Parasite (Completed)║🏳️‍🌈 LGBT+

20: The Hangar

06:54, Firstsol 7th M6, 2226

Workers hurry through the market district, keen to avoid the eyes of patrolling wardens after the previous sol's riots. A mist descends from geodesic heaven, shrouding hovs and alleyways in a cloying haze. Jaya drops into a crouch behind a green hov and beckons me to scuttle out of the foetid alley that I'm hiding in.

I join her at the hov, tugging at my borrowed steel-grey shirt with trembling fingers. Thankfully Daiyu wears her clothes loose, yet her superintendent's uniform suddenly feels uncomfortably tight, like it's shrunken onto me. "Who's ever heard of a twenty-five-year-old superintendent? Nobody will believe us."

"All they'll see is two wardens. Trust me." Jaya adjust my medals with reverence, careful not to catch exposed skin. "Daiyu will love seeing you like this."

With that, they strut up to the glass door of the Kida Building. When the iris scanner flashes in red, they rap furiously on the glass.

May the Goddess give me even a tenth of Jaya's courage.

An azalea-pink receptionist activates the door, letting Jaya sweep into the foyer. "We would like to talk to Megumi Kida."

The receptionist tilts her head and offers us a keep warm smile. "I'm sorry but the CEO of Kida Biotech is currently in important meetings. You can leave her a message."

"The Warden Station received incriminating images and PCR files yesterday, collected from Kida Biotech."

The receptionist's smile remains, though her eyes lose focus and she whispers apologies to whomever in her lenses is roundly berating her for letting wardens in.

A guard emerges from the atrium and saunters to the reception desk. "Kida-sama is busy today. I'll ensure that any files are returned to her."

"In that case, we'll show these files to the Governor-General." Jaya turns on their heel and marches back across the foyer. I scamper after them looking like the most sheepish superintendent to have ever darkened the doors of the Warden Station.

"You can't because the Governor-General is here, in meetings with—" The guard pauses, their forehead corrugating in realisation that they've just divulged information about the meeting to plan Pluto's meatware trials.

Jaya's restraint belies the vengeful fire in their eyes. "We merely want to discuss this delicate matter to ascertain the extent of Kida Biotech's data breach. For all we know, the contents of this data key might have been sent to governors' offices on Pluto or Makemake."

The guard beckons us along an atrium corridor to a lift that emerges in the dark labyrinth of Kida's underground laboratories and warehouses; the belly beneath the crown of brick and glass. They hold open the door to an ornate meeting room, when Jaya pounces.

One hand slapped across the guard's mouth, the other twisting an azalea-clad arm painfully backwards, Jaya bundles the guard along the corridor. I trail after them, my heart beating in my throat as Jaya slams the guard's head against iris scanner after iris scanner until we reach the main lab.

Jaya whisks the guard through the door before pummelling their forehead against a steel wall. They slither to the floor, unconscious. 

"Where's Daiyu?" Workers mill around the room to the tinkle of stirrers on hotplates, startled by the calamity. They look at Jaya with unseeing eyes before returning to their menial work.

"She was in this lab when I came here with Shiro. She'll be around."

A grasping hand pushes aside an azalea-pink curtain and a worker stumbles out of the surgical theatre section of the lab, pawing at a stitched gash in their scalp. They sit at a bench in silence, a new automaton.