Papers, Please

"Sure, sure, sure. You’re right--" No. Don't do it. "It’s our fault," Dirt says, "for resisting." He nods, understanding now. "Right." He smiles. This man is dangerous. Do not provoke him. "Right, right, right, right, right." Dirt puffs up to Con. "’Cause you’ve got a gun," he says, "so that makes you right. Right?" He holds Con’s gaze. An accusation. A challenge. "You're literally doing the thing that you claim to be fighting against, you know that, right?" Dirt shakes his head, dumbfounded. "Good. Good, good, good. Makes sense." He gives Con a thumbs up.

"And Dirt curls that thumb into a fist and punches the crap out of--

Dirt sighs and turns his back on Con. He's not worth it. Dirt kept telling himself that the right course of action is to do nothing and wait this out, and he's desperately trying to do that, but every time this guy opens his beak, Dirt wants to put his fist through it.

Honestly, Dirt wasn’t all that sure how he felt about any of what the man was actually saying, and maybe he was mocking a revolutionary and defending a tyrannical government. But he did know this guy was a piece of shit. He liked hurting people. He liked the part of this religion where he gets to kicking people around. It's a rock solid excuse for him. Justification to do what he wants to whoever he wants to do it to. He’ll always find ‘just cause.’

Dirt very badly wants to beat the crap out of this guy. He would love nothing more. But he doesn't. Instead, he stand with Yoshi. And, he taps his toe. "So are you guys done yet, or what? Will you let us go now? Like, look--" He gestures around the room. "It's crowded back here. Borderline claustrophobic. This is a stressful situation. People could just start snapping at any moment. Nobody wants that. You don't need all these hostages to push delete over and over on your little computer or whatever, right? You need one hostage, two max," Dirt says. "I'm fine to volunteer. I still gotta get my picture taken anyway." He sits down in a chair and intertwines his fingers behind his head. "You got me. You got a big important child prodigy surgeon as your hostage." He gestures to himself, the prize. "Plus, I’m a teenager. The police can’t storm the place if there’s a minor involved. So yeah. You’re good to just let everybody else go. Less risk of something going wrong."

In the corner of his eye, Dirt can see Aythya. Please just let her go. The others too, but he hoped for her most of all.

Yoshi's stomach nearly erupted from his throat.

"Christian Ziawk?" He hadn't even considered that name in a long time. Why delete his legal existence? He was long dead. Or at least that's what he thought. Was he just a decoy name?

Suddenly this whole situation was starting to feel very surreal. Yoshi wasn't sure how much he believed in fate or whatever, but here he was in the middle of a hostage situation after just reuniting with an old friend, and now he'd stumbled upon the name of that old friend's long dead brother? He felt like he was meant to be here, in this place, discovering this information. He was privy to this knowledge for a reason. But what was he supposed to do with it?

He snaps back to reality just in time to witness Dirt's gambit. The bird was always good with words, and at making friends and bridging gaps between people, but this was on another level. He needed to tell Dirt about Christian, but how?

The zap interrupts his racing mind. "Hell yeah," he whispers. "Egg sucking slum lord," he says, spitting.

The operation would probably end soon, and he still didn't know what move to make. Might as well extract all the information he possibly can while he's stuck here."Do y'all even know the people you're deleting from existence? How can you be sure they aren't like counter counter agents or something?"

Dirt stares at Con, taking in what he'd done. He'd kept his word. He didn't have to, but he did. Dirt was thankful for that, he supposed, but it didn't change his mind about the bird. Sure, he was honorable, this time. It doesn't make him any less of a bastard though. Doing good shit doesn't make up for the bad. Doing bad shit just stains you. You can't undo that, Dirt figures. He wasted no more time on Con.

Dirt secured the most injured security guard on his wingboard and shoved it into Aythya's hands. "Go," he pleads. "Don't wait. Take him right now." He turns to the gull. "Her. She's taking this guy." He corrals her and the guard towards the exit. "Go as fast as you can," he says, then adds, "for his sake. He smile faintly. "Go." "Ey yo, Yosh," Dirt shouts over his shoulder, "You got the other guy?" He knew he did, but it's always nice to ask.

It occurred to Dirt that he’d said three injured? Did he miss something? He looks around for the third injured man. "Oh right," he sneers at the landlord. Serves him right. He’s no innocent.

"Mountain Bird." Yoshi internalizes the location. "In the food court."

He stifles a laugh at Dirt's question. "The other guy? Security?" He looks down at the slumped over security guard. "Respectfully, hell no. Look, send him out with the Doc or with Booster or whoever but leave me out of it. I do not mess with them dudes. He's lucky he got off that easy."

He steps forward and addresses the Ruby Sun members. "Hey, y'all said you would torch our records too if we wanted, right? What about just part of a record?"

He looks at Dirt, the hopeful boyscout. "Same as ever," he thinks. But that's not entirely true. Yoshi can't tell if it's the Empathy, pure vibes or the moss, but something about Dirt is fundamentally different. It's like something is missing. Or maybe something else is lurking there beneath the surface. Or a combination of both. If he knew that his brother's name was on their list, would it give him hope or destroy him?

"Nothing I can do about it now," he thinks, gritting his teeth. "But I won't forget Mountain Bird, or Jeremiah. And I sure as hell won't forget Christian Ziawk."

He catches the form, and flips to the page where his psionic abilities are listed. In a flash it's out and onto one of the smoldering piles.

"This will put a gap in their data, but it won't be enough," he thinks.

"Any chance you could scrub an incident report?"

Dirt cocks an eyebrow at Yoshi’s request to purge an incident report. Same old Yoshi. He smirks. He knows how it feels to have his past haunt him though, so he’s happy his friend was getting a second chance to live without that weight on shoulders. The Fleet has been that second chance for Dirt, and he hopes this is Yoshi’s. His eyes fall on the ashes of Yoshi’s medical record wilting in the fire and he can’t help wondering what was on it, but he figures if Yoshi wants him to know, he’ll know.

He gives his own paperwork a once-over and considers tearing out Page 2 of his forms as well, but ultimately puts the clipboard back on the counter and walks away. He figured the only reason he was accepted into flight school in the first place was because of his unnaturally fast reflexes, so he definitely didn’t want to rock that boat. It sure as hell wasn’t for his grades. He’s struggling in basically every subject except aeronautics, astronavigation, and practical flight.

Dirt watches as Aythya and the others disappear behind the blast-doors and breathes a sigh of relief. Why had he been so tense? He still has half a dozen more hostages to worry about, but with her—them—safe, he somehow feels like he’s already on the other side of this thing. He just hopes the damn station security doesn’t do anything stupid. He’s had enough excitement for one day.

He snorts a laugh. Ah yes. No matter how many good deeds one does in a day, there’s always someone still in need of help. He kneels by the little crabling. "What’s up, little dude?" he says. He adds in a funny old-human accent his mom use to do, "What can I do ya far, laddie?"

He digs in his pocket and pulls out a half-eaten NuggyBar. He pulls it from the package and set the wrapper on the ground and places the bar on top of it. "Food?" he asks as the first option. He crumples a ball of paper around his fist to create a dome and sets that down next to the candy bar. "Shelter?" He thinks a moment. What else does could crablings really need? And where the hell did he get a coin like that anyway? He shrugs. "Or, I guess, are you here for your station ID like the rest of us?" He puts his expired ID card down in line with the other items as the third options and gestures for the crabling to choose.

A wild grin spreads across Dirt’s face. He should be scared. He’s very likely hallucinating from some terrible illness or tumor or something. But he can’t help it. He trusts the flame and takes the coin.

"Hey, alright. Thanks for finding this, little guy. I’ll try to figure out where it goes." He sticks out his pinky finger and pounds the crabling’s claw.

He gives the non-coin a good looking-over. "No chance somebody wrote their name on it, huh Crabby?"

He watches Cardi closely. Dude was all business, but he seemed fair enough. No reason to lie. "I'm not religious or anything. We went to temple when I was a kid, but I didn't exactly fit in."

"My older brother gave it to me when I turned 13. It means I'm family." Yoshi shrugs. "I was raised by reptilians. Straight up."

"Oh and my name's Yoshi Modo."

Yoshi can't believe it. After all these years he's finally untethered from his besmirched record. Now he can really move in silence. He gives Cardi a nod, and gets in close enough so no one else can hear him.

"I take it you know what I'm capable of now." He too stretches his legs in preparation for a swift exit. "Look, y'all are in a bad spot. Security's going to pop up in here before you get a chance to get out, and there's gonna be way more than three of them. But, I can provide you cover. You've got to do something for me first, though." He checks over his shoulder to make sure absolutely no one else can hear him. "Tell me everything you know about Christian Ziawk."

Yoshi rushes forward, hops and barely manages to slide through the convulsing door.