mate reported it."

PTR 5583 had been in containment for twenty four hours. With his Trosium wearing off a little more every hour, he was sure to be feeling the effects of withdrawal by this point. NAT could hear it in the stress in his voice. "I'm sorry, Nat." PTR was shaking his head, almost a subconscious twitch. "We didn't think it was important, and I didn't want to disturb anyone from their jobs. We only ever sleep and eat in there anyway."

"How can we keep you safe, PTR?" NAT insisted, increasing the stress in his voice in a way specifically designed to rattle the withdrawal-addled mind. In his own mind, suitably sedated by Trosium, the move had once seemed irrational. But he'd taken to his training well, one of the best investigators in this sector, and now it seemed second nature. He knew how to manipulate all sorts of minds. "How can we keep you safe if we can't see you? Your insurance is very specific. By breaking the terms of your insurance you're leaving yourself uninsured, and that's against the law."

"My mate. My roommate, NIL 1104," PTR finally snapped out. "He broke it. He broke the camera."

"Explain," NAT instructed firmly.

"Nil didn't want to risk prosecution, so he told me not to report it. I... I know that was a mistake."

"If you had told me that immediately, PTR, I might not have had to include you in prosecution. That is very upsetting." NAT turned to the door - invisible against the matt white room that was shapeless and formless in every direction - and waved an unseen observer through from the other side.

NAT ran a hand over his shaved head as he waited for the officer to come in. He regretted having to move in prosecution against PTR, he was a good officer himself and with a P5 designation he had access to more of the sector than NAT. But then, no one could choose their mate, and sometimes people were led astray.

"NAT 4875?" The officer was standing at the door, his uniform black and silver, notably different from the civilians in white. His shaved head looked stark and odd against the darker uniform, and despite clean shaven skin being the norm it had always looked wrong to Nat.

The system had been talking for a while about replacing human officers with robot officers - more efficient, less of a loss to the community when they died. Nat didn't want to work with a robot officer; ELI 4624 was efficient and easy to work with.

"NIL 1104. Bring him here, please Eli."

There was a moment's hesitation, and then a firm nod. "Sure, Nat."

- = -

"The system would like to remind you that failing to maintain your regular dose of sedative can be damaging to your health. If you have questions regarding your regimen, approach a medical booth during your scheduled free time."

- = -

The rest of NAT's day felt oddly stilted, PTR and NIL's case held in his mind. The headaches that had been niggling at him for the last week were intensifying and it was with some relief that he finished work and headed through his working level towards the parking lot.

His route through the level was mostly quiet and empty, the few people he passed nodded an absent greeting, but that just made him think of NIL, working down on the lower levels where every transfer from place to place was a heaving rush of bodies, his N1 designation leaving a highly intelligent man working a labour job with a poorer quality lifestyle. No wonder he had tried to dodge persecution, he had hardly anything left to lose. Nat had a sour taste in his mouth to go with the headache.

If Nat had known the word, he would have called what he was feeling empathy. But unused words had long been removed from lessons in order to improve efficiency, and so he had no idea even that such a feeling might exist. The sedatives removed man from his fellow man so that he might perform better in the tasks required of him, and so in feeling such empathy Nat was quite unusual.

Instead, he consigned the feeling to the collective niggles he had been aware of for the last few hours, and decided that he would take a stronger dose of sedative than usual when he got home.

He stopped briefly in a confessional just to listen to OMM's reassuring litany and listened to the radio debate on robotic officers in the car on his way back to his apartment. The sour taste didn't go away.

- = -

"The topic of our robotic police force is one that has been causing disruption amongst the think-tanks of the system for months. The council of independent thinkers will vote on the movement to introduce robotic policemen across the board, tonight at 6pm."

- = -

As he stepped inside his apartment, Nat came to an abrupt stop, confused. Eli was by the holographic projector, one of Sof's shows playing out on mute, and ALC 2765 was kneeling by the door into the living area, doing something to the small terminal there. ALC turned as Nat stepped inside, and gave him an oddly out of place smile. There was nothing to smile at here, and Nat found his heart pounding with a need to shout.

"You shouldn't be here," Nat said firmly and without raising his voice, feeling off balance. "Regulations state..."

"We were just visiting," Alc said, standing and moving away from the terminal, hands up in front of him, miming defencelessness.

Nat glanced around, looking for Sof, seeking some kind of guidance or explanation. If the apartment's terminal had malfunctioned, they wouldn't need Eli here to oversee maintenance. And ALC wasn't a maintenance engineer anyway; he was a high level programmer. This situation was all wrong.

"Sof," Alc called, moving towards Eli, who had taken a pointed step forwards. "You're all set." They both looked over as Sof came through from the kitchen. "You two be careful, alright?"

"What's going on?" Nat demanded. He didn't want to have to take his roommate and his officer into custody, but he would if he couldn't get an answer.

"Don't worry, Nat," Sof said softly, and Nat was reminded of all the shows she made for the holographics - designed to soothe and calm. "Alc is a program shifter. He can make sure no one will ever know they were here."

"Sof..." Nat was suddenly breathless with how wrong this was. Program shifting was illegal, and so much worse than the kind of thing he dealt with every day. The nagging headache that had been niggling at his consciousness for the last couple of days turned sharp and needling.

Sof stepped up next to him and reached out with one hand, as if she was thinking about touching his arm. She pulled away at the last minute, and Nat couldn't understand the way his body swayed towards her hand as she stepped back. "Trust me, Nat," she said quietly. "You'll understand soon enough."

"This was a mistake," Eli growled, arms crossed over his chest defensively. "He's not ready yet, he could..."

"Eli, stop," Sof said firmly, and Nat might be able to recognise the stressors in her voice if he could just think, if he could just identify the underlying meaning there. Eli did stop, and put one hand firmly on Sof's arm, gripped tightly for a moment and then released.

"Everything's gonna be alright, Nat." Alc reached out, just like Sof had, as if he was going to touch Nat's shoulder, and then Eli pulled him away and towards the door. The two men walked out together and left Nat staring after him, confused.

Nat's paycheck was discarded on the table, his routine shattered. In the house, his mate was standing with her hand pressed where Eli's had been a moment before, and the unfamiliar twisting in his stomach was only intensifying his headache.

"I'm going to take my Trosium and go to sleep," he said, frowning at her.

"I'll bring it in to you, if you like," Sof offered. "And something to eat?"

"Yes," Nat nodded shortly. "Thank you."

- = -

"The system would like to remind you that for all your emotional and spiritual needs, the religious booths are open and available during your scheduled free time. A balanced worker is an efficient worker."

- = -

The next day, Nat went to work and said nothing to anyone of the odd behaviour he'd witnessed. He wasn't sure why; he reminded himself again that it wasn't as if his roommate meant anything to him. She was a nice roommate, clean and not noisy, but if he was reassigned it wouldn't bother him.

The twisting in his gut told him that was a lie, but he didn't know how it had come about. How had he formed this attachment to his roommate? Where had it come from? He went through his work day fighting to focus, distracted by every announcement and his thoughts lingering on Eli's hand on Sof's arm. Illicit. Warm.

It was a relief when he finished for the day, the end of a work-block. He had four days at home to get over this odd phase before he had to be back at work again.

There was nothing unusual going on in his apartment that night when he got home, but his nightly visit to the confessional had been an odd one. OMM hadn't offered any guidance on his problem, only reassured him as always that he was forgiven, and that he should be thankful of the world he lived in. He'd never felt so alone.

Sof didn't mention the previous night, only sat and talked about her most recent show as they watched it on the holo projector. Maybe she understood that he wasn't feeling well, and didn't seem to expect any kind of response as she talked.

As they sat he turned to look at her. He knew he was staring, but Sof hadn't seemed to have noticed and he was enjoying tracing the curves of her body with his eyes. He'd never really looked at her before. He knew what she looked like, he could recognise her within a crowd, but now he could see every pore and freckle on her skin. The dark stubble of her hair that would be gone before she went to work the following morning. The gentle, delicate shape of her hands. The shadow cast by her breasts in the light from the holographics.

The nausea rushed over him like a wave, leaving him in a race to the bathroom to expel it all. He hadn't eaten much through the day, and he was shaking and shivering as his body tried to empty itself. He wrapped his arms around himself, holding himself tightly and clenching his fists in his shirt sleeves.

Sof sat down beside him and settled her hand - warm and reassuring - at the base of his neck. The shivering stopped, and Nat felt himself relax. He hadn't been touched since he was a child, and the feeling was at once odd and soothing.

Sof pulled him to his feet gently, arms around his body, supporting him and sharing her warmth, and took him to lay in her bed.

Nat was asleep before he could wonder at the feeling of another person lying beside him. Unconsciousness was a welcome relief.

- = -

He woke in the night, the walls still dark and the noise outside muted. Sof was lying beside him, her breathing soft and deep. She didn't stir as he sat up, and it was strange. Evening dose sedatives were designed to allow sleep until the walls started to lighten for the new day, they had always both woken at exactly the same time and never in the dark.

Nat rolled over, feeling Sof shift beside him and wondering at the feeling of her skin on his. The strangeness of the previous night hadn't abated, but he was starting to associate the up-down flutter of his stomach with Sof.

The dizzy-hot nausea hadn't faded either, and it rushed to the surface as Sof rolled over and opened her eyes. She reached up and curled her hand around his cheek, and her skin was cool next to his.

"Sof?" He moved into the touch, pressing into it like it could sooth his headed brow. "Sof, what is this?"

"This is reality, Nat. This is what the sedatives mask." Sof's hands were rubbing at his shoulders and his arms, pushing away the harshness. "How does it feel?"

"Terrible," Nat groaned. Sof's hands moved again and it felt like his body filled with warmth, masking the cold. He drew a breath to say 'wonderful', but the bed lurched to one side and he fell back into it.

- = -

Nat woke groggily to the sound of voices not far away, the apartment walls light with morning light. He was hot, the sheets clinging damply to his skin, and he pushed them away as he moved to listen.

Sof's voice was tense and high, as she demanded, "I was never sick like this, Eli. What if it's not the same for him? Were you sick?"

The thought of Eli sent a shot of something warm through him, something like the feeling he got from Sof's easy touch. He felt safer, more relaxed knowing Eli was here.

"Sof, you know it wasn't the same for me. I was..." Eli trailed off, his voice tired and exasperated.

Sof made a frustrated noise. "Yes, I know. I know. But do you remember, back then? When you were with Roh, do you remember if you were sick?"

Nat made a quick internal list of all the designation ROHes he knew. It wasn't a long list, and one of them was an infamous killer - one of the reasons the legislation that he was responsible for upholding existed.

Eli had hesitated a beat too long, but he continued uneasily, "I don't... I don't know. I don't think so."

"What if we got him back on his regimen now?" Sof pressed, "Do you think he'd get better?"

"Sof, if we do that we lose him..."

"Stop," Nat interrupted, pushing out of the bedroom and into the main room. The holographics were on behind Sof and Eli - one of Sof's shows again, she was getting popular - but silenced, lighting the room oddly. They both turned to look at him sharply, and he tried not to back down from their dually intense stare. He was on-edge, scared, though he could only identify the emotion second hand from the descriptions he had heard. "Tell me what's going on."

"You're off sedation," Sof said simply. "I've been replacing your Trosium with headache pills for the last week."

"Off..." Nat's mind spun briefly, but there was none of the nausea from before. "Sof, being off sedation is..." He stumbled to a stop as Sof laid one hand on his arm. The desire for more contact was so strong that he had to step back to keep himself from pulling her off her feet. Eli's eyes were fixed on the place where Sof's hand rested.

"They lie, Nat," Sof urged. "Eli showed me."

"We'll get arrested!" Nat objected weakly, feeling himself sway into Sof's touch.

"Alc has done his thing with the cameras," Eli reassured him. "No one will ever know, Nat."

Nat's gaze went to Eli, hardening. "Tell me."

"There are a small percentage of people in the sector who don't respond to Trosium like the rest," he said, gently - like he was breaking some great fact of life to Nat. "We show up as sedated, but we still... everything is sharper for us, we feel like you're feeling now, only all the time. Me, Alc... Roh."

"You're talking about ROH 5291," Nat said numbly. "He was a killer."

"He wanted different things, he saw different things." Eli looked distant to Nat, out of reach. "He showed me, Nat, and he showed me how to control what I was feeling, to understand what I was seeing. I'm not... not like him. But I could be."

On impulse, Nat reached out and touched Eli's shoulder, feeling him lean in to the contact and his breath stutter in his chest. It was a sharp realisation - that the warmth that came from contact flowed both ways. "Why now?" he pressed. "Why not before? We've worked together for years."

Eli didn't step back. "They're talking about replacing all the officers with androids." There was real fear in his voice. "I get away with being like this because officers aren't monitored as closely, or sedated as heavily. If they reassign me..."

"Why us?" Sof asked, stepping closer into their forming circle. "Eli, you have to tell Nat..."

"I was being selfish," he said, something soft in his face that Nat wasn't sure he understood. "I've been alone, and happy that way, but work with you... I couldn't stand to leave you behind, Nat."

"What now?" Nat asked, still so many questions in his mind but feeling himself tire.

Eli looked at Sof, then they both turned to look at him. The bright excitement in their eyes made his heart twist and race, and the flush in Sof's cheeks left him breathless, and he couldn't force any more words out. The knowledge of what he wanted to do was suddenly right there in his mind, and he couldn't back away from it, didn't want to.

"You've no idea how much I've wanted to..." Sof was cut off as Nat pressed their lips together, his hands pulling Eli in close and curling a hand around the back of his head.

- = -

They woke curled around one another and Nat was filled with a feeling of lightness, as if a weight he had never known was there was gone from his shoulders. Sof was pressed up against his front and the parts of him that were newly discovered were hard and hot against her despite his fatigue. The nausea was entirely gone, and Nat considered falling back asleep, revelling in this new slothenly escapism, but a moment later he realised what he was missing.

He sat up, pulling away from Sof with some regret. The walls were day-time bright, and he didn't have to look far to find Eli sitting on the single chair, watching them both.

"Are you alright?" Nat asked, a hoarseness to his voice that he hadn't expected.

"I'm being greedy," Eli sighed, not meeting Nat's eyes. "I should just go."

"What?" Nat asked sharply. "No. Come to bed, sleep with us a while. Where would you go?"

"I don't sleep, Nat. I just... I don't." It sounded like an apology to Nat, like this would be something Nat would hold against him.

"So come and share the bed. Keep us warm." Nat knew his words were manipulative, but he hated the strange vulnerability in Eli's voice.

"I plan to make a break for the superstructure, Nat." Eli's eyes were fixed on the ground again, his face closed to Nat. "You and Sof don't have to come with me, you can go back on Trosium and this won't matter to you anymore. I just..."

Nat shook his head, confused and frustrated. After everything he had just found out, Eli was trying to say he should go back on sedation? That he should give up what he had with Sof, with Eli himself? "Why do this, Eli? Why do this if you don't plan to stay?"

"I liked being alone. I never even... wanted anything else. But then I was transferred into your unit." His smile, while weak, was something warming to Nat. Reassuring. "Working under you, Nat... I've never wanted anything like you."

"But you went to Sof first?"

"I've loved Sof much longer than I've loved you, Nat." There was a wry smile playing on Eli's lips, "But I could have her every time I turned on the projector."

"You can't believe that's true," Sof said softly, voice full of regret as she sat up, pressing herself back into Nat's side.

Eli smiled more easily this time. "Believe me, you're so much more in person. I couldn't go back to that now. Not after this." Eli looked away again, shaking his head. "I just needed this. Just this last thing. God, I'm so selfish."

"We're coming with you," Sof declared, and Nat's eyes widened as he looked back at her.

"You can't, Sof," Eli answered before Nat could respond. "It's too dangerous. I'm not going to let you."

"I'm not going back onto the sedatives. Not now, never again." Sof came up onto her knees, reaching for Eli as he stood and stepped closer again.

"Sof..." Nat said her name tentatively. What they had was so young, but... "I can't do this. I'm not like you and Eli..."

Sof knew what he was going to say even before he managed to say it. "You can't go back onto the Trosium, Nat. You'll forget about me and Eli, about this." Her hands were an insistent pressure against his bare chest. The connection they evoked was just as strong as before, and no less breathtaking for being expected.

"They'll know, Sof. They'll know." His heart was in his throat at the thought.

"So don't go back to work. We'll run, we'll go with Eli into the superstructure. Eli knows this sector better than anyone, Nat. Better than the police force. Alc will help us if we ask."

It was a delaying tactic, and something in Eli's face said he knew that, but he still let them talk him around to the idea of finding Alc.

- = -

"The latest think tank reviews are in from across the system, and it seems like production of the prototype officers is well underway. Discussion on the nature of the operating system for these android officers is still heated."

- = -

The second level corridor was a rush of people dressed in white, casting crazy shadows against white walls, not quite as manic as the first level but still very different from their home level. It took Nat a moment to realise that Sof had never been down here, had never seen this. She was pale and her eyes were wide, but she was still just behind them as they pushed through.

Eli spotted Alc first, and risked calling out to him. The programmer glanced back once, and then forged on ahead of them. They were gaining, but they couldn't move much faster without drawing attention to themselves.

"Alc?" Sof's call was softer than Eli's had been, and Alc hesitated and stepped to one side, out of the flow of people. The others joined him and they stood in a carefully random huddle, not touching or really looking at one another.

"We're making a break for the superstructure," Eli said firmly. "Tonight."

"All three of you?" Alc asked, frowning. "You'll look suspicious."

"You aren't coming?" Sof asked.

"Look," Alc shook his head, "I did what I did for you all as a favour to Eli, but I've got no need to escape. I'm working the system here, there's no context out there, nothing for me to work with. I'm enjoying myself. I ain't gonna get involved in your little..."

"If we disappear it will implicate you," Eli pointed out.

Alc grinned. "You have no idea what I can do with a terminal hooked up to the system, do you?" He looked away briefly, into the crowd. "I'll be just fine," he said, looking back. "Don't all go at the same time. Go from different locations, alright? Go to work today, and go from there. Pattern recognition will pick up three people all moving into the outer rim at the same time." Alc made a move to rejoin the surge of people, but turned back at the last minute to add, "I'll do what I can to cover you." And then he was gone.

- = -

"The pros are of course higher efficiency, shorter downtime, fewer mistakes. The cons raised have been primarily those of morality. Will a robotic policeman be able to identify an individual at fault - and should we allow it to make that decision?"

- = -

"Hello Nat," the gently jovial voice made Nat freeze in his tracks, and he turned slowly.

"Ing," he nodded, fighting to keep his voice flat. If there was anyone who would be able to identify the symptoms of sedative dose-skipping, it would be another investigator. ING 5223 had never been as good as Nat at his job, but he was persistent.

"Sof didn't arrive at her shift today," Ing said. "Explain."

"Sof is my roommate," Nat shrugged and shook his head. "I don't know her every move."

Nat picked up his bag in a dismissive move, but noticed Ing's eyes narrowing. He wondered what had given him away, but he knew he had been given away. He ignored Ing and headed for the door. He wouldn't have much time, now, and he knew exactly what he needed to do.

- = -

"If you are witness to any activity you consider to be illegal or that requires moderation, please report that activity with full details to any active terminal. Through you, the system remains an efficient and happy place."

- = -

The robot officers were fast and efficient, and armed with tasers. They took Nat to the ground before he'd even moved away from the terminal he'd been accessing. His trial was over before he'd woken. He was moved to the prison in a blur of officers, some robot and some human, and the white corridors and walls seemed endless. When he was finally thrown to the floor at their destination, he lay there, exhausted, and tried not to think about anything.

There was a hissed argument going on just over his head, and even with his desire to do nothing, to just stay where he was and let everything pass him by, his attention was being drawn. He forced himself upright slowly, feeling aged. As soon as he'd managed to drag himself to his feet Alc was on him, hitting and punching and throwing them both back down to the floor. Nat let it all come, knowing he deserved every hit - only moving to protect his face.

"You did this, Nat!" Alc's voice was hard and hoarse, as if he'd been screaming. "You put me in here! You fucking reported me! Why!? Tell me WHY!?"

There was a reprieve, a pause, and Nat looked up to find Eli there, holding Alc back, hissing words in his ear that were too low for Nat to hear. The flood of emotion at seeing Eli kept him from moving straight away, and Eli threw Alc off to one side to come and kneel beside him.

"Are you hurt?" He looked strange in a white outfit, since he was usually dressed in the black of the officer's uniform. It made him look alien. Distant.

"Is Sof here?" Nat asked first, pressing a finger to a reddening patch of skin on his arm and flinching at the spike of pain.

Eli rocked back on his heels. "No."

Nat swiped away a trail of blood from his lip and stood, "Has Alc planned a way out yet?"

Eli didn't stand beside him, looking up with something like horror in his eyes. "You did report him."

"We need him," Nat replied blandly, "To escape."

Eli chuckled once, hoarsely, and Nat felt his stomach twist as he replied; "There aren't any terminals in here. When I first got here he was having a panic attack over being isolated from the system."

For the first time since he'd arrived, Nat looked around himself, taking in his new surroundings. The white infinite expanse remained, blinding in its intensity on the imagined, but unseen horizon. Clustered into a small space were a handful of off-white boxes and black square cushions that formed seats on their own and beds when matched with a second pair. There were another six people sitting and laying around them, and a cluster of blocks and cushions that had been formed into a kind of cave, which presumably hid another. There was nothing else but white as far as the eye could see.

There was no way out, and even Alc couldn't help them without a terminal. Despair fell on him like a great weight.

- = -

They'd been in the prison long enough for them to fall into two unsettled rests - though none of them could decide whether they coincided with the world outside of this place, the lights never dimmed. The prototype android officers brought them food and sedative pills, but they hadn't stayed to watch them eat and only a couple of their cell mates had taken the pills - falling immediately back asleep and staying there until the next dose arrived. The food tasted of nutrient sludge and fluid replacement, moulded into a brick form that was disgusting to bite into.

The girl who had been hiding in the little cave - the only girl among them, Nat realised, and if the others weren't on sedation then no wonder she was cautious - emerged only briefly when the others were awake. She came out of her little fort like a wild thing, darting between them and shoving aside over-interested hands. She grabbed the food and paused only to give an assessing look at the newcomers before dashing back to safety. Alc looked after her as if she'd just slapped him in the face. Once they had their food, Alc went to sit beside the shadowed entrance to the make-shift shelter, and started talking. From that point on he just didn't stop.

He told her about the system, about how beautiful it was and how destructive. About how it sometimes ran rampant if a programmer wasn't good enough to control it, and how sometimes he had to step in and correct things that other higher designation programmers had done without them knowing. He talked about how some of the system needed sweet talking and some of it needed a firm hand, and about how all of it had the fingerprints of a very different society at the very core, underneath all the newer layers.

Alc promised to show it to her, again and again, promised that he'd take her away from here, as soon as he worked out a way.

She didn't have anything to say to all of that, and didn't emerge from her little cave throughout Alc's rambling. Alc was still talking long after Nat had succumbed to sleep - Eli sitting over him and watching the others warily - but when they awoke, she was sitting next to Alc and guarding him in his sleep.

- = -

Over the three days they'd been imprisoned, Nat could see the captivity winding Eli higher and higher. Every time someone approached the little corner they had claimed as their own, his hackles rose and he moved forwards aggressively. Every time the others settled down to sleep, PKR 1233 moving ever closer to Alc, Eli sat on top of the seats and guarded them.

Nat had thought it was just his way, right up to the point where he snapped.

There were ten people in the small space - though why they remained so closely clustered when there was no visible restraint was a mystery to them all. They were visited intermittently by officers bringing nourishment. There was never quite enough of the unappealing meal, they were always left hungry, and Pkr always kept half of her portion at the back of her little cave, which made Nat think that sometimes feeding wasn't even this frequent.

The most recent feeding had happened while they were asleep, so they'd been a little more sluggish than normal in claiming their portions. Eli had managed to separate a section of the delivery - enough for the five of them - and was defending it with a snarl and raised fists while Pkr and Alc moved it into their corner. Nat wasn't entirely sure what happened next - only Eli knew for sure - but suddenly he was lunging across the seats at one of the others, KIN 25something, and wrestling him to the floor. One of the others jumped to KIN's defence, but Eli overwhelmed them both. He was stepping away from where they lay groaning on the floor when the other prisoners - excited by the noise and adrenaline - flooded towards him.

The officers arrived before Nat had a chance to do more than throw a couple of the attackers back to Alc to punch, and they were scattered in a flurry of fists and batons.

Nat caught a baton to the temple and when he woke Eli was gone.

- = -

Nat had been pacing, turning with sharp corners but still inexplicably unable to walk away from the little huddle of mankind in the midst of all this nothing.

He stopped abruptly, face like fury, and walked to Alc. He'd been planning on fisting a hand in Alc's shirt, but Pkr was standing in front of him defensively.

"If I find you a terminal, can you find me Sof and Eli?" he demanded, his voice rough edged.

Alc looked up from the back of Pkr's shoulder, something absent and dazed in his look. "Of course," he said eventually, as if offended. "I can find them, call them, have them hand delivered. But there aren't any terminals in here, Nat."

"We're getting out." Without any more elaboration, Nat headed towards the edge of the ring of furniture and people, and just kept walking.

"Out..." Alc's eyes were wide, following Nat's back. "Nat, wait. I mean... Out?"

"I can't leave them out there, Alc," Nat called back. "I need to know they're alright."

Alc started after Nat, but stopped abruptly when Pkr made no move to follow, holding on to his arm.

"It's safe here," she said firmly. "We have food, and now you're here too."

"It's not enough," Alc replied, glancing after Nat's retreating form. "It's never going to be enough while we're in here."

Pkr shook her head again. "I like to steal things. I can't be out there, I damage the system."

Alc's stomach clenched at the level of brainwashing the system was capable of. "What if we could be out there, together, and you could steal things and I could program things?"

"Programming is illegal." Pkr's frown was desperately endearing, and Alc knew then that if she refused to leave, he'd stay here for her.

"So is stealing," he said.

She thought this through carefully. "I like it," she said finally. "I could do that."

"If I can get to a terminal, I can change our statuses. We..." Alc glanced out to Nat. "We just have to trust Nat on this one."

Pkr scrambled back into her little cave and gathered up the food she'd stored there, shoving it into her pockets and putting some more into Alc's. "Okay then," she said, and straightened her shoulders as if she was going into battle. "Let's go."

- = -

The whiteness did go on forever. It felt like hours since they had started walking, and Alc had rambled briefly about the nature of human footsteps and how you would walk in circles without any visual cues to tell you where the horizon was. They'd walked until they thought they might go blind from the lights, then walked some more, closing their eyes because sight wasn't helping.

If any of them thought about stopping, or resting, they didn't mention it. Pkr handed everyone a food brick and Alc picked up his monologue again as they kept on walking.

The break, when it came, seemed impossible. "Is it a bit darker over there?" Pkr asked quietly, interrupting Alc in his most recent rant on the flaws in the new officer construction, and the deadly dangerous work being done by the level ones in their production.

They all looked in the direction she was pointing, and while none of them could say for sure what they were looking at - or even if it was anything at all - they all headed slowly in that direction. After a couple of minutes more, their pace ever increasing as it resolved, they could all see the darkened doorway.

Just inside the door was a terminal, the screen happily blinking away data that Nat couldn't interpret. The door itself just sat there, as if wondering why it had taken them so long.

Pkr moved to stand by the door, pressing her ear against it and stroking a line down the frame like she was petting it.

Alc was already eyeing up the terminal. "Wait here," he said absently.

He approached a terminal carefully, as if expecting a trap, and took the cover off, exposing the twisted, coiled system inside. It looked incomprehensible to Nat, but Alc reached inside confidently and pulled out a series of tiny components, then reached further back - almost to his shoulder in electronics - and pulled out a handful of wires and a decent sized brick of enclosed hardware. He left two of the leads connected back into the terminal and disconnected the others with a practised twist. A couple of minutes later he had detached the small monitor from the top of the terminal and had it wired to the brick so that the display slowly flicked through letters, numbers and diagrams.

"Eli's up in B-sector level 5, we can get him transferred to level 2 and we'll be able to reach him fastest. Sof's... huh." Alc's eyes narrowed, and he input a line of code in swift on-off taps of a single button. "Sof's showing as location encrypted. I don't have time to hack this now... She's in P-sector. That's where we..."

Nat found himself tuning out Alc's monologue, instead watching the screen flick through maps and diagrams and trying to imagine Sof or Eli hidden on those tiny images.

Alc seemed to come to some conclusion, and put the brick and monitor to one side, still wired into the terminal, and pulled together some of the components, using sharp metal edges to strip wires and borrowing Pkr's hands when two were not enough. He frowned carefully at the finished product, which looked like a smaller version of the speakers that hung off every wall, and then made a second one - faster this time.

He handed one to Nat, and Nat took it carefully, looking at the thing which was barely the size of his palm. "Put that in your pocket. It's crude, but if you press this button here," he demonstrated on the second device, "You'll be able to talk to me and I can use mine to talk to you."

Pkr looked over his shoulder. "It's cute," she grinned. "Can I have one?"

Alc handed her the second one with some ceremony. "You can hold mine," he said.

Alc picked up the little computer he had constructed, and disconnected it from the terminal. Then, as one, they turned to face the door.

- = -

The door threw them out into a corridor on the first level. The rush of people was so wild that all three of them were pulled out of the doorway before they could even think, buffeted and thrown about and only keeping their feet because the alternative would undoubtedly mean death. Down here to stop or fall would go noticed by no one. At Alc's gesturing and pointing, Nat shoved his way towards an exit on the side of the path marked B-sector, working his way into the stream of people that were preparing to exit and reaching out to grab hold of Alc's arm just in time to be torn away from the main torrent.

Alc was shouting something, but he couldn't make it out until they shoved their way into a doorway and through into a blessedly empty monitoring centre.

"I lost her, Nat! I couldn't... Fuck." Alc pushed into the monitoring centre and hooked his little computer back into the system. "Try to reach her on the comms.," he asked, already frantically typing away on the nearest terminal.

Nat pulled the little device out of his pocket and tapped at it. "Pkr?"

"I'm safe," a tinny voice rang back. "But I couldn't get out until H-sector. Should I head towards P-sector, I can meet you there?"

"Nat, I'm not leaving her out there alone," Alc said firmly. "I'm going back for her."

"Alc," Nat started to object, "She's safe right now, if she stays put, and once we've got Eli..."

"I can't wait that long, Nat. I've got to..." Alc glanced at the comms. device. Nat handed it over.

"Can you make it?" Nat asked.

"I will. We will, Nat." Alc visibly steeled himself. "Once you've got Sof and Eli, head for exit PR7, you understand? That's where we'll be. It's a camera blackspot on the freeway, it's too expensive to get someone out there to fix just one camera."

"You were going to stay," Nat pointed out blandly. "You were going to stay in the sector and clear your record on the system."

Alc laughed tensely, shaking his head self-deprecatingly. "You know that was never really an option."

"I'd hoped... For you..."

"PR7, Nat," Alc interrupted. "You'll be there?"

"PR7," he repeated. "Alc... I'm sorry I got you involved in this."

"No, you're not, Nat." Alc clapped a hand on Nat's shoulder. "But it's alright. I've cleared what I can on the system. We've got to go now, Eli will be waiting in B-sector, you need to get up to the second level."

They parted ways at the door, and Alc was already intent on the comm in his hand, feeding Pkr information and charging back out into the unknown.

- = -

Nat didn't know exactly what Alc had done to get Eli here, but as soon as he walked through the entrance to the sector his heart was flying. Eli was standing right there, his back to Nat and his focus on the terminal in front of him. Everything was suddenly so simple, and they would get Sof, and life in the superstructure would be hard, but they'd be happy. Together.

Eli turned slowly, but didn't smile. "NAT 4875," he said, head tilting in curiosity. "You should be in holding."

"Eli!? I thought you were..." It was something absent that caused Nat to stumble to a stop, something strange in Eli's eyes, in the phrasing of his words. "What's going on?" It was the emptiness, the lack of connection in Eli's gaze that finally clued Nat in to what had happened. "You're back on Trosium," he said, voice flat and shocked.

"No," Eli said with a strange imitation of cheerfulness. "It has been discovered that some units do not function well on Trosium. I have been prescribed Inerval. It's a new formulation to improve productivity and reduce side effects. Thanks to the system I am now useful to my fellow man."

The clinical flat tone made Nat's stomach turn. "Eli... why?" His idealistic dream was falling down around him.

"I am a soldier of the system," Eli replied. "I am required."

"What about Sof? What about me?"

"SOF 3125 has been assigned to maternity ward 153XT. You have been sentenced with imprisonment in Holding 195."

"Maternity..." Nat's mind spun wildly, reality tilting on its axis. "Eli, why was Sof assigned there?"

"To produce the next SOF 3125."

Nat felt faint, lightheaded. All of a sudden he was enraged. No child of the system saw their parent, trapped in a bed while their body matured and information was drip fed into them, their fate long determined. Nat wanted to see his child. Wanted to know them.

He remembered the day he had been told that he had provided the system with a child. He'd never met the mother, and would never know the designation of the child to be able to seek them out when they were grown. Several years later he had been told he no longer needed to attend the reproductive clinic as his first child had sickened and died and therefore his genetic pattern would not be allowed to further proliferate, and it had just been another day. He'd had no emotion connected to that child then, but now, with his emotions cut free of sedation's shackles he was sick with wretchedness. He'd lost a child and he hadn't even been allowed to grieve.

"No. I won't let it happen."

There was a sudden noise down the corridor, boots running in perfect unison. A huge one-minded monster charging down the hall towards them. Nat's eyes shot to Eli's. "That's the police."

"Yes. I called them."

"I... Why, Eli?"

"You're NAT 4875. You're supposed to be in detention."

"I've got to save Sof, Eli. I've got to get her out of here. To the superstructure, maybe we'll be safe there."

"The superstructure isn't safe, Nat. Listen to me now, just go with the officers and we'll..."

"Eli, I've got to... That could be your child! Don't you even..."

The footsteps were close now, associated with a robotic whirring sound. He had never been so turned around by a decision, but in the end it was obvious what needed to be done.

Staring numbly into Eli's eyes, Nat shook his head. "I'll come back for you, Eli. I'll come back." And he ran.

- = -

153XT wasn't hard to find, and Alc's program shifting had done enough that no one interfered with him as he moved as quickly as he could though the corridors. He was careful as he approached the maternity ward, knowing he would look out of place here and not knowing how he would be received. He passed people in yellow uniforms, alien to him, and realised that these were medical staff.

It was the work of a moment to get hold of a yellow uniform from one of the dressing rooms around the central ward, and Nat walked into the ward as if he belonged there. The women here were all very still, eyes open and awake but staring blankly at the ceiling from their medical beds, more wires and tubes than Nat could conceive of running into their bodies.

It took Nat three rows of beds to find Sof, and by that point he had come to the worrying conclusion that growing babies needed all of these monitors and solutions. If Sof was here, there was every possibility he wouldn't be able to take her away.

"Sof!" he called softly when he finally reached Sof's bed. He wasn't sure if he would get a response at all, if she had been sedated into the blank unresponsiveness of the others, but Sof turned to look at him, and sat up abruptly when she saw who it was.

"Nat!" she cried out, tears springing to her eyes. "Why are you here!?"

It was so reminiscent of what Eli had said, despite the emotion in Sof's face, Nat hesitated. "Where should I be?" he asked.

"Away, Nat! If you're free you should leave. Get as far away from here as you can, find Eli and get out to the superstructure."

"Sof..." Nat couldn't say it. He couldn't tell her about Eli. "I've got to get you free of here. You... and the baby, Sof. We've got to get away together."

"No, Nat. They're watching me too closely." Sof shook her head. "You've got to get free of here. Please."

Nat ignored her, starting to detach tubes and monitors. The baby would survive. The baby had to survive. But it couldn't stay here. "We're getting out of here, Sof."

They fled the maternity ward with the sensors and monitors beeping a warning behind them, and they raced for the nearest parking lot. The freeway was only minutes away, and freedom.

- = -

They pulled up at PR7, the radio clamouring for attention, and clambered out onto the side of the freeway. Alc and Pkr were there, together in the menacing doorway into the superstructure, gripping each other's hands tightly. Alc's computer was in his other hand and he was looking down the freeway behind them.

"We've gotta move, Nat," he warned, voice tight. "They're not far behind you, but they won't follow us out there."

"Nat..." Sof pulled him to a stop. "Where's Eli?"

Nat looked back into the sector, then at the other three, heart racing, bile in his throat. "We'll come back for him," he promised. "We'll come back."

And as the sirens grew louder they forged into the unknown, together and alone.