Planet Telex

"You, Swan. You're new, aren't you?"
The assistant looked up from her clipboard, turning to the one that had spoken to her.
"Uh... Swan, right, that's me." She shifted in place a little uncomfortably, still getting used to the identifier she'd been assigned. "Yes, I just arrived today."
"Thought so." The other assistant replied, holding her own clipboard by her side, the notepad attached to it scribbled with notes and tasks to do. "I'm Tern, you were assigned to me for your orientation day."
Swan nodded, scratching idly at the featherless patch on her head. "Oh, that's... that's good. Nobody had really told me what to do. But um, how did you know I was new?"
Tern glanced up at Swan's scratching hand, which caused them to withdraw it back to their side.
"Oh. Right, um. I guess that's obvious."
"It's fine." Tern replied. "It'll regrow. Just don't do anything that'll need the chip replaced, and you'll hardly notice it's there."
Swan doubted this, the dancing colours in her peripherals as the chip solidified its hold over her sensory processing remaining a constant distraction and reminder of what had happened barely a day before.
"Follow me." Tern said, beginning down the hallway from the loading bay to the elevators. "I expect your processing went smoothly. Random, or disciplinary?"
"It went... it went okay, I guess." Swan replied, following the identically-dressed assistant down the hall. She tried to glance at the barcode down the hip of Tern's dress, to see what differences there were.
'00C0-HH7-2AF0CH04 "Tern"', it read. Swan recognised the first few parts -- the 00C0-HH7 matched her own, only ending in A9FE8C29. She didn't know how she'd remembered it so well already.
"You didn't answer my second question. I know you're new, but that's not a habit I'd keep around the Ministry."
"Sorry, uhm... Tern, right? I should be using that name, right? But, uh, I guess I was just picked at random, I don't remember any disciplinary... stuff."
"It's not a name, it's an identifier." Tern replied, giving a little sigh. "We don't have names, you should remember that. But yes, Tern is fine. H-oh-four if there's another Tern around."
"Right, um. Identifier. Got it." Swan replied. She'd never even thought about it previously -- in her past life, assistants were generally seen, and not heard, and very rarely were called anything directly. Now that she was one... well, she'd have to care a lot more about the difference.

Swan, having a free moment in the elevator, looked down at her metal clipboard, instantly missing the datapads that citizens were given for daily tasks. Attached to it was... paper? She hadn't used paper since she was a hatchling. But, attached to her clipboard was a couple dozen pages of it. Her personnel record -- suitably modified for her new life as an assistant and in a redacted form suitable for her viewing. Parts of the page were erased under a printed black ink -- birth name, native planet, place of residence -- anything that could trace her back to her prior existence as a free Avian. She was told that it was like this in the official databases, too; shredded beyond retrieval. "There's no point storing the information anymore", her Ministry of Internal Affairs case officer said, which only made her assignment in that very building a bit more uncomfortable, knowing any of them could formally erase her further from existence. The rest of the documents had black markings from a permanent marker, selectively hiding portions of what remained. She could read parts of her processing report -- docile, recommended for office duties. Class C chip. Quarter-yearly behaviour and performance reviews, as needed. Was she really that harmless?
"Oooh, Class C. Don't see too many of us around." Tern said, leaning over to read the documents as Swan puzzled over them.
"W-what, hey!" Swan flipped the documents closed, flustered. "What do you mean... 'us'?"
Tern tapped on her head. "There's three classes of chips. A, which are for captured exotics and military, basically give you no free thought. Class B is your general purpose one, with enhanced mind linkage for duties, as well as a thicker layer of control, considering the hosts are otherwise unmonitored. Then, there's us."
"We're Class C?"
"Mhmm. Basically, we had clean records previously, or worked for the various Ministries. Sort of a reward, I guess, for proving our temperament for the assignment. Basically, it just means that we don't have every thought monitored, and it means we get to have otherwise free lives outside of our assignment. Just, you know, as assistants."
Swan nodded. "That sounds... okay, I guess."
"Better than a Class A and the aluminium mines."
The elevator panel made a ding, and the doors opened.
"Right, stick behind me. Keep your eyes to yourself. Keep your beak shut. Don't touch anything."
"Okay. I can do that."
"You'd best."

The hundred-and-twelvth floor was the one both Swan and Tern were assigned to. It was mostly cubicles filled with either uniformed Avian officers of various grades typing away at holo-screened computers or Assistants at computerless desks sorting and filing reams of paper. Both looked as stressed as each other, which didn't fill Swan with a lot of hope. She opened her beak to ask Tern exactly what they were doing, but remembered it was probably not a good idea until they weren't walking the halls of it.
"Here's the common room." Tern said, once the pair had reached the end of the hall and walked through to a small room, walls adorned with posterboards filled with various memos, tables and chairs neatly placed in the center of the room, food preparation equipment on counters, and a rather comfortable looking couch in the corner (much to Swan's surprise). "You can eat in here. Get your tasks done, respond to intercom calls when made, and you'll be able to catch a breather in here without anyone minding too much."
Swan nodded, and looked over at the couch. Looked much more comfortable than the table she woke up on yesterday, that's for sure. "Intercom calls? How... how do I get them?" She asked, looking down at the clipboard.
"You'll know." Tern replied, tapping on her head once again. "It'll be weird the first few times, but you'll get used to it. Now, let me show you what we do around here -- desk duty, basically, unless we're called upon. You'll have your own desk, even."
Swan wasn't sure whether she should be happy about that, but, decided that as Tern said, it was better than a Class A chip and the aluminium mines... Although, the mention of food did remind her. "I, um..."
"Yes?" Tern asked. "Don't hesitate, just say it."
"Speaking of eating, I, uh, haven't had anything to eat since... since, well, processing... yesterday..."
Tern walked over to the food preparation area, opening a cupboard and pulling out a small wrapped bar. "Ah, yes. I forgot about that, it's been a while. Eat this, just hurry up."
Swan took the plainly wrapped bar, pulling off the wrapper barely before she stuffed it into her beak. She'd never really eaten something like this before -- the taste was plain, and the texture was strange -- but she did at least remember that assistants got fed decently, so it couldn't be too bad. She swallowed the whole bar in one go, obviously hungry, and put the wrapper in the nearby bin. "Okay. That's... better. Thanks."
"To your desk, then."

In the maze of cubicles was Swan's desk, located just across the cube-hall of Tern's. There was a standard office chair, a large amount of desk space, and two trays. One on the left was labelled 'IN', and the one on the right 'OUT'. A pile of folders was already waiting for her in the "IN" tray.
"Tell me, where were you before this?" Tern asked, as Swan took her seat.
"Ministry of Planetary Management."
"Ah. The farming bit, or the invasion bit?"
"I... am not sure. I don't remember. I just remember that I didn't make officer."
"That'd explain this, then. Tends to happen. Anyway, you shouldn't find this paperwork too hard, then. The files coming in are of Assistant candidates." Tern takes a folder off the top, putting it in front of Swan and opening it up.
The file looked just like Swan's did, and she gave her own a little glance. The one before her had started to be erased of any former identity -- all she could make out of their past was one of the Ministry uniforms, but the coloured stripe signifying which one was out of frame. There was no name, just a serial -- not even an identifier, yet. 00C0-HH7-73A7CA6C. Again, it started just like hers. Was this someone she knew -- or used to know? Most of her memories of her past were now too foggy to tell, but... it concerned her.
"We have this categorisation chart, here." Tern clipped a coloured sheet of paper to Swan's clipboard. "Your job is to read through this, apply the categorisation rules, and come up with a chip class and assignment. Every morning, we'll get a list of assignments that need filling, so just rank them in order of what you think they'd be good at."
"...but... but what if I have to categorise them as a Class A?"
"Then you do so. Another one of us has the same file, and you don't want the two completed files to differ significantly. You really, really don't."
Swan looked back at the file, uneasily shifting in her chair. "Okay, well."
"I know what you're thinking. You can't save them. You can only help yourself, now."

Swan stared at the front page of the file for what felt like hours. Her glance shifted to the coloured sheet on her clipboard occasionally, its bolded headers holding attention before she pulled it back to the picture of the Avian in the dossier. Down the page, lines of blacked out text obscured who they were -- although that's probably all gone now, just like hers. Further down, there was a note: "Status - Awaiting Assignment".
"Okay... ...Swan..." She muttered, saying her identifier bringing her back to the present moment. "You have to do this."
Swan took the paper clip from the folder and put it aside, turning over the page. Her heart sank at the title of the facismiled report behind the cover page: "Disciplinary Report".
"Oh, no..."
Her eyes darted to the categorisation page. There was a section for those given an assignment as a final disciplinary measure -- Level 3 and higher violations meant a Class A chip, anything lower was a Class B. No room for a Class C here.
"Level 5, so... B. That's... something at least." She continued to herself, shuddering a little at the thought of having to write "Class A". No matter what they'd done, she thought, did they possibly deserve that.
She had also been given a small stack of Assignment Specification forms, which she started to fill out, copying their new serial into the boxes in the neatest handwriting she could. Having barely done more than scribbles since being given a datapad in her former life, she hoped it was good enough. "B", they wrote in the class box. Below that, was a list of assignments, that she was to number.
"Uhm..."
Swan stood from her chair, taking the half-filled form with her to Tern's cubicle across the small, chest-level hallway made by the maze of cubes.
"Excuse me, Tern?" She asked quietly. "What's 'off-world assignment'? I know what most of these are, but... not that."
Tern looked up from her own files, a significant number already in the "OUT" box. She took a pair of plain glasses from her beak, and spun in the office chair to face Swan.
"It means they get sent up in the next cargo lifter to the primary astrodock, and put on whatever ship needs a pair of hands. Military vessels usually, but sometimes a research ship."
Swan looked a little horrified. She knew, as all Avians do, the reach of the Accord in the galaxy -- a hundred systems, growing each year. She also knew that all the major battleships, staffing thousands upon thousands, were built in orbit of the core planets, but never stayed there. They all left to the frontiers to spread the empire, and never returned home except as scrap to be recycled into new ships. "And... sent to the frontier?"
"Yes, usually. That's where they're needed, after all." Tern replied cooly.
Swan looked at the form uncomfortably. She didn't want to send someone... systems away from their home! "Okay. Uhm... thanks..." She backed into her cube, sitting back down, trying not to look at the photograph on the cover page.
Maybe it was better that they were sent far, far away from this place.

Swan kept her head down the rest of the day, hoping that if she completed the forms quick enough, she'd be given something else to do. Something that didn't involve signing away anyone else to her fate. But, as she finished each stack, another was delivered, with no end in sight.
"Swan, pens down. Don't want to miss dinner." Tern said, stepping into the cubicle. "Got any interesting files today?"
Swan closed the one she hadn't finished, and put it aside for tomorrow. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Okay, then. Let's get to mess before it gets too busy."
Swan stepped up and followed Tern through the cube hallways, keeping her eyes straight ahead, trying to not look down at the grey dress that so many of the Avians in the forms would be wearing soon, if they were lucky. If they weren't...
"Just down this elevator." Tern said, following other Avians that converged upon it.
Swan slipped in, her smaller frame squishing inbetween the others. She looked around at her "coworkers"... not all of them had the same glint in their eye as Tern did, and many stood straighter than Swan probably felt was comfortable. She straightened her own back, trying to fit in, although Tern kept her more casual posture throughout the ride.
"Those are the Class Bs." Tern said, once they had left the elevator and were out of their hearing range. "Not robots, but close enough. Rank and file agent assistants. Useful only for more menial paperwork. Copying papers. Delivering things."
The darkness around the edges of the hall and the significant elevator ride down suggested to Swan that they were now underground. It left her a bit uneasy, as she read some of the signs along the doors dotting the expanse. 'Assistant Short-Term Storage' read one -- was that where her pod was kept? Would she sleep in there? 'Document Archive' seemed less threatening, but the clear multi-stage lock and the "Ministry of Internal Affairs -- Civil Management" insignia below it suggested that she didn't want to even know what was kept in there. The signs hanging from the roof pointing towards a lift and advertising "Interview Rooms" even further underground didn't help her from shuddering at the thought of it all. Or was it the cold? She wasn't wearing anything particularly thick in the heaterless concrete hallway.
"Mess Hall is just a right down here." Tern said, after what felt like walking forever.
Through unsigned doors they went, as if the room wasn't important enough to signal, the cold silence of the hall turning into a marginally warmer cacophany of hundreds of Avian voices, each speaker dressed identically, coloured plumage and serial numbers the only difference Swan could see.
"It might get you a while to get used to the food down here." Tern said, gesturing towards the metal trays, compartments filled with unappealingly coloured meat and sauce, with seed and bread on the side.
"It looks like it..." Swan replied, as they entered the line to get their own trays of it. "Does it at least taste alright?"
Tern waggled her hand in indifference. "I've had worse in the Sector IV Central Station, but... I do remember better."

After her food had been (strugglingly) consumed, Swan was lead back to the hall, and the "Assistant Short-Term Storage" room.
"I hope your pod was comfortable, 'cos it's what you'll be calling home." Tern said, gesturing towards the rows and rows of silver Assistant pods, as far as could be seen in either direction in the dimness. The pods stood upwards, with most having their doors slid back, unoccupied for now.
"How do I know which one is mine?"
"Look down."
White painted markings on the ground sat at the end of each row, reading a number range. In front of them was "11700-12400", similarly incrementing in each row.
"You have your clipboard, so, write your pod number down. 1-4-3-7-7. Up the right, not too far. I'm 7-4-9-9, so, I've got a bit more of a walk. Your pod will make sure you're awake when it's your turn for the showers, just follow your pod block, you'll get to where you need to go."
"1-4-3-7-7... right... okay. Thanks."
"I'll see you up there, tomorrow, for day two. Don't be late. I don't want to have to classify your reassignment form."
"Uhm... no, of course not. I'll do my best."
Tern began walking away, towards her pod, but Swan stopped her, with a question. "If you don't mind answering... how long have you been here?"
Swan sighed and shifted to show the barcode down the side of her dress. "The IDs are broken up by galactic code, planetary code and sector, and then individual serial, incrementing. Mine starts with 2AF. Yours, A9F. You work out how many came between us."
With that, Tern left, Swan turning back towards the row that her pod would be in.

As she walked down the row, looking at the numbers spraypainted at the floor in front of each pod for her one, Swan tried to resist guessing Tern's service history. Maybe she shouldn't have asked, if she didn't want the answer.