date + time: november 22nd, 08:08AM
location: tech wards, level beta, purgatory
status: closed, @gideondemarco
They probably thought him daft, pushing him around and ordering him to fix their useless technology. More often than not, his time was consumed with assisting Raven’s in her task. But it must have been written, somewhere in his files, that he was somewhat good with another different set of tools. They divided his daily routine with five days with Raven, and the other two with the other techs. Theon still had to meet them all, but they mostly kept to themselves when he arrived. Eyed him as if he was a stranger; he understood later that they did not trust him. Did not know him. Feared that he would disturb their elegant balance. Theon also soon realized that the work room was fairly less supervised than other places in the prison. Techs were not to be feared, they rarely posed as a threat to others.
With disinterest, he joined in, barely having done anything by the end of his shift. The last thing he wanted was to look at those machines, made to kill and guard, to be used as worthless piece of metal. Imagining how DATA was probably lying dead somewhere in the galaxy, being dissected by unkind humans. Secrets would be out, his code stripped from the main matrix. Incriminating evidence of Theon’s own stupidity, thinking he could make a man out of a machine. He killed him, brought the android with him aboard this stupid mission.
They eventually stopped assigning Theon to android’s repairs when more than one of them had a sharp tool sticking out of their head or exploded without (seemingly) any reason, rendering repairs impossible. The beatings he received afterwards helped him feel something again; the pain he thought he deserved for being a worthless human being. Not even able to protect his own. At least, the pain he could, in some way, control. Not knowing about the state of his …friends. Colleagues. Whatever their lot were. His desire for knowledge had always brought him trouble, now it was slowly driving him mad. The only certainty was in the blood tainting the floor and the muffled sounds of kicks in his ribs.
Raven had patched him up without a word when he came back to their cell, and Theon knew he let her down too. She did not sacrifice so much for him to come back in this state. Well, he never promised her he was a good person either, deserving of her attentions.
Being separated from the other techs meant that whenever he saw them used a wrong tool, or connecting wrong circuits together, he couldn’t say a word. Though his desire for perfection, especially in the workplace was always lingering in the back of his mind, it had dimmed a great deal and his own work felt sloppy. He did not care much anymore but he still could spot idiots. They put him on computer work for a while, coding some mindless security protocols for the droids. Something 10-years-old-him could have done in his sleep.
Years ago, work had meant something more. Gave him a purpose after Eliot’s death. Now, work meant that he could push down whatever feelings he had and keep his head as blank as possible. Theon was immensely bored and the only thing keeping him from ending it all was his fear of leaving Raven alone.
When entered the room that morning, none of the usual techs were there, only a guy he thought was called Jeon, or Ridelon, something like that. None of them had properly introduce himself to him yet, and Theon had never been known to be outwardly sociable. He wasn’t about to start in this goddamn prison. He was working on something, tinkering with pieces of metal. Theon approached, interest piqued. Making sure to stay on the other side of the table, in case this thing exploded, he observed with attention. After awhile, a simple question couldn’t stop escaping his chapped lips. “Are you certain you’re using the right laser for that?”
Gideon learned, soon after he had been given his role in the technical side of the prison, that there was even a hierarchy among the techs. He remained the lowest of the low as he fiddled with parts of androids, panels on the walls, anything that needed to be fixed. There were those that the prison brought in, people that weren’t imprisoned working on the most important parts of Purgatory. There were inmates who had been there for years, who were trusted with more tools and more responsibilities. And then there was him. This type of technical work wasn’t what he was best at, but he could make do. There were similarities in all of the systems; he could even fix the locking mechanisms on the cells when necessary. It only had been once, when the other techs had the day off and a riot was close to breaking out. They didn’t often have the inmates working within the cell blocks, instead focusing his skills on the computers used to track inmate history. It was dull, mind-numbing work, the type that he promised himself he would never succumb to. Now, he had no choice. He was almost positive there was no way out of Purgatory; a failed attempt in his first year proved that. He had never been seen as a threat, so he was never moved to Level Alpha. Instead, he kept toiling away in the tech room, wishing he could be doing something else.
After what seemed like ages, a new tech seemed to have appeared. He saw the man rarely, once a week at most. He never heard him speak, though that didn’t mean much. Gideon rarely spoke to the other techs himself, preferring to keep to himself in fear that they would try to find him a different role if he became too close to the others. There was something about the bonds between inmates that frightened guards, and though the techs seemed to at least be friendly towards each other, Gideon didn’t want to make any more mistakes. He didn’t know how well he would fair in solitary confinement, and wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.
The new tech, however, intrigued him. He had heard whispers from the other techs of his work with the droids, of how you would receive a beating if you even so much as thought about ruining another piece of Purgatory equipment. Gideon himself had never considered it; the thought of being taken somewhere worse than Purgatory always on his mind. Part of him had believed that nothing could be worse than the lab that had been his home for years, but Purgatory was proving to be that and more. It held horrors of its own, an unfair prison structure that seemed to never improve. He had seen plenty of people who didn’t deserve to be imprisoned, though he was unsure if he deserved to be there either. The lines had become fuzzy, but it didn’t matter. He was positive he wasn’t getting out.
There was no reason for the man to approach him, but as soon as he saw what Gideon was doing, he could tell the other tech was coming over to his workstation. Without looking up, he said yes. A simple response, the word biting. Who was this guy to question his techniques, when he hadn’t seen the man touch a single tool all day? “I’ve done this plenty of times before. It’ll be fine,” he said, picking up another piece before glancing up at the man. “Who are you, anyway?”