[フリーダムウォーズ] Oblivious

Nia has no idea why her engineer friend keeps his lab so dark and…well, glowy. It reminded her so much of those concentrated Will’Os down below the Cell Garden, and it feels…unnerving somewhat. Why Nia ended up in there, you ask? It’s because of her partner being incapacitated twice in a day for no reason at all. Being the worrywart she was, she took him to Lee, an engineer citizen whom she rescued from a mission some weeks ago.

Nia describes him as a little twitchy, with freckles and unruly white hair, but kind and thoughtful nonetheless. He offered her to calibrate her partner for a day and asked if it’s alright to test something else on him as well. The sinner agreed, a little clueless but grateful.

Once she left her accessory, she stepped outside and life as a second class citizen. But, that life of lazing around and wandering the Warren ended with an abrupt halt when she was summoned to participate in one of those friendship things between Panopticons. Since the top 3 is already on a different mission with a different Panopticon, they have no choice but randomly select someone - and sadly that someone is her.

Nia had no choice but to take part of it. Once she has been registered and was given a time frame to prepare, she went back to her cell alone and sleep throughout the day, sighing.

Morning came, and there are dark circles under her eyes. She was not used to her accessory not being there, just watching her as she sleeps. It was one of the signs that she was already used to the eyes and ears of the walls and the ceiling, and it was starting to scare her a bit.

She quickly went back to her friend’s lab, only to find it empty except for the accessory on her far right. Seth was slouched on the chair, with numerous cables attached on his back and the voice modulator missing from his neck. Slowly, she approached him, thinking that he’s probably ‘asleep’ or offline due to the calibration process.

The urge to caress his cheeks is starting to surface, and she knows she’s probably going to be penalized for doing such a thing in public. But there are no surveillance cameras everywhere anyway, so why not do it?

Nia held her breath and raised her hands, about to touch his face when the accessory suddenly stood. She squeaked in surprise and stepped back, unfortunately tripping herself in the process. Before she could trip, however, Seth caught her and nonchalantly held her on his arms like it was nothing.

“Good Morning.” He greeted like the usual.

“G-good Morning…” She could feel her cheeks heating up when she heard his voice. It was more of…how can she explain it? More human, perhaps? Maybe that’s what Lee was talking about? Either way, she tried to erase her other thoughts and executed a command so he could be updated with the new mission.