Chapter Text
“We appreciate you coming all this way, Dr. Grace. We understand you are a busy man.”
The halls of the C.O.I. station were narrow and dark. A long, windowless corridor, the lights few and far between, dim and flickering to preserve energy. Their footsteps echoed on the rusted metal floors. Sparks flew from frayed wires and condensation dripped from exposed pipes. Despite being home to several hundred people, this part of the station had been all but abandoned. Completely empty. It was an oppressive, unsettling atmosphere. But for the C.O.I, that seemed pretty par for the course.
Grace offered the woman leading him through the station a tight lipped smile. “It was no trouble, really,” he assured. “I’m looking forward to working with you on this.”
The C.O.I. woman (she hadn’t offered her name when Grace shook her hand) glanced over her shoulder with a flat expression. She wasn’t much of a talker, which was trouble for Grace, who could never seem to do anything but talk. The silence between the two of them was unbearably stiff.
She came to a stop in front of one of many, many identical doors, unlocking it with her ID. How she knew which door was the correct one was anyone’s guess. It didn’t have so much as a plaque on the outside to designate its function.
The door slid open to reveal the inside of an office, if it could be called that. It was little more than another dark, metal box, furnished only by a warped metal desk and two stiff, uncomfortable lookign chairs. There were a couple of crates stacked inside, their contents unmarked. Or maybe they were empty, and there to serve as further seating.
The woman gestured into the room, to one of the chairs, and Grace stepped inside with only minimum apprehension. He sat down, suppressing a wince at the bite of cold metal through his pants. It was so cold in here. Likely, they didn’t have enough energy to devote to heating. Grace’s escort took up post by the door, folding her hands neatly behind her back, and then…
Nothing. She didn’t say anything, didn’t indicate what she wanted him to do, didn’t even look at him. Her eyes were fixed firmly on the opposite wall, dull and tired. And that was how she stayed. Long seconds ticked by in complete silence, slowly suffocating. Grace worried at his lower lip nervously, tugging at his labcoat sleeves. He really didn’t need to be wearing it, but he found that people tended to take him more seriously as a scientist when he was. It helped him look the part. And he’d been called on by the C.O.I. specifically for his expertise, so he very much wanted to be taken seriously today.
The silence quickly began to wear on Grace’s already thin nerves. He cleared his throat, just to fill the space with something, and then again, after another few seconds.
Eventually he gave in, turning around to face the woman behind him. “So, about this specimen-” he began.
“The captain is retrieving it as we speak,” she interrupted. Her tone was as flat as her expression. It was not a tone that gave any leeway for further conversation. Grace swallowed and nodded, thinning his lips.
He’d been given depressingly little information about the situation before shipping out. Only that the C.O.I.’s limited team of scientists had found something. Something in the blood they’d collected from AT-5, just before they were wormholed to 40-Eridani. Something alive. And, being the only molecular xenobiologist they knew, they’d asked Grace to come take a look at it.
He’d been very eager to accept. Practically giddy. Less than 30 years ago (relative to Earth), there hadn’t been a single solid piece of evidence of extraterrestrial life. Aliens were little more than the stuff of science fiction. Now, he was coming face to face with his fourth alien species, after becoming the furthest human from Earth that anyone has ever been.. He wasn’t the one making first contact this time, but that was fine. ¾ wasn’t all that bad.
His attempts at gleaning more about this new organism had been stonewalled by the C.O.I’s higherups, which gave him the impression that they were trying to keep this quiet. Not a choice he necessarily agreed with, but he could understand why they made it. This was an organism that lived in an ocean made of human blood. The last thing the C.O.I. needed was panic among its people.
The door slid open again, and on the other side was a new, but familiar, face. Grace saw the ever-present tension in her shoulders lessen by just a fraction as she saw him. He, in turn, also felt a small part of himself relax seeing her, and felt a more genuine smile creep up onto his face. He stood up as she walked in, his hand outstretched.
“Dr. Grace,” she greeted, accepting the handshake. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Captain Ava,” he returned, clasping his free hand over their joined ones. “Likewise.” And he meant it. From the beginning, when the C.O.I’s stations suddenly appeared, scattered throughout the 40 Eridani system, Ava had been his primary point of communication with the C.O.I. She was the commander of this station, the one that used to orbit AT-5 and the closest one to Erid, and served as the go-between for him and the rest of the organization.
She was a serious, tightly-controlled woman who ran her station like the navy. She reminded Grace a lot of Stratt; younger, but bearing the same weight of the world on her shoulders. Grace wasn’t entirely sure he’d call her a friend, but she was the closest thing he had to one among the C.O.I.
Ava gave him a tight smile, which looked more like a grimace, before sliding into the other chair behind the desk. She set a tattered manila folder onto the surface, and slid it towards him.
“Thank you for coming all the way out here. We know it’s a long journey,” she began, straight to business. “I’d like to apologize for the lack of particulars up until this point. The situation is… highly unusual.” Grace took the folder, which had a big, bright red classified stamped onto the cover. “This folder details the research already conducted by our team of scientists, their findings, and what issues remain unresolved.”
Grace nodded and opened up the folder, skimming through. It was depressingly short, only two pages front and back, handwritten in tiny, cramped letters. Not a lot of paper to go around, he supposed. He was tempted to tear into the full thing now, soak in all the information he had been denied. But there were still things they needed to discuss first. He slid the file into his bag instead.
“Right,” he said, clapping his hands together. Ava jumped a little in her seat and he grinned apologetically. The people of the C.O.I were always a bit easily startled. “So, let’s get into it. What is it you guys are exactly looking for, in this specimen?” If this were on Earth, he wouldn’t have bothered asking. This was a newly discovered species, nothing about which was known. On Earth, practically any finding at all would be considered worthwhile. Hell, just knowing the species existed would be enough, at least for a while.
But if there was one thing he knew about the C.O.I, it was that they were practical. They were used to living in ever intensifying scarcity. They didn’t have the time nor the resources to spend messing around with something they couldn’t see as being useful to them. Even after trade with the Eridians had commenced, a steady but slowgoing process, he suspected that was a mindset that would take a very long time for them to lose.
Ava hesitated, her fingers resting on the desk tightening. Grace eyed the motion warily.
“Like I said, the situation is… highly unusual,” she said, her voice dropping a few degrees in volume. Almost muttering. “Up to this point, our scientists have been primarily focused on identifying what happened.” What happened? Grace opened his mouth to ask for clarification, but he was cut off by Ava’s sigh. She reached up to rub between her eyes, looking like she’d swallowed something particularly awful. “Dr. Grace, before we go any further, I should warn you. The specimen-”
She didn’t get a chance to finish speaking before the door slid open for the third time, and a man stumbled into the room.
Correction: he was shoved. Flanked by two guards, both heavily armed. He stumbled over his feet, off balance, only saved from falling face first onto the floor by one of the guards catching the back of his shirt collar and hauling him back.
He was bound, Grace realized. His left arm was missing, and the right had been cuffed behind his back. He wasn’t given time to regain his balance, either, before he was shoved again. The guards brought him up next to Grace, and kicked the back of his knees. He hit the ground with a loud, echoing thud, a punched out-noise escaping his throat. Grace winced.
He looked to Ava, confused. But Ava wouldn’t meet his gaze. She was glaring down at her hands, clasped together almost like she was praying.
Then the man looked up, and Grace saw it.
Half of his face looked normal--olive skin, east-asian features, one deep brown eye. But his left eye… the sclera of his left eye was a bright, burning red, the iris a toxic yellow. The entire left half of his face was covered in intense scarring left by boils and third degree burns. But there was something growing out of the mangled skin. In patches, dark, bloody-red growths that looked suspiciously like… like scales?
There were fins where his ears should be. Red, translucent, deceptively delicate-looking membrane stretched between darker spines, and threaded with pulsing veins. But the worst of it was his mouth. His mouth.
He’s been muzzled, Grace thought with a distant horror. A hastily welded cage of gridded metal bars had been secured over the lower half of his face, and through it, Grace could see that there were teeth growing out of his cheek. Long, thin, and sharp, like the teeth of an anglerfish. Beneath it, exposed muscle tissue and expanded and contracted in time with his breathing. A second mouth? Or just an extension of his original one? He couldn’t see it clearly enough to tell. And there was something wrapped around his neck, a dark metal band with a box of some kind attached to it.
The man’s eyes landed on Grace, wide and wild. They darted all over his face, taking him in, and then landed on his labcoat. He went still.
“This… this is the specimen?” Grace croaked out, looking to Ava for confirmation. This was-- He’d been expecting a microbe--a cell, an amoeba, a zooplankton--maybe the larval stages of a fish, at most. This was not a specimen. This was a whole fudging person!
Ava did, at the very least, have the decency to look uncomfortable. She wasn’t looking at him, and she certainly wasn’t looking at the man on the floor. Her glare had intensified, like her own hands had personally offended her.
“Yes,” she gritted out. “This is convict 103. He was a part of the conviction realization program, sent down to AT-5 in a submarine to take samples and photos.” Her eyes darted to the man--the convict?--before just as quickly averting. “There were complications during the mission. The submarine was punctured and he was exposed to large quantities of mutated blood. By the time we were able to retrieve him, he’d been… mutated.”
Yes, Grace thought hysterically. Clearly.
“Okay…” he said breathily, breathing very slowly, trying his best not to lose his composure. A prisoner. This man was a prisoner, who they’d sent down into that fudging blood ocean, probably against his will, who’d survived that hell only to be dragged back up and treated like a particularly interesting science project. “And you want me to… to do what, exactly?”
“The convict will be transferred to your sole custody,” Ava said, which wasn’t an answer to his question. “You will have full reign and authority over the research conducted on his mutations and the blood that caused them. We are transferring samples onto your ship as we speak that you’ll be able to take with you. The file may contain suggestions, but largely, his fate is up to you.”
The convict jolted, his gaze leaving Grace for the first time to move to Ava. “No!” he shouted suddenly. Grace flinched back, unprepared to hear him speak. His voice was deep, and gravelly, as though it had long been abused. “You can’t do this! You promised. Ava, you promised-” He lunged forward, shooting off his knees with surprising speed. Hands were on him in an instant, pulling him away, slamming him to the floor. One of the guards reached into their pocket, pulling out a small, black remote. They thumbed the largest button, and the convict jerked, crying out in pain.
A shock collar. Revulsion churned through Grace’s stomach. Jesus Christ. He looked up at Ava, incredulous, outraged. Ava could only look away.
The convict was still on the floor, curled in on himself, convulsing. The guard still hadn’t let go of the button.
“That’s enough,” Grace snapped, reaching out to snatch the remote away from them. Surprisingly, they let him. “What is your problem!?”
“He’s a dangerous man, Dr. Grace,” the guard intoned flatly. “It’s a necessary precaution to ensure his cooperation.”
“There was nothing necessary about that,” Grace hissed. He shoved the remote into his pocket.
The guard opened his mouth to protest, but Ava interrupted. “Don’t. You would have had to give it to him anyway.”
Grace glared at the guard until they backed up to the edge of the room, and slid back down into his seat. He glanced at the convict. The other guards were pulling him back into a sitting position. He was glaring at Grace, the pupil of his left eye narrowed into a thin slit, the teeth on his cheek bared, curling out from his face. Signs of hostility, aggression. But his ears were pinned down against his head. Scared, he was scared. Of course he was. Had they told him anything about what was going to happen to him?
He was swaying a bit, listing to the side. Struggling to stay upright. He heavily favored his right side, which made sense. Balance issues from losing his arm? Or was he just exhausted?
Without really thinking about it, Grace reached out, and gently pulled the convict towards him. He flinched, but went easily, his forehead coming to rest on Grace’s thigh, hiding his face. Grace set a hand in his hair, soft and firm, a silent reassurance. Just a little bit longer, he thought, hoping he could convey the sentiment telepathically.
Grace took a deep breath, and willed himself not to do anything stupid, like start lecturing a room full of highly armed, often desperate individuals about human rights violations. He sat upright in his chair, looking at Ava with a much less friendly face.
“Anything else you feel like telling me now? Or can I go?”
Ava took a deep breath, steepling her fingers. “Just a few more things,” she said reluctantly. “Logistics.” She began going down a list of specifics, things that had clearly been listed out to her that she held little understanding of. Updates, keeping logs, how he should report on his findings, how often they expected reports, and so on. Grace resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but he settled back down to listen.
Tension lined the convict’s shoulders, curled in on themselves, as though braced for a blow. Grace felt his heart squeeze. Slowly, carefully, he wove his fingers into the dark, unwashed locks, and began carding through them. They were tangled, greasy, and in some places borderline matted. Grace worked at the knots with gentle fingers, and resolved to get this guy into the shower at the first opportunity. At first, the convict didn’t react. If anything, he seemed to get tenser, if that was physically possible. But bit by bit, he started to relax, sagging into Grace. The exhaustion must be setting in. The bags under his eyes were deep.
It felt so… strange. The warmth of the convict’s forehead seeped into Grace’s skin even through his pants. His fingertips tingled where they made contact with his scalp, electric like little sparks. He’d gone so long without touch from other humans. The eridians were amazing, but they couldn’t replicate the endorphins produced by skin-to-skin. Organic body heat. The last people he’d ever held were Ilyukhina and Yao’s lifeless corpses, long gone cold. There were so many times in those dark days before he found Rocky, out in the loneliness of space, where he’d held onto himself and wished it were someone else.
He’d thought, once, that he’d managed to curb that longing. Given that he was the only human in 16 lightyears around him, he’d had no choice. And then, about 400 humans scattered throughout the solar system on space stations appeared, and he’d shaken someone’s hand, and that longing had come back with a vengeance.
He was really only half-listening to Ava, now, most of his attention devoted to the convict at his feet (convict, convict, convict, did anyone know this guy’s actual name?). It took him a few seconds to realize that she’d finished talking. He looked up, seeing an unreadable expression on Ava’s face.
He cleared his throat. “Right. Are we done here?” Ava’s mouth clicked shut, and she nodded once. Grace sighed. “Great. Well if that’s all, I think I’d like to get going. I’ll send you my first report once I reach Erid.”
Ava nodded again. “Take the convict to Dr. Grace’s ship,” she instructed. The guards stepped forward to haul the convict to his feet. Grace made a small noise of protest that either went unnoticed or ignored at their rough handling. They were shoving him out the door before he could get a word out. Ava pushed herself out of her seat, and headed for the door herself, tossing a glance over her shoulder.
Grace sighed and stood up, slinging his bag back over his shoulder. The walk back to the hangar was quiet, except for the occasional grunts from the convict as he was manhandled through the station, a few paces ahead of them. When they reached the hangar bay, the guards began shoving him towards the ship. Grace made to follow, but was stopped by a hand on his arm.
“Dr. Grace,” Ava said when Grace turned to her questioningly. “There are a few things you should know about Si- the convict.”
Grace didn’t really want to hear any more about this man, who was now under his custody, apparently, or the horrific mistreatment he’d suffered under theirs. But Ava’s expression was solemn. Troubled. This was a woman who was forced to make terrible decisions on the regular, who was all too familiar with sacrificing one for the sake of the whole. She’d had to learn how to be okay with that, or at least hide it from others. Troubled was not a look he saw on her. So he nodded anyway.
“The convict is a survivor of Filament Station,” she said quietly. Grace flinched, surprised. He didn’t know all the details of what happened at Filament, but he’d heard enough. Seen the way people responded to the name. Knew the weight it carried. What was a Filament survivor doing in a C.O.I prison? “...An Edenite survivor.”
…Oh. That. Yeah, that changed things.
“So- he-”
Ava swallowed. “He claims not to have known. That it… hadn’t been part of the plan. That he tried to stop it.”
Grace nodded slowly, brow furrowed. “And… Do you believe him?”
“I didn’t,” Ava admitted, sounding almost ashamed of the fact. “Not at first. But now…” She shook her head, heaving out a loud sigh. She looked tired. It reminded him of how Stratt had looked that day in her office. When Grace told her he wouldn’t go.
“...What did you promise him?” he asked softly. Ava blinked. Grace cleared his throat. “He said you promised him something. Something you didn’t follow through on.”
Ava winced, crossing her arms over her chest. “...His freedom,” she confessed, voice barely above a whisper. “That’s what the conviction realization program is. We sent the convicts down to AT-5 to collect samples and take photos, and if they survived… we’d set them free.”
“Only you didn’t,” Grace said, trying to keep his voice from being too accusatory. Trying not to feel hurt, betrayed on behalf of a man he didn’t even know. Trying not to remember doctors and security guards crowding him into a corner, being shoved face down in the dirt. “Clearly.”
“I tried,” Ava defended weakly. There was something heavy in her voice. Guilt, maybe? “I don’t make promises I can’t keep, Dr. Grace. Everything was ready for his release. And he… he’d earned it. More than earned it.”
Grace didn’t say anything. There was a but somewhere in here.
Ava ran a hand through her hair, her face twisting. “But when we pulled him out, he’d been… changed. And when my superiors caught wind of it, they… they wouldn’t let him go. He was too valuable, they said. His mutations represented everything that they’d been seeking in the blood ocean.”
“...Your last expedition was right before the wormhole brought you here,” Grace said slowly, the pieces starting to click together in his mind. It couldn’t have been any sooner than that. AT-5 hadn’t come with them to 40-Eridani. He exhaled quickly. “Just how long have you been keeping him here, like… like this?”
“5 months. He was the last expedition,” Ava said. “He was the one who recovered the SM-8’s blackbox, whose recordings were the reason we were able to find the wormhole.” Grace snorted. Unbelievable. This man had saved all their lives, and how had they repaid him? By muzzling him. Experimenting on him. Treating him like an animal.
Deep breaths, Ryland. Grace pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Okay.” He blew out air from his cheeks. “You still haven’t told me what you hope to get out of all of this.” Ava opened her mouth, and Grace held up his hand. “I know you said it's up to my discretion. But your people don’t do anything without a reason. So what is the reasoning behind this? You can’t have possibly thought I would be okay with this.”
Ava was quiet for a moment. Her hands tightened their grip on her arms. Her lips pressed into a thin line.
“...It was my idea to transfer him to you,” she said. Which was still not an answer. Grace resisted the urge to throw his hands up in frustration. “Our scientists have already wrung everything they’re going to get from him with our knowledge and the equipment we have. But you are by far the most knowledgeable person in your field this side of the universe, who might see things that we missed. Getting my superiors to agree to the transfer was easier than…” she trailed off, her eyes flicking to Grace’s ship, where the guards were now exiting the airlock, sans convict.
“...Than?” Grace prompted.
Ava smiled tightly. It looked unnatural. “You seem like a good man, Dr. Grace,” she said, nodding to him. “I trust you to be… fair to him.”
Oh, Grace thought. This was her keeping her promise.
“I understand,” he whispered. Some of the tension in Ava’s shoulders relaxed, less than an inch. The smile fell from her face, settling into something neutral. A far more genuine expression on her.
“As long as you give them something, it will prove this all a worthwhile endeavor,” she muttered for only him to hear. “After that, the rest is up to you.” One of the guards came up to him, dropping a small key into his hands. “For the cuffs,” Ava explained. Grace barely had time to nod before she motioned to the guards, and they shuffled out of the hangar, followed by the captain with one last polite nod over her shoulder.
Grace was left alone in the large, empty room, clutching his bag a little tighter. The small weight of the shock collar’s controller sat heavy in his pocket, like a stone, the key to the cuffs burned in his palm like molten metal. He stared down at the ground, taking a deep breath, forcing the tension from his shoulders. God. This was not how he’d imagined his day going.
He dragged a hand down his face. Pull yourself together, Ryland. He had a guest on his ship, now. A guest who was waiting for him.
He shut the airlock behind him as he entered, reactivating the pressure seal. The Mary’s lights flickered to life as he stepped into the corridor. They weren’t all that bright, but compared to the darkness of the C.O.I. station, they were practically blinding. Grace winced, bringing his hand up to shield his eyes while they adjusted.
First, he went to the cockpit. He radioed the hangar’s control bay, telling them to open the doors, and plotted their course back to Erid. It wasn’t a long journey, at least, not compared to his first trip on this ship. Two weeks. Two weeks, and then he’d be back home, with Rocky and Adrian and… and the convict. God, he was going to have another person living in the biodome with him. A whole other human, after going years thinking he’d never see another one again, and then months of limited, professional contact. That was… wow, okay, that was a lot. One thing at a time.
When the Hail Mary had safely departed the C.O.I station, Grace sent a short message to Rocky, saying he’d picked up the specimen and was beginning the journey back. He debated trying to explain the full situation, but… that felt like it was going to be a whole conversation, which would be easier if they were in immediate contact distance from one another. Which wouldn’t be until they got closer to the planet.He leaned back in the pilot chair, allowed himself just a few moments of respite, and then went looking for his new guest.
He found the convict in the dormitory, shoved into the corner furthest from the entrance, knees pulled up to his chest. His ears were still flat against his head, his eyes half-crazed. He stiffened as Grace climbed down the ladder, every inch of his body primed to… to flee? To fight? Grace stopped at the bottom of the ladder, not moving any closer. He held up his hands in peace.
“Uh… okay. Hi,” he grinned, but it felt more like a grimace. The convict glared at him. Grace swallowed. “Um… I don’t know if you caught it while we were… while we were talking, but my name is Ryland Grace. I’m the captain of this ship. The only person on this ship, actually,” he tried for a casual chuckle, but it strangled and died in his throat. After a few long, tense moments, Grace remembered the key he was holding. He held it up.
“I’m… I’m going to remove your restraints now, if that’s okay with you. Please don’t… don’t attack me.” He took a small step forward. The convict flinched violently, his legs scrabbling back, as though trying to push himself further into the walls. Grace froze.
He took a deep breath. Right. Okay. He could do this. Remember your mandatory reporter training.
“Okay, Okay,” he said, speaking in the tone he’d once used on panicking pre-teens, a lifetime ago. “Hey, I get it. You don’t want me coming near you, that’s fine. I’m not coming any closer.” He lowered himself slowly to the floor, keeping his hands in the convict’s sight at all times. The convict looked at him like he was a wild beast, like he might lunge for him any second, wrest him out of the small amount of safety he’d secured for himself. Ryland kept his best reassuring smile securely on his face. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to touch you. Just breathe. You’re safe now.”
The convict’s eyes narrowed, snorting in disbelief. Okay, not great. But at least Grace knew he was present enough to be listening. He hadn’t been completely lost to panic yet. That was something.
“I get it,” he said carefully, watching very closely for a reaction. “You’re scared. You have every right to be. I would be terrified, in your shoes.” He exhaled softly. “I can’t say I understand everything that’s happened to you, or that I know what you’ve been through. But what the C.O.I has done to you is… completely unacceptable. It’s horrible. I’m not one of them. And I promise, I’m not going to do anything to you without your consent.”
The convict considered him silently. Grace made sure to keep himself relaxed, even under the scrutiny of that unnerving, unnatural eye. The way he responded right now was critical. He needed the other man to believe him, to trust him. Or else this was going to be a very long flight, and an even longer life.
The convict swallowed. “You… called me a specimen,” he rasped, his voice hoarse. Like he’d been screaming. Grace winced. Yes, he had done that, hadn’t he.
“I did. And I shouldn’t have,” he acknowledged. “The C.O.I. contacted me about two weeks ago, saying they had a specimen they wanted me to examine.” The convict’s shoulders raised an inch. “I’m a molecular biologist, so I thought that meant they had some kind of… microorganism for me. I didn’t think they meant… a person. I didn’t know. They didn’t tell me anything.”
The convict huffed. “I’d believe that,” he muttered, almost to himself. Grace wasn’t sure if he was meant to have heard it or not.
“But… that aside, I could have reacted better,” Grace conceded. “I wasn’t expecting you, but that’s no excuse. I’m sorry.” The convict blinked, seemingly stumped by that. For a moment, the suspicion fell from his face, replaced by blank confusion. Like he didn’t understand why Grace was apologizing. O-kay, tuck that away to unpack later.
“I’m sure you have a million questions,” he continued. “I’d be more than happy to answer them. But…” Unwillingly, his eyes drifted down to the muzzle and collar. Keeping the discomfort off of his face took physical effort. “I think, perhaps you’d be more comfortable if I… removed the restraints?”
Once again, he held up the key to the cuffs. The convict eyed them warily, as though weighing his words. Weighing the pros and cons of letting him come close enough to touch. Very hesitantly, he nodded, the tension in his body ratcheting up again. Grace hadn’t known that was possible.
He stood up, a bit too quickly if the way the convict flinched back said anything. Grace smiled apologetically, waiting a few moments for him to settle again before approaching. He knelt down, and the convict leaned forward stiffly, allowing access to his back. Grace unlocked the cuff encircling his single wrist first, before moving to the one around the belt loop in his pants. The skin underneath the metal was red and irritated, tightened too far. He took the wrist in his hand, rubbing at it with his thumbs to return circulation, since the convict couldn’t do it himself.
Then, he moved to unbuckle the straps on the muzzle wrapped around the convict’s head. He needed something else to call the man. “Convict” felt… dehumanizing. He wasn’t a prisoner any longer, not on Grace’s ship.
“I didn’t catch your name,” he said as he pulled the wire cage off of the convict’s face. It was clearly improvised, repurposed from some other metal grating. “I’m Grace, by the way. …But I said that already.” Upon inspecting the shock collar, he found that it was, like the muzzle, hastily thrown together. A band of rough metal and an electrical box messily screwed onto the side, torn out from somewhere else in the station.
Curiously, he couldn’t find anything that looked like a latch, or a buckle. There was a thin line of irregularity running down the length of it in one place, almost like… Jesus Christ, had they welded this thing onto him?
“I… don’t think I can take this off right now,” he said, doing his best to keep his outrage out of his voice. “I’m so sorry.” He pulled away and sat back on his knees, offering the other man some space. He was going to kill whoever was responsible for the C.O.I’s prisoners. “I’ll remove it as soon as I can,” he promised. The eridians would have something they could use to cut through it.
“Mm,” the convict hummed. He didn’t look or sound surprised or upset by the knowledge. Grace waited to see if he would say anything else, but he stayed quiet. After a few tense moments, Grace cleared his throat.
“Your… your name?” he prompted again. Maybe he hadn’t heard him the first time, or maybe he’d been distracted by Grace being too close to him. The convict hesitated, like he hadn’t expected Grace to ask again. The wariness returned, as though there might be a trap laid in such a simple interaction as exchanging names. Grace had to stop himself from offering his own name a third time.
“I’m not going to call you ‘convict,’” he said instead. “That would be rude. And I could come up with a nickname for you, but I don’t know if you’d want that.”
The convict looked down at the floor, holding his newly freed hand in his lap. Grace waited patiently, let him think it through himself, come to his own conclusions. He closed his eyes, and nodded, bracing himself for some threat only he could think of. When he opened them again, there was something so incredibly vulnerable in them.
“...Simon.”