Using her mind to push the cat back into the crystal, Scarlet picked it up and followed Doctor Oak back to town, again, cloaking herself and stepping carefully. What had previously been a challenging exercise in psionics was now one step harder, due to the need to constantly keep the crystal under control, making her realise that the control of the crystal needed to become something natural to her, as natural as breathing, a process that didn’t stop, even when she was asleep. It made her respect for Doctor Oak grow, he was not just keeping one crystal dominated, unless she was wrong about the cloaking effect, he was keeping at least three under control and was able to use two active monsters at the same time.

When they got back to town, they entered through the same gate they had left through, only that now, Scarlet noticed that it had no way to open it from the outside, they could only enter after being allowed entrance from within. The Doctor continued on to the clinic and Scarlet, again, followed behind.

In the clinic, Mendar had obviously been tended to, the gash in his arm cleaned and bandaged, and now he was sitting with Nedri, softly talking. Keera, on the other hand, was standing at the back, looking slightly awkward and embarrassed. It was a strange look on the statuesque woman, as if she was blushing furiously but her dark skin was preventing it from showing on her face.

“Nedri, it is your turn.” the Doctor called out, causing the two of them to fall silent and Nedri rose, following behind the Doctor who went back out, leaving Scarlet behind. Aida stepped out from the back and handed Scarlet a belt-pouch, identical to the ones she had seen used by the Doctor and the man outside to carry around their crystals. There was a tradeoff between having the crystals in a predictable place against having them easily accessible. The pouch itself was well designed, sturdy and with five individual slots, each with its own button to hold it closed and big enough to hold a single item, giving her space for five crystals, or four crystals and the hand-scanner.

After thanking Aida, she placed the pouch on her belt and, a little unsure if she should strike up a conversation with the two others, simply sat a bit off to the side and focused on her crystal, trying to find out if there was a better way to hold it contained.

“Hey, Scarlet, right?” a voice broke her out of her focus and when she looked up, Keera had moved over, looking as if she wanted to sit down next to her. Knowing that alienating those in the same boat as her would be a bad idea, Scarlet gave her a friendly smile and gestured for her to take a seat.

“Yes, hi Keera.” Scarlet answered, while putting her crystal away.

There was a soft, snickering sound, coming from the front of the building, where Mendar was sitting, but Scarlet ignored that for now, focusing on Keera.

“I just, I wanted to ask you if you wanted to team up with me?” Keera asked, the insecurity incongruent with the sheer physical presence she had. It was a valid idea, having someone with her could mean the difference between life and death. But could she trust Keera, that was the one-million mark question. Knowing that a long hesitation had the potential to make the decision for her, she made the snap decision to take the risk. She had already seen that death could come at any moment and that the outside was not in any way safer than the inside of town. Hadn’t the guy who had helped bury Roger complained that his bet had been that they would die on their first outside excursion? So, having a partner was a good idea and a female partner might prevent problems stemming from the lack of available females in the settlement.

“Yes, teaming up seems like a good idea. I would be happy to do so.” she answered, keeping her voice friendly and quiet. The acceptance made Keera smile in thanks and sigh in apparent relief.

They sat together in a bit of awkward silence, neither comfortable enough to even make smalltalk due to the strange and uncertain environment. Knowing that getting the mental process to dominate the crystal down pat, Scarlet returned her focus on that, mentally probing it, trying different thought-forms to hold it, similar to one might try different ways to carry something, searching for the best way to hold it.

She barely noticed it, when after some time the Doctor returned with Nedri and gestured for Keera to follow him. But her probing slowly got results, the curiosity she had felt earlier was still there and it seemed that if she let some of her awareness of the outside world seep back into the crystal, it became almost docile in its suppressed state, as if its main struggle was to gain back awareness of the outside.

When she examined her hypothesis, she noticed that it seemed plausible. After all, sensory deprivation was used to soften targets up before having psions invade their minds, the threat of repeated deprivation making them more pliable. During her training, she had been subject to the treatment used to soften up interrogation targets, so they could defend against it, if they were ever subjected to interrogation themselves and it had been torturous. Being trapped in the darkness of her own mind, with nothing but her own thoughts as company, her resistance had quickly been broken. Not that any of her classmates had fared that much better, for some it had taken slightly longer but none of them had lasted more than two days.

Shaking off the memories, she refocused on her environment, taking note of the fact that Keera was gone and that Nedri and Mendar were talking amongst themselves. Deciding that she needed more information, she went looking for Aida, finding her stripping the bed she had woken up in previously.

“Excuse me, do you have a moment for me?” she asked, knowing that politeness would get her further than anything but psionic assault. And the Doctor’s reaction to knowing that she had ravaged the mind of his nurse was not worth thinking about, she could imagine easier ways to commit suicide.

“If you want to hit on me, no, I don’t, I won’t even learn your names until you managed to survive the first month.” was the slightly annoyed sounding answer.

“No, no hitting, either metaphorically or physically, planned.” Scarlet answered with a laugh before continuing, “I wanted to know more about life in Albertina. You know, things like, where do I sleep, where do we eat, those pesky little details.”

“Once you all have your crystals, you’ll be shown to the barracks, you will bunk there until you can make your own dwelling, either by yourself or by trading for the work. For food, there is a mess-house where you can eat, it’s across the path from the barracks. In addition, there is some entertainment in the area where the normals live but you should be careful, if you kill one of them, even in self-defense, you’ll have to pay a fine.” Aida explained, while continuing her work. The warning at the end seemed a little odd to Scarlet, why would she kill someone, just by being there.

“You’ve not yet twigged what Verdun is, have you?” asked Aida, apparently having seen her expression. “It’s a prison, or maybe labour-camp would be a better word. You psions have to harvest crystals and if the town doesn’t meet the quota, we don’t get food send down from above and we don’t make enough to feed everyone. On the other hand, the normals have to do all the manual labour that has to be done, including growing what food we can. The problem is, the normals are here for the rest of their lives, the feds won’t waste fuel to lift a convict back to orbit, even if they claim they will, I don’t buy it, not for one hot minute. You are a smart girl, so I’m sure you can imagine that most that are sent here are the scum of humanity, the pedophiles, rapists, murderers and people who talk at the theatre. And here’s the happy thought. Of the roughly thousand normals, nine-hundred are guys.”

“Gather around, newbies. The next part of the wonderful introductory course, Survival on Verdun, is about to begin. If you want to skip, feel free but the grading on the exam is murder. Literally!” the Doctor shouted from the front of the building, causing Scarlet to hurry there, the revelation given by Aida playing in a loop. Her situation seemed more and more like a nightmare.