POV Galina
"¡¿Что за хрень сейчас была?!" I stared at my hands, no longer shaking. I brought one to my forehead and confirmed it wasn't just my imagination—the fever was gone. So was the thirst.
My legs weren't giving out.
I was fine. I even felt better than before giving birth.
Speaking of light, what exactly did that kid do?
There was a burst of greenish light, but instead of being blinding or uncomfortable, it was warm and comforting. Oh no. I think I even moaned a little when he healed me—way too long without company...
For a second, I thought I'd gotten high without realizing it!
I hope he didn't notice.
"He could've at least left a name," I muttered, turning to look at the window he'd clearly used to leave while I was in my "post-relaxation" haze. "Or that's what I'd normally say... but I think he's earned the right to keep his secrets."
I still needed to check if the "product" was real, and from there, I could make some decisions.
I hoped he wouldn't regret it.
"Mom?"
"Oh, I'm so sorry, мой ангел." Thank goodness Sasha hadn't noticed anything. Buying her those pink cat-ear headphones so she could listen to music while studying had been a great call. "Was I too loud?"
"Mom, why do you have that?"
Chyort! I forgot to put the gun away.
"I was just cleaning it. Nothing big."
"But it's not Thursday…"
Of course she wouldn't fall for that. My little girl's way too sharp.
…
My eyes couldn't help darting toward the Securicine.
"I should make some calls, uh…"
I should also see that damn doctor—even without the discount. What if what happened was just a placebo effect, or temporary?
POV Third Person
"Well, that didn't go as expected, but it worked out. I didn't even get shot!" Faelan thought as he pushed the manhole cover aside and climbed out of the stinking underground space. "Although… that moan caught me off guard…"
Thankfully, he didn't get dirty, and he only stayed in human form for a few seconds—any longer and the stench might've stuck to his clothes.
And it's not like he had a lot of spares.
Let's not even talk about the showers at the factory—filthy beyond belief, and not even split between men and women, just scheduled usage slots.
"One out of three wishes fulfilled," he nodded, satisfied—not just because he could breathe in slightly less toxic air now. "Two to go. Now we'll see if Galina keeps her end of the deal. Hopefully, she won't stab me in the back."
From his brief talk with her, her attitude reminded him a bit of Dorio. That gave him some hope she'd stick to her word instead of backing out—but better to be cautious.
Sometime soon, Kiwi would send Galina an encrypted message to arrange a pickup. They just needed the right moment to stash it, figure out how to get their part without being tracked, and see how things played out.
Faelan hurried back into the factory the same way he left and only after getting rid of the stinky herbs did he exit the bathroom with an extremely convincing sick look on his face.
Not entirely faked—the ventilation in that bathroom was worse than he remembered, and the concentrated plant smell in the stall he'd "occupied" hit his nose like a punch.
He almost fainted from the olfactory assault when he reformed!
"Hey, you might wanna wait a bit before going in there," he warned a worker headed for the bathroom.
The guy sneered. Who wasn't used to bad smells around here?
Only later, when he was dragged out unconscious and foaming at the mouth, would he realize just how wrong he was...
Kiwi rolled her eyes without turning her head as he passed her table. Faelan just nodded, pretending to rub his stomach.
"I'm fine," he assured her as he sat down and checked his part of the order before grabbing his tools and starting assembly. "But you might wanna pick a different bathroom for the rest of the day."
Kiwi pretended not to hear after confirming he was okay and got back to her own work. The cameras watching them weren't fake—they'd checked.
Everything went on like any other normal day.
A worker lost a limb, another passed out from toxic fumes, a couple got penalized for defective work...
The usual.
It wasn't until the last component was packed into its assigned container and loaded onto the conveyor belt for storage that the kids scattered, stomachs in charge now that work was done.
By then, word had already spread about the "gift" Faelan left in the first-floor bathroom. Nobody was surprised when he didn't show up to get his dinner rations—he was probably still out of it.
But instead of worrying, they were full of gossip.
It was the first time they'd seen the guy get sick in their lives! He hadn't even caught a cold in the middle of winter before!
While Kiwi and the kids went to collect their assigned rations, Faelan returned to his "bedroom."
Okay, maybe calling it a "bedroom" was a bit generous…
The kids' living space was basically a pile of old but sturdy containers stacked and welded in a corner of the old warehouse (a different one than where the goods were stored). They had some basic furniture—futons for beds, crank lamps for nighttime light, a few fans—and each container held six to eight kids.
They even had a communal projector to watch the news for one hour a day!
But no more than that, or the already half-broken components would overheat and die for good.
Faelan and Kiwi shared a container on the top level—the third-highest one. Technically, it belonged to the company and had been assigned to Kiwi because of her status. Much later, she invited Faelan to move in after discovering his secret and becoming his partner—for mutual safety.
For both of them.
He was pretty sure they'd avoided a lot of trouble because of this setup, even though the foreman who backed Kiwi hadn't exactly smiled when he found out.
Faelan wanted to kill that guy. He knew enough about him to be certain he was worth more as compost than a person.
"If the deal with Galina goes well and we can save up some money fast, maybe we can get out of this dump without having to pay that ridiculous 'tuition' for both of us," he thought hopefully, sitting on the floor on his side of the container. "Without being tied to this place, I could seriously speed up trap development."
Technically speaking, if they could secure a safe place and delete some data from the factory's central server—like, say, their "trainee" employee profiles beyond recovery—they could disappear without looking back.
Aside from the undoubtedly vindictive foreman, if their data was wiped, the factory wouldn't bother tracking them. They'd just replace the lost labor and move on.
With Faelan's traps, food wouldn't be a problem. They could focus on improving their skills and specializations while keeping a low profile.
The not-so-great part? The factory's central server had decent ICE, strong enough that Kiwi's hacking couldn't even scratch it—not surprising, given how limited her access to info had been. Most of her achievements came from self-teaching.
Could they hire a netrunner to delete the data? No. That wasn't an option.
Even if they had the money—which they didn't—the hired runner would probably make a copy of the data before deleting it.
Then they'd see what they could milk from the situation—maybe blackmail, maybe selling the info.
Basic self-preservation. Information was power.
They could physically destroy the server, but they had no idea where it was—and that would definitely piss the factory off.
"What's got you so lost in thought?" Kiwi entered the container and shut the door behind her, using the low tone they always used at "home" since the walls weren't exactly soundproof.
"Just thinking about today." Faelan shook his head and took off his sunglasses—uncomfortable in the darker space. "She agreed, just like we planned. But we'll see if she follows through."
"So for now, we need to figure out how to send her the goods and get our part later, without being traced back here," Kiwi said calmly, gently cracking her jaw.
She pulled the rations she'd brought from her pocket and tossed them into the corner with the rest. As always since their partnership, she hadn't taken a single bite of those low-quality things.
"We can't use the factory containers—they'd be way too easy to track."
Faelan then suggested making a wooden box for the organic ingredients. After hearing his reasoning, Kiwi agreed.
He couldn't just carry a box with him when leaving the factory like he did today. It'd be best to find an abandoned spot, grow the food, and build the wooden box on the spot.
Kiwi just needed to find the drop point, contact Galina, and help plan how to handle payment.
"We could use the Pip-Boy," Kiwi suggested after thinking about it for a long time, realizing the solution might not need to be that complicated. "It's archaic and not network-connected. Even if they attach a virus to the payment, you'll only receive the money and it can't be traced. Then we can transfer the money to another chip."
It wasn't a bad idea.
"Yeah, but we'll have to fine-tune it a bit." He looked at the device on his wrist. "Not sure if we can find some spare parts. Lately, they've been getting picky about missing components."
She was right. The Pip-Boy only had two functions: manually transferring money and safeguarding the amount inside. Other than that, forget about checking your status or connecting to any network. It couldn't even tell time, let alone be remotely accessed to spy or locate anything.
Who would've thought the weakest gadgets would turn out to be the most useful?
"Getting in touch with her won't be hard either, especially if the message is short. I can make it self-delete a minute after being opened," Kiwi added, lifting her head to look at the ceiling. "But we've got a problem. We can't pull off what we did today too often. We could get caught or you might end up… with the doctor."
Faelan visibly flinched at that.
To put it in perspective, the guy who installed David's Sandevistan was a hundred times cleaner and more professional than the doctor in charge of this factory. Some of the kids were still traumatized because their neuro-links were installed without any anesthesia—just out of sheer laziness.
And the doctor (whose name was Kondraki) had always been curious about Faelan's... "condition." If they actually sent him there, who knows if he'd come back in one piece?
Or with the right number of pieces!
Kiwi hadn't been that unlucky. Her installation had been done by one of Kondraki's subordinates, someone actually competent by normal standards, since the illustrious doctor was hungover that day. The only reason their roles were flipped—despite Kondraki being total garbage compared to his subordinate—was due to family influence.
That subordinate, a guy named Famir, was also one of the few decent people in the entire place. When a kid or adult had an issue with their implants, he actually investigated the cause and treated it as best he could with the meds on hand. He often created personalized formulas for the best possible solution and even performed minor adjustment surgeries when needed.
Factory staff secretly considered him their guardian angel.
But Kondraki?
Unless you were someone important to the factory with a high salary or influence (relatively speaking—this place wasn't exactly high-tier), all you got from him was a random cocktail of cheap painkillers and expired antibiotics… and a look of contempt as he kicked you out.
Yes—expired. Occasionally!
If the foreman hadn't sent Faelan to visit Kondraki yet, it was because he'd never given any legitimate reason—and his performance had been excellent.
He was the living embodiment of the kind of worker the factory loved most:
Quiet, efficient, surprisingly healthy, and obedient.
Installing the neuro-link wasn't mandatory; no one ever rejected the most basic free implant, especially not when it was brand new. As for his supposed stomach issues, there were regulations defining when a mandatory medical checkup was "required." Faelan now had a mark. If he got three in one month, he'd be having tea with Kondraki.
No excuses.
"Too bad we can't just 'borrow' some of the factory's drones," sighed the boy with bright green eyes.
Leaving aside that Galina could track them, the company itself would detect irregular use of its assets, and that could end badly for them.
Kiwi technically had the authority to request small necessities from the outside on behalf of the kids under her care, even allowed to take a drone every three months for pickups. But every request was thoroughly checked before anything was handed over.
So they were still stuck with the two safest options: pay their way out or disappear after permanently erasing their data.
"I guess you can't just use your magical weirdness to find us an exit?" Kiwi asked, looking him in the eyes.
Since logic limited their actions, maybe it was time to try something illogical.
Faelan's mystical crap.
"I'm not omni—wait, actually, maybe there's a way…" Faelan paused, going over a sudden idea and its actual viability. "Can you get underground schematics of the surrounding area? Basements, water pipes, electric cables, tunnels, that kind of thing?"
Because of his condition, Faelan was more of a hardware guy, while Kiwi was the rising talent in software.
"I can," Kiwi raised an eyebrow at the unusual request. "City plans are public, but they're probably outdated and don't include people's illegal modifications, so they won't be super accurate."
"That's more than enough." He could work with that—he only needed general info. "Alright, we won't need to repeat the bathroom trick, but I need you to mark the best pickup points, and give me at least two days to prepare…"
Kiwi was intrigued. After a few minutes resting, she got up, grabbed the headset, and pulled the data they needed. Once it was downloaded and shown to Faelan, they discussed the least suspicious way to organize everything. The boy got to work.
For the next two days, apart from working and hitting his quota, Faelan practically vanished. The more curious kids snooped around Kiwi and overheard her mumbling complaints about him taking too many naps, so with the "mystery solved," they quickly lost interest.
Everyone assumed he was recovering from the bathroom incident. No one noticed the slight tremors that occurred every few hours in a certain spot far from any surveillance…