The hanger's door ground opened, painfully injecting the room with outside light.
'Maybe it isn't the flier's fault: those doors sound out of maintenance. How old's this scrapheap? I should've been more worried about this thing even surviving the trip.'
Lukas looked left over to the brightness. He put his hand over his eyes before recovering from blindness and then lowered it. Past the door-turned-ramp, he could see they'd landed inside some type of landing dock. Their skipper was a fair bit into the dock as he could see the edge was a couple of meters away. Past the edge of the dock's ledge, Lukas could see nothing but an endless sea of sand. He let himself be consumed with awe. Lukas never left his home planet, Inokum, an ecumenopolis where civilization started in the theoretical stratosphere and ended close to the mantle of the planet. The last time he saw something comparable to this was in a full body sim but that couldn't compare to the real thing. He could feel the air outside breath into the hanger. Real air too, not artificial like the stuff that they pumped down to where he'd lived. This air had texture to it, personality, grit, dustiness. This air felt like it could bitch slap him if he spoke to it wrong, but with ethereal class.
'Maybe if I get to see more things like this it'd be worth it.'
The abrupt clunk and bassy groan of the landing dock door broke Lukas out of the temporary transfixion he felt. He was brought down to reality, to the set of 4 PE's approaching the skipper, to the neon yellow uniforms he and his fellow debtees wore to make them stand out, the embezzler's and smuggler's head-in-hands posture. He noted that only himself and the guppie were the ones staring at the sea sand and then he looked over to notice Guppie's leg's severe shaking.
'Guess he's nervous about losing his life. Well, that sucks'.
The dock's door was midway closed when Guppie jumped up and rushed one of the PE's walking toward the skipper's entrance out of the way. He then rushed to the hangar edge and turned around whilst grabbing the closing door for support. As Guppie turned around, he met Lukas' widening eyes that were just comprehending what was he was doing. His breaths hurried and eyes swept across the scene he'd caused. The PE who'd been rushed was already almost upright and the rest of the squad were getting their wrist tazers ready. Guppie's breath hurried more into hyperventilating, then he let himself fall back, falling out of view immediately.
The PE's relaxed their movements before they'd even really begun. "I guess it's better he did it now than having someone clean up his body later on." One of the PE's spouted before meandering over to the one knocked over. "You good Alec?"
"Well, I'm alive. Guy's arm was something else; my shoulder's killing me," he said, wrenching his left shoulder with his other arm's hand.
The dock's door finally shut with a resounding clunk as Lukas was finally able to process that what was happening was real. He remembered his last thought and his now agape mouth transformed into a disgusted reel of his lips aimed at himself. 'I didn't mean it literally. Fucking fates.' His attention turned to the PE's, wondering why there wasn't more concern in their voices. A man had just died. He'd thought he'd be desensitized to it after deep diving the horrors of the I-net but Lukas realized he'd never been faced with actual death.
The PE's next conversation broke through his minor mental break. "Real shame actually. He looked like he had good parts on him. You know I hear Warden Verdane needs a new eye. Apparently one of the whelps managed to bust his during an attempted mutiny."
"Really? maybe we should pitch in, get him a new one. You know our Warden sorta screwed up our reputation with his short temper."
"Aren't you guys going to do something?! A man just killed himself and you're sad about losing his parts," interjected the Embezzler, almost jumping off of the bench we sat on.
The PE inside the skipper moved in front of him like a gargoyle coming to life. He pointed his wrist tazer at Embezzler and commanded: "Don't move unless told to. You are to stay where we tell you." He then gave an almost imperceptible pause of forgetting his next line. "For your safety."
'Where the fuck was this guy when Guppie jumped?' Thought Lukas.
Embezzler licked his lips open as if he was about to say something. He took a breath and then sighed it out as he leaned back in annoyed compliance.
One of two PE's closest to the skipper interjected to the awkward silence, impatiently asking the one inside, "Bring them out, transport's ready to receive." He must've brought up a call using some network link they all had because something popped up in his holo HUD. In an annoyed tone, he said, "Transport to housing numbers 20345, 20346, 20347, 20348." He made a noticeable pause before continuing in a nonchalant tone. "20349 has jumped ship, I repeat, 20349 has jumped ship.
'20346. That's me or, it should be I'm pretty sure. I'm sure I heard that number a lot during my court case. 20345 should be embezzler since only 20347 and 20348 are the only consecutive ones left. who knows which twin's what number.'
The paging PE looked past his hud, seeing the men still inside the skipper's hangar. "I said, bring them out, transport's ready to receive," he repeated in an annoyed tone.
The PE inside made a motion for all the men to stand. They did so with several groans that come out of a long trip. The two smugglers stretched wich had allowed Lukas to see the entirety of both of their face prosthetics. They were the exact same, definitely clones. Why would anyone have their noses replaced with a metal plate though? He gave a micro shrug and stopped thinking about it.
Embezzler went first, then Lukas, then after being told "Get moving or else." the smugglers did too. The dock was relatively big, being essentially a large greyish pit. If one wanted to move up or down toward the upper lip that surrounded the area they'd have to take the stairs or hitch a ride of the elevators, which was where they were now heading.
Lukas noticed that aside from the group's footsteps, there were no other people in the dock. 'Either a security thing for new arrivals or this place doesn't get many visitors.'
The line was headed by 2 PE's in front and 2 in the back. Lukas had guessed that the one in the skipper went off somewhere else because he was nowhere to be seen. They luckily didn't have to take the stairs and stood on the northern elevator platform closest to the exits. The PE on the front right then messed with the keypad pedestal placed near the outer wall and the platform began to move up. Lukas could confirm his suspicions: there wasn't a single person in this giant dock aside from the pilot crew coming out of the skipper they'd just come in from.
The elevator slowed to a stop at the floor of the lip. The front-most PE on the left turned around and spoke to them. "20345, 20346, you are to follow me to your housing unit. 203457 and 203458 you are to report with the other team." They split off into two separate paths and as Lukas' group was approaching the rhombus-shaped exit door, he turned his head around, seeing both an angry PE annoyed at him for looking back, and the two smugglers going through the other exit.
'Weird pair. It would've been cool to really meet them.'