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Post by Ylanne on Apr 4, 2020 14:57:04 GMT -6
The guards had retreated to the far side of the room, talking amongst themselves in lowered voices, only occasionally glancing around to watch their wards. When the others had finished, they piled their trays back onto the cart where the food had come in earlier, though now the smell of something much better tasting wafted in with smoke from the cooking fire outside. There was also a stovetop in the dayroom, but most swore that it was so finnicky, it was safer and faster just to light a fire outside. And as long as they did so only around mealtimes, no one seemed to care too much. "No, I'm afraid I have no desire to live as a fugitive in my dotage," she said, sighing as she spoke. "I've already had more than enough of that particular misery for several lifetimes over already. Besides, Ms. Anona, my family is here, and my home - whatever might be left of her - is here, too. I've been too long away from home, and I don't intend to die a runaway convict on a far-flung world billions of light-years away either." Drulović set the empty cups on the tray, careful to do so as neatly as possible despite the tremors she could no longer hide.
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Post by demikara on Apr 4, 2020 15:04:05 GMT -6
Hope smiled. "The offer will remain open, of course. At least as long as I work for the government of course. If you come through, I can't make promises for after that." If the other came through, Hope would be living as a fugitive for a long time. But it could happen and she'd just need to find the right people and bribe the right people and she'd have a brand new identity and no sign of who she had been before. That could be tricky, given the tattoos she was hiding. They could be hidden of course, but all it took was a switch to her natural form or even her more normal two legged form, and she'd be heavily tattooed and easily identifiable.
"We may have to consider tattoo removal as well." Hope pointed out, having just thought of that. "If such a thing is possible."
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 4, 2020 15:27:10 GMT -6
"Oh, tattoo removal shouldn't be difficult at all, just terribly painful," said Drulović. She remembered. "And the pain, really, it's only a small thing in comparison to many others we've both known." Drulović nodded at the trays. "If you could help carry our trays back to the meal cart, I'd much appreciate it," she said. Her knees throbbed. There was never any specific identifiable reason for it anymore, since it was impossible to tell whether it was from the autumn, or from decades ago, or something between. She was more intimate with the pains in her body than she'd ever been with any lover. And the trial had been a brutal and punishing exercise, early mornings to chain up and process out, and sometimes staying long past court adjourned for the day until late at night to return to Wrentham, always in restraints, sometimes for fifteen hours, because the guards had wanted to wait until every prisoner was ready to go at once - for two weeks. For days after arriving here, she'd hardly even left her cell. She knew she would have fallen.
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Post by demikara on Apr 4, 2020 15:35:11 GMT -6
Hope stood and took both their trays over to the meal cart, placing them appropriately, before returning. "I'm not stranger to pain." She said cheerfully. "There'd be a lot to consider me having a new identity. And everyone has the tattoos whose erutin. So I'd have to have some. It's just a question of which ones." That was the tricky part, wasn't it? If she could get the nanobots, she could probably set the tattoos herself, but she'd need the old ones removed first. "Do you want to go back outside?" She offered. "Or should we stay at the table a bit?"
She needed a walker and not just a cane, but Hope doubted she could pull the strings for that. She'd be pulling a lot of string just to get everything done, wouldn't she? But given the opportunity in front of her... well, pulling strings was the least she could do.
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 4, 2020 15:48:46 GMT -6
"I left the empty teacup out on the bench," said Drulović, gesturing vaguely toward the doors to the yard. "I'd meant to take it inside when they called for lunch." The chairs where they sat weren't horribly uncomfortable, but they weren't meant for lounging or resting, only for one very utilitarian purpose, and only for an hour or so at a time before they became noticeably uncomfortable. "If you wouldn't mind my taking your arm for a bit, it might be nice to walk about the perimeter of the yard. I'm afraid I can't do it as well alone anymore." The corners of her lips quirked ever so slightly upward, in a small, sad smile. Before Andrade, she'd been able to walk a few miles at a time, sometimes even without the need for a cane. It had taken her years of recovery after her last term of imprisonment and torture before she'd been able to manage that again. And it had only taken Andrade a week to reset that clock.
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Post by demikara on Apr 4, 2020 15:53:29 GMT -6
"Let me get the teacup first." She said and suited action to word, returning shortly to put the tea cup on the cart and offer her arm to the older looking woman. Mentally older too, Hope decided, but that was a given. Hope knew well how young she was. It didn't exactly serve her well some days. She helped Arianne get up, and made certain to place a hand over her arm, just in case she needed the extra help.
"I can try and talk them into letting you have a walker. It may be time, given your injuries." Though no one liked needing a walker. People with two legs or four were meant to be free. But the older woman had problems walking with aid. A cane wouldn't be enough.
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 4, 2020 16:08:12 GMT -6
Sweat shone on her forehead even from the small effort of righting herself, standing, and walking back out to the yard, all with Hope's assistance. The trial had far exceeded the old woman's capacity for physical exertion. "I appreciate the thought, but I'm afraid it wouldn't help much." She leaned heavily on Hope as they began their walk about the perimeter, slowly plodding over the flattened, browning grass. She focused on her steps, the better to avoid a fall. "Walkers function best for those with two working arms, and sad to say, I've only the one left. I'm a bit broken." At best, she had retained some vestigial motion in her left arm, but she'd lost nearly all sensation and motor control running almost all the way to the shoulder and down through the fingertips. The short sleeves of the uniform shirt she wore laid bare the scars running along both arms, but there were longer, wider scars spanning nearly the length of her left arm, before the scars spiraled out along both wrists onto the hands. She remembered the heated rebar, the electric shock. There was little she had forgotten. "Now, for you, you've an entire world of tattoo designs to imagine for your new ones. What do you think you'll fancy?"
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Post by demikara on Apr 4, 2020 16:13:25 GMT -6
"Ah true." She said and considered her options. "And I think I'll brand myself a dark. Darks have it much easier than lights after all, even if the division is ridiculous." And always had been as far as she was concerned. What did it matter who was born first or second? She had outshone her twin at every stage and hadn't even known her until recently. "But I'd rather not be a veteran of anything, this time around." She'd rather be a civilian. "Past that? I think I'd like to remain a civilian. Maybe a pilot of some sort."
That'd be nice. She was a decent pilot after all. Not the world's best, but good enough to have that as a job. Of course, that was with her jacked into the ship. "Pilot may be tricky though. I'd need to keep some of my hardware for that."
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 4, 2020 16:28:33 GMT -6
"You could always learn to fly manually," said Drulović, chuckling. A stray stone, an uneven dip in the ground, grass still slippery when stepped upon. She gripped Hope tightly, slowing their pace even further. A mistake would be costly. "Or I suppose my friend the good doctor could experiment with new hardware only for piloting while you're still under the knife. Though it'd be easier to disappear without any of it at all, I imagine." She jerked her chin upward slightly. "Let's pause a moment here, if you would." She stopped, catching her breath, and looked upward, the midday sun now beginning its move away from its zenith, in a bright, clear sky, as blue as a picnic blanket or the side of a beach ball. She hadn't seen either in decades. The old woman hadn't even taken a vacation since before Lipljan, and that, well, it was nearly two lifetimes ago by now. Perhaps Natalija had had a point, after all. But of course, Drulović had known all the while without the telling.
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Post by demikara on Apr 4, 2020 16:35:22 GMT -6
"I know how to fly some systems manually. It'll just be different." Very different. "I'll need some more experience doing it that way." She had plenty jacked into the system itself. But merchant ships didn't travel that way and she knew it. "But I can get that." It was a matter of time, but she had spades of that. Hope paused in the walking and made sure to support the other as they stood there.
She looked to the sky and sighed. "Are you sure I can't talk you into being a fugitive. You'd be a comfortable one. Though I admit, you've rather talked me around instead." And that was more than a little embarrassing. She was supposed to be the head of the agency. She shouldn't be easy to talk around on things like this.
Perhaps Wing should have considered that before torturing her.
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 4, 2020 16:49:21 GMT -6
"I'd be a miserable fugitive," said Drulović, "and I don't see the point in banditry that isn't at least recklessly fun. I'm too old for that." She blinked up at a flock of birds passing by overhead, silhouetted by the sun above them. When they'd passed, she looked at the wall beside them. The stones had been set in place maybe fifteen or twenty years prior, but already, some weeds had begun to grow between the mortar. This wall itself was only about twenty feet high, not particularly daunting to an experienced climber. The real walls were the fences outside it, spaced evenly apart, each topped with electrified concertina wire, designed to be magic-resistant, and deploying an invisible force field to ward off potential intruders - or to keep the denizens inside. Drulović knew all this, because years ago, she'd overseen some of the updates made to the place's security. The force fields below the fences, underground, had been her idea. "You're young enough to enjoy the rest of your life. And I'm glad of that for your sake."
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Post by demikara on Apr 4, 2020 17:06:45 GMT -6
Hope waited for the other to be ready before she began to slowly walk again. It was an offer she had been given, wasn't it? "How long will you need? To set up the initial...consultant." With a doctor. With everything that would need done? It would need done so quickly too, wouldn't it? Or at least, once they began the process, they'd have to act quickly. Which meant everything would need to be in place ahead of time.
There was no escaping the empire. If she got caught, it'd mean her death for sure. But even a hint of a chance...it was tempting in ways other things could not be. Freedom, even if it meant being in hiding the rest of her life, was something she yearned for.
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 4, 2020 17:52:05 GMT -6
Drulović ambled slowly, when she moved again, her brows furrowed and lips set in a frown. The sun illuminated clearly the lines running deep along her face. She looked every bit her age, and more. "I'll send the courier tonight," she said, voice strained with effort from even their short walk thus far. "We should hear back before nightfall tomorrow. It shouldn't be much longer than that before you can meet with the doctor." There were two in particular she had in mind who'd leap at the chance to perform a highly experimental and quite dangerous Erutin surgery on someone whom the Empress Wing wanted to keep extremely close. "You'll receive a note, by hand." The old woman was well known for her insistence on using analog tools, down to handwritten notes and nicely folded stationary. She'd always been particular about that. Even here, she'd scrounged paper anywhere she could find it, sending notes and letters both by the official post, and unofficially, secreted out. It was her only lifeline.
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Post by demikara on Apr 4, 2020 17:57:22 GMT -6
"Of course." That was the safest way of handling things after all. A note by hand could be burned as needed. Hope glanced to her and frowned. "Would you like to sit down again? You seem to be tiring." It had been a short walk, but apparently it was right at the edge of what the woman could do. That didn't bode well for the old woman did it? Hope frowned and increased what support she could give, at this awkward angle. "I have a residence in Wing City. I'll leave you the address." It was in a mostly Terran neighborhood that was decent but not amazing. She had wanted a safe place here, for Henry and Rachel and Zuri.
She had done what she could, to keep them safe. It wasn't the best, perhaps, but she had certainly tried hard.
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 4, 2020 18:18:50 GMT -6
"I remember it, West Manchester Park Court, though the number escapes me at the moment," said Drulović, stepping carefully as they once again approached the doors back into the dayroom for her unit. "I'll make sure the courier knows." She breathed a bit shakily, resting by the entrance. "I think I'd like to return to my cell." White hot pain shot from her shoulders to her knees. She saw the guards approaching from the end of the hall. It was nearly time for the early afternoon count now, too, and they were all supposed to be in their cells or assigned workstations anyway. "If you can help me to the railing, I should be able to go the rest of the way," she said, glancing at the long bar running along the corridor. But pain already marked her voice. She knew that dinner might not be possible now, because she suspected she would not be able to stand and walk back to the dayroom, not with the aches now spreading throughout her body.
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