Right Back After This

Season 2, Episode 12

Dahlia Thornton has been on Arbo for most of a day now, and nothing has happened yet.

Well, Riz hit the top of the chart and he's been feeling surprisingly okay, for how he's skating on the edge of the discovered universe with nothing to support him but vague promises and plenty of filthy broken rules. There are the rules imposed directly on him, like no unapproved technology, and those he feels in his soul, like don't have sex in front of people who didn't consent. He has trouble placing the line for that second one, if that's the only place he's able to have sex, but he knows he crossed it. He knows Amello crossed it, gleefully.

But Dahlia had nothing to do with that. Even Riz's paranoia struggles to claim that as a possibility. Dahlia has done nothing but smile at him, and Riz would think he's crazy. He's starting to think he's crazy.

He's wondering if he's going to get away with doing this again tonight.

Kiel texted him a more clear proposal: sneak out to the gardens. He can't do this every night, even most nights. He can't just forever pretend insomnia, and swing his legs out of bed, stretch, and go for a walk. His heart pounds as he sneaks out into the hallway; Colian spends many nights right here, outside Riz's door, but that isn't where he is right now. Riz assumes he must sleep, at times. Like Riz, he's probably whittling himself down to the bone, cutting into something as necessary to live as sleep, in order to gain something he views as even more necessary. For Riz, it's human connection. He knows it's that for Colian some nights, at least.

He knows this is leaving a trail. It's easier to connect the dots than it ever was. Even what he just did with Amello might be harder to trace than this: Kiel's leaving his room now, too, should all be right with the world. That can be tracked, and easily.

Still, on the walk down to the gardens, Riz doesn't see the consequences. The abstract is not present. All that's here is the fake birdsong and the real trees. Are there microphones in those leaves? Riz better hope not.

He knows where the cameras are, at least. They're found in the clearings. It's from the rustle of trees that he knows where to go, and that is on a twisty back path, created from use and not from paving. It doesn't occur to Riz that Kiel might be doing it on purpose until he pushes through a low-hanging branch to see Kiel shaking a tree from underneath it; their eyes meet, and Kiel's almost sheepish in the dark, his hands retreating back to his body.

Immediately, Kiel reaches into his jaw, clicks the microphone in. Riz follows suit, and says, "you're a quick learner."

Kiel scoffs. "You text like you despise me. It's alarming."

Riz sits cross-legged in front of him. Branches obscure them; Kiel has sat half in the bushes, such that you'd have to be walking past, near the wall of the greenhouse, to see them. "I learned to read when I was sixteen. I'm basically illiterate."

Kiel raises an eyebrow, makes a thoughtful noise. He reaches into one of the many pockets on his black pants as he speaks. "I thought it was an act. Part of your dumb boy schtick."

Riz shrugs. "What did I tell you about my upbringing? That I was raised a slave? Because that's the truth, you know."

Riz swallows back fear. He couldn't say those words to Amello, couldn't spell it out that clearly for Colian, even. It felt too risky with either of them. Kiel, though- he has nothing to lose, and nothing to gain but an understanding.

Out of his pocket, Kiel retrieves something small and wrapped up in paper, alongside a lighter. Riz immediately recognises it as a cigarette, some kind of drug, though all he could say further is that it was not from Majadha. "Do you smoke?"