Regulation 6 – Agents Advised to Maintain Accurate Knowledge of Assets

The training decks will fix me.

…Wait.

I blink and squint at the ceiling above me. There’s familiar grey tile patterned with specks of paint from the one disastrous time someone thought the infirmary needed more color and decided to use red. That hadn’t gone over well. The infirmary. The infirmary…?

Right. How I got here is a looming question mark, but I remember snatches of the fighting once I made it to the training deck. I remember my plan. I exhale and nod, hand straying to the spot where the injury had been. The flesh – unbroken now – is sensitive to the touch. But no mark remains.

Moments later the nurses rush in and I’m treated to a barrage of lectures and assumptions and comments about my connection to Yilmaz that are filled with pity. By the fifth time some well meaning nurse murmurs a quick “Well at least he’s a KoS now so you’ll be safe.” I can’t stop the frosty hiss that escapes me in response. I rarely hiss like that – it’s a very good way for feliforms to announce their thoughts, but I’m not keen on announcing mine – so of course when I take the following abandoning done by the nurses and silence to check in on the rumor mill on my phone – news of the hiss has already saturated it.

…Is it really this late in the day? The time on my phone startles me. My HUD… isn’t displaying the time so it might’ve gotten jarred during the fighting. I’m not really supposed to use the other features of my eye in the infirmary anyway; I’ll fix it when I get back to my apartment.

The majority of the time I’m content to ignore the rumor mill. Myself and Yilmaz – either alone or together – are frequent topics of conversation and it’s best if I just don’t know what folks are saying about any of those topics. This time – like twice before – I need information. Stuff like how the award ceremony went after I left (I dimly recall guards rushing past me as I left…) and anything else that might be of use while I try to figure out how much the enemy knows. So I browse the forums on my phone with the one eye now closed (checking the HUD had set off a fresh round of head pain, so keeping it closed is smarter while that dies down) and listen while the next round of nurses clock in and gossip is shared.

A lot of what I hear is irrelevant – who ate what, who was seen with whom, who might be smuggling medication out of the infirmary – but a few things surface that I take note of while scrolling. It’s from the nurses that I hear that I froze a full five-sixths of the training deck, while it’s from the forms that I read that McCrae was bodily escorted off of the LAGOON and isn’t allowed back on this ship nor any of the others.

Huh. So that’s what was happening as I stormed off. Pity – I’d have liked to see his face while they dragged him off. None of the pictures are of that. The rumor mill is much more taken with the fact that I punched him and either busted his lip or broke his nose. More than once I see the phrase – “Ice princess goes CRACK!” – including as a song over a collage of McCrae’s busted face from multiple angles and a slowed down video of my punching him.

I massage my right temple with one hand. I’m not going to hear the end of that for a while, I fear.

It takes a while to scroll past it as well – a solid three minutes of scrolling before I start seeing anything else at all. And then those are reports of there being more than usual dangerous accidents around the LAGOON. An uptick that has an undercurrent of the LAGOON’s residents being on edge. Outside this room I hear one of the nurses shout that they need to brace for another bout of injuries as one of the transit loops inside the airship just collapsed. They’ll need this bed, so I get up and stretch as quietly as I can. I’ve been in the infirmary often enough – I don’t need to look to know my path out of the room even with the one eye closed.

Probably not a point in my favor.

I stop short as I go looking into the dangerous accidents that’ve been happening. I don’t need to know the methods or what exactly happened yet – I need to know the passengers and folks that have been hurt. If there’s any similarities, any groups I can pick out.

There’s one.

Yilmaz has three friends – and all three of them have been caught in an accident in the span of time between the announcement and now. If it had been all three of them in one of the accidents, I could write that off as a coincidence. But what’s got my tail twitching and fur prickling is that they’ve been in a combined four in less than six hours. The first targeted two of them, but since then they’ve only traveled alone. Wise – and enough for someone as paranoid as me to go peg this situation as one where they’re being targeted. And alright, alright – Yilmaz has gotten on my case before about the fact that my baseline assumption is always that someone is out to either get myself or a target. But this time? This feels… pointed.

I need to recalculate.

I don’t have time to recalculate.

Phone slid back into my pocket and controlled expression, I leave the infirmary without glancing up. No one tries to stop me, which means I’m likely cleared and no one’s had time to come and check me out. Either that or no one thinks to do just that. Not my problem right now. Just leaving isn’t… well, out of character for me.

How many folks in the LAGOON have access to the ability to make these so called accidents happen? How many are willing to risk hacking this LAGOON to go after Yilmaz’s friends under the assumptions that have built up about everything relating to him? Too damn many. I absently tuck myself out of the way of a cluster of folks running for the infirmary and remember to open my bionic eye. My head spins immediately as I do. Re-adjusting to having both eyes is always a pain, but my life is smoother when I do.

I need access to the files I keep in my apartment under the couch, in the lockbox. I need to be able to sit and chew on my thoughts and plan. And- what? Let how long it takes for me to plan to my satisfaction result in the death of one or more of Yilmaz’s friends? If I’m to find him, I’ll need them. And- and I feel like he’d never forgive me if I just let something happen to them.

They don’t know me well. I’ll have to figure out a workaround to that.

I pass by a pair of cadets as I walk. One of them I recognize enough to glance in their direction – alternating pink and green stripes decorate a well taken care of mohawk. That cadet is pretty levelheaded in a crisis; that’s what stands out to me in my memory of the most recent exam. I start to wonder if they made Riptide when they turn and I spot the patch that means they did. Good for them. Or… hnn. Maybe not so good? Considering the rot that seeps from the top. They’re good people, even if their name is escaping me right now. Wait, but shouldn’t my HUD–

Pink and Green has stopped short and is now bouncing towards me, approach heralded by a collection of pins and keychains that jingle with every step. It makes the silence that surfaces as they stop in front of me even more stark. Expressive brown eyes search my face for… something.

I don’t want to hear well wishes or congratulations or… anything along those lines, but I’ve long learned how to politely tune out the majority of what someone’s saying while letting them feel heard. I’m preparing to do just that when they speak.

“Kukali. Did the infirmary not give you your eye back?”

Which… is neither well wishes nor congratulations. I blink and reach up to my face, gingerly touching the puffy skin …puffy?… around my prosthetic eye. I’d assumed that the infirmary hadn’t even touched it – my injuries were to my torso, nowhere near my head. But now little bits of information slot together in a puzzle that makes my hackles lift.

Being unable to see the time on my HUD – or the name of the Riptide Agent in front of me, because my HUD is straight up gone. The headache that I’d written off as side effect to either the injuries or my low amount of sleep as of late. Now there’s the puffiness.

And when I lift my fingers to pass them in front of the cybernetic in order to do one more check, I notice that the eye just won’t register them. Trying to focus so it’ll calibrate makes pain lance through my eye socket. Anger itches underneath my skin, tied into knots with a surge of worry and fear. Oh no, no I need that eye back.

“So they didn’t.” I say aloud, as calmly as I can make it. “Thank you for informing me.” I add as I pivot on my heel. I tried to add some warmth to my words. There’s no telling how it actually came out because there’s frost on my breath when I exhale and goosebumps on that helpful person.

That’s not my focus right now. My reputation covers it anyway. I head back for the infirmary.

Years of practice with my temper is the only reason I don’t slam open the doors and yell until they bring me my eye. Instead I slip through the open door as someone else is leaving and walk up to the front desk with a forced smile on my face.

After all, the front desk is likely not why my eye is missing. So my rage is not aimed at them.

“Excuse me,” I say to the staffer that’s waiting there. My tail is lashing but I’d rather let it lash than let my ice freeze valuable medical supplies or start yelling. Two out of three are controlled; my tail can do as it will. “It would appear that someone swapped out my eye while I was being treated. This one is not mine.” I gesture at the cybernetic eye as I speak. My teeth click together as I stop myself from adding anything more. I am trying to be polite. I really am.

So I focus on random details to soothe myself.

Curly blonde hair, wide green eyes, bottom lip and nails both frayed with teeth marks. A uniform that’s a mix of straight edges from ironing and rumples from hours of work. I’m looking for another detail – maybe even a name when they make a noise and snap my attention back to their face.

“Um…” the staffer chews on their lip as they type into the computer in front of them. “The note here says that tech support has yours. They say they want to make sure it wasn’t infected with anything. Since Yilmaz was the one who gave it to you, there’s-”

“Bought it for me.” I correct. I can feel that fake smile settle into something that tastes like hot plastic. It probably still displays the emotion I’m going for. Hopefully. Still – I can’t let the insinuation stand even if the staffer is staring at my face and sinking into their chair like they’re hoping the floor will swallow them up. “He never had his hands on it. It was installed by professionals who logged their arrival and exit with the system.” a beat. A breath. A grasp for calm professionalism while I try to arm the staffer with information that they may be able to use when they talk to tech support. “I would like my eye back. Please.”

It’s a good thing that someone noticed, and I make a mental note to track down that mohawked Riptide Agent and thank them. I’d been writing off all the little inconsistences like a fool. Thinking that maybe I hit my head harder than I’d thought.

I breathe and don’t add anything more. I’ve nothing else to arm the staffer with and am left hoping that they understand that’s what my words are meant to be. I’m contemplating if I should explain what I meant by saying all of that when the staffer’s green eyes harden with something I can’t identify. I prepare to argue my case when-

“I’ll go get tech support for you.” the staffer says, spine straightening and jaw set. “Please give me a few moments.” They scurry off after that, before I can figure out how to make my thank you sound genuine while my expression still feels like hot plastic that I’ve molded.

Good, though. I want to get this done as quickly as possible – without causing undue stress to those who don’t deserve it.

For now, all I can do is stand at the front desk and close the eye with the prosthetic in it. I used to have to do it all the time with my own in a bid to mitigate forming migraines. Those ones had been from information overload while this one is all about the calibration issues, but I figure the root of both types means this’ll work. My temper is already (once more) straining at the ropes I use to hold it and I really don’t need a migraine to loosen the ropes further. The waiting room is already more busy than it was when I left not all that long ago. The one with the pink and green mohawk is sitting near the door.

Most conversation has died down in favor of listening to me interact with the front desk. So it’s easy to hear voices long before the speakers come into view.

“-should be fine with a factory basic for a week or two while we disassemble the other one. I don’t understand the problem.” the derision in that voice is thick enough to stand on. It sets my fur on edge and I can feel one of the ropes wrapped around my temper snap with a hollow thud.

My smile dropped at some point, I realize as the rest of the conversation in the waiting room goes silent. I’m not sure when that happened – I wasn’t paying attention to my face while focused on controlling my temper. My lips flatten into a thin line as the staffer comes back with another person trailing them. I register messy orange hair and a furrowed brow before I’m speaking without a plan. “Factory basic eyes cannot be calibrated.” I say, pretending for a moment that I’m talking to a small child so my tone is gentler than I feel.

“Right…” orange hair starts, trails off, and then furrows their brows. “But that’s not an issue. It’s just an eye. Or is this another case of your kind-”

I cut them off, gaze flicking to the nametag I can see for both that and pronouns. It’s a hassle to remember that I need to do that without my HUD – but anything to delay the howling blizzard that’s grown within me at the words your kind. Those two words and the curled lip tell me everything I really need for the man from tech support.

The racism stings more than usual with everything else swirling in my head.

“Oh no, sir.” I emphasize the last word and I feel a savage surge of vindication when the tech support guy flinches at how syrupy sweet the word is. Out of the corner of my awareness I see the infirmary staffer slip back into their chair and start calling up injured individuals so the infirmary can get back to working order. “Your team took my privately purchased eye out of my skull without my permission.”

My tone is carefully curated – Yilmaz once called it my ‘retail polite’ tone – and I hold up one hand because Bradley here has started to open his mouth and this tone works best when I say what I need to say before my eye starts twitching. (Yilmaz had disallowed this tone between the two of us, calling it the creepiest thing I’m capable of.)

“I’m not finished.” perfectly polite, perfectly cordial, the perfectly timed little smile. All of that reads friendly – or at least is supposed to – complete with my voice pitching up a few octaves. Bradley’s teeth click as he shuts his mouth and the sound of at least one camera going off somewhere else in the waiting room. My body might be doing something that I’m not registering; this tone takes all of my focus to maintain it and the paper thin smile that comes with it. The one that doesn’t bare teeth at all.

I’ll hear all about whatever the rest of my body is doing via the rumor mill soon enough. Especially given how chilled the room feels around me. Ah well.

“First – the LAGOON has no grounds to remove a privately purchased bionic or cybernetic prosthesis unless it has been damaged, and in the case that it has – the owner is to be informed immediately and the requisite paperwork filled out. Article 284, Section One.” out of the corner of my eye I can see the staffer clap a hand over their mouth to muffle whatever noise they nearly made. “Second – eyes that cannot be calibrated are just fine for your skin tone.” and there it is, the topic everyone hates. Myself included. I gesture at Bradley for emphasis, at his printer paper pale skin that I can see across his hands and face. “I’m black. And if you haven’t noticed, I’m darker than they are.” a quick, softer, gesture at the infirmary staffer. Their skin is a warm coppery tone that makes me think of a well polished penny. The comparison might not be so far off given how well they work. “Factory basic eyes struggle to track hands of white folk with a tan; it’d struggle with them. Most of the time it doesn’t register me at all.”

Even as I’m gesturing, I keep noticing that. My flesh eye handles the movements just fine, but the sensors that are supposed to tell the factory basic that ‘that’s part of the body’? Keep misfiring. It’s making my head start to spin.

“Do you want me back in here within hours, possibly bringing others with me? Because this is how you get it – sending folks off as safety hazards.” Am I exaggerating? Well.. a little. I’ve had to operate a lot with just the one eye in the past; so I’d likely be fine with an eyepatch and I’ve got several of those back home. But I’m not mentioning that on purpose – I’m angry enough to make this point right now. My making it might save someone else from having to make the same point later. I’m far from the only person this dark in the LAGOON.

Once I’m done speaking, the only sound is the swish of my tail through the air once I’ve stopped talking. Anticipation builds in the air as clouds before a storm, heavy and dark. There are eyes present. Workers and patients and visitors, all stopped in what they were doing. No one dares breathe deep enough for it to be heard. No one dares shift the way they’re sitting. Everyone wants to hear what’s going to come next. The tech support guy looks like he bit into a lemon and only just learned about the concept of sour.

I won’t be the one to break the silence. It grows, heavier and heavier as the moment drags on. What Bradley does or says next will make or break the situation. This will fuel the rumor mill for weeks. I can utilize it once I’ve had enough time to plan for something so different from what I’d imagined.

And I know it will because I never talk this much all at once. I try to wet my mouth and find that there’s frost all over my tongue. Ah. So that’s one of the things that the rest of my body has been doing. Frost in my mouth and coating my clothes. But not in my tone. That’s a victory. The fact that the silence has stretched on for more than a minute is also a victory, even if it’s one I don’t know how to use.

Bradley opens his mouth. Shuts it. Makes another face. “Factory basic eyes are made for the average individual. You’re exagger-”

I’m still trying to unstick my frozen tongue from my jaw when someone behind me cuts him off.

“Man. I didn’t know that this is how they treat Riptide Agents. I figured once you got up there, you got a break from all this racist nonsense. And yet…”

“Hey, hey dude. Uh, hey can anyone read his nametag from here?”

“Bradley.”

“Thanks.” a beat, a breath. “Hey you, Bradley. Bradster. Damn do you need a new nametag by the way. But haven’t you read the studies? What our ice princess is saying has been proven by at least like… six? different studies by now. All peer reviewed. Like, we even know the exact shade where factory basic starts glitching. That’s how much research there is.”

I don’t turn to identify either of the speakers – though there’s a part of me that has to fight down a snicker. I stare down Bradley instead, challenging gaze set while I tie a new set of ropes around my temper. Details. Picking out details will fix it. Wait, I know Bradley’s name but not theirs. That’s a detail. Curly blonde staffer’s name is Sheila, and their nametag has been rewritten with a sharpie where printed letters have rubbed off in blocky, easy to read handwriting.

They’re also staring at Bradley like they’re currently imagining strangling him.

“The rest of you can shut-”

Sheila cuts him off this time, slamming one hand down onto the clipboard they were working from earlier. “Oh just give her the godsdamn eye back Bradley! We have no orders involving it – I’ve checked while you’ve been dithering! So thank you, very much, for lying to me about that.” they stand, chair screeching and sliding backwards from the force. Their gaze is steady as they take a step forward, glaring up at Bradley. “If you really think the lack of calibration isn’t that big of a deal, might I remind you about the time they sent you a leg four inches too short?”

I have to bite my lip to keep from reacting. Someone behind me lets out a low ‘ooooh’ when Bradley flinches in response. He doesn’t get a chance to even take a breath to argue this time, because Sheila takes another step forward – a long tail of a kind I don’t recognize swaying in the air behind them.

“That’s a calibration issue. It didn’t fit. It was a factory basic, remember?” their tone starts to slide from barbed to something sweet and fake. That talking to a small child voice, a tone similar to the one I was using earlier.

Bradley’s face twists and contorts like he’s trying to figure out a way to get out of this while retaining any sense of control or dignity. At least – that’s my impression based on his evolving grimace. His gaze flicks to me, then to the waiting room beyond me, and back to Sheila.

I could pounce here, interrupt and push the issue – but I can already see the sagging curve to Bradley’s spine. He’s either already mentally given in or is about to.

That silence drags on for longer than Sheila is happy with apparently – because they snort like an unhappy horse and whirl back around to their desk. “Perhaps I’ll just log and report this then, so-”

“Fine!” it is, apparently, Bradley’s turn to interrupt someone. He stomps one foot against the ground, teeth bared to the open air. “Ugh. I’ll go get the damned thing and help you reinstall-”

“No.” I cut in. I’m reminded once more of why I speak so little. Less chance of being interrupted that way. I pretend not to see the vicious quirk of Sheila’s lips. “I don’t want you touching it any more than you already have. Once you’ve returned it, I’ll reinstall it myself.” I do flash Sheila a short grin after that and mouth thank you at them as Bradley stalks off with an angry grumble under his breath. They duck their head and return a thumbs up and a mouthed ‘Thank you for your patience.’

Bradley still makes a face at me as he comes back with my proper eye in his hand. I offer him as close to a pleasant smile as I can manage as I take my eye (and it is mine, I can tell by the thin ring of powder blue that encircles the wires that connect to the ones in my skull). It’s not much of one, but he did fold, so I might as well.

And then, because I am still angry and perhaps spiteful – though a lot of it comes down to not wanting to come back here to return it, I reach up and grasp the factory basic eye. Removing it is harder than it should be. Either its connectors or the ones in my skull are too tight or damaged, and I spare a moment to form the thought that Bradley and the rest of his tech support had best hope that the factory basic is what’s damaged between the two. And then I yank, pulling the eye out with a soft, fleshy pop.

With my remaining eye I watch what little color he has drain from Bradley’s skin. Even Sheila blanches at the sight.

I place the factory basic eye in Bradley’s still outstretched hand. He makes a noise that’s close to the word ‘ick’ but half swallowed. Ignoring that, I inspect my eye visually before angling it properly and slipping it into my empty socket.

There’s a jolt of circuitry, and this time I get to see Bradley and Sheila’s reactions with two eyes. Feels like the connectors aren’t damaged. Good. I debate explaining and decide against it. I’ve used way too many words in the last few minutes. So instead I pivot on my heel. “Thank you for the return of my eye. Have a good day.” I say, even as I close my lid over the prosthetic. Migraine incoming, I’m sure. I’ll weather it out in my apartment before I get back on task.

The infirmary is emptier now than it was when I arrived, signs of Sheila’s ability to work even with someone (me) causing problems. That mohawked individual from before is nowhere to be seen, so I can’t even crack my eye to abuse my HUD for what their name is.

My cold, cold apartment and that siren singing couch await me.

And – shamefully – my distraction with where I am going is why I barely hear someone shout “Kukali! Watch out!” as part of the skywalk above me crumbles and a lobster-shaped fiend lands almost on top of me.

…A fiend? In the main areas of the LAGOON? But they’re-

The lobster fiend is lunging; I don’t have time to think.