Planet Telex

Agent Cardinal pulled the pillow over her head and groaned with discontent as the alarm clock started singing it's tinny, repetitive electronic song. After a couple seconds of its tune, she decided that the pillow would probably be better on top of it, instead. After a few minutes of gathering some inner strength, she dragged herself out of bed, and staggered into the hallway. It had been a busy week, and was only going to get busier, she reminded herself. Might as well face it with some element of composure.
Three pills, today. The staff doctor had said she ought to try these new ones, see if it helped the pain. All it seemed to do, Cardinal thought, was give her a stomach ache.
Tea, extra strong, in a covered cup. Only time she had to drink it was on the train.
Meal bar, partially unwrapped and stuffed in her beak as she ran out the door. Better than nothing, even if it was basically Assistant food.
Datapad. For something to read on the train.
Coat, shuffled into as she got into the elevator. Today was going to be cold.
And maybe, by the time the train arrived at the station, she'd be able to face the day.

Sector 3 hosted the largest Processing Facility on the Homeworld. A single, sprawling building, it was the be-all and end-all of the Accord's workforce management plans. Inside, it was split into sections for intake, processing, and storage, with the massive spaceport and freight station sitting in the middle of it all. A mess of monorail tracks originated from underground tunnels around the facility, eventually integrating with the regional lines, connecting the Facility to the transit nervous system of the Homeworld.
Cardinal sat on a train on one of those inbound lines. Being a passenger train, it would stop at Intake, before turning around and heading back to the city. It was the final stop, in more than one meaning.
"Now entering the Sector 3 Processing Facilities Area. Please have your ID cards ready."
Cardinal paid no attention to the automated announcement. This was, strictly, a controlled area, but it wasn't one that was worth patrolling. Nobody wanted to sneak into a Facility, after all, so you didn't need to present your ID card until you got to Intake.
She did, however, see a an Avian in the corner of her eye patting around her pockets looking for hers.
"Don't worry about it." Cardinal said, looking up momentarily from her datapad, and spotting the tell-tale red letter in the Avian's hands. "They can look up your genetic information, if worst comes to worst."
The Avian looked partially relieved, and slumped back in the chair. "I don't know where I left it, but I guess it doesn't matter."
"Not really." Cardinal replied, switching off her datapad and slipping it into one of her coat's pockets. "It'll be invalidated by the time you get off the train."
The Avian looked a little alarmed, and tried to hide the letter they had in their hands. "Y... yeah, it would be."
"Volunteer?" asked the Agent, standing up and grabbing one of the handles that hung from the monorail car's roof.
"I... yes." replied the Avian, stuttering a little. She glanced around the car, as if she didn't want anyone else to hear. "Didn't want to go to the Frontier..."
Cardinal chuckled a little bit. "Yeah, I'd have picked the same, to be honest."
The monorail car began slowing as it entered one of the facility's many rail tunnels, the daylight filling it turning to the flickering artificial light of the car's own lights.
"Does..." the Avian began to say, a pang of fear showing in her face. "...does it hurt?"
Cardinal looked at the other Avian, and then out at the station they were pulling into. They were maybe an hour from permanently losing their freedom, and they were worried if it would hurt? "No." she replied. "You'll just have a slight headache for a few days."
The volunteer looked down at her red letter, holding the page open with her thumb claw, and stayed in silence.

The guards standing beside the Intake gate nodded politely as Cardinal walked through. There were one or two Avians in line there, but thankfully the staff gate was empty. Starting on the early shift had its advantages.
"Morning, Cardinal." said the gate guard, giving the Agent a look over as she approached. "You look tired."
"Just hurt my back." she frowned, passing her ID card through the gap in the reinforced glass shield. "An exo tried to run the other day. They didn't make it far, but I took a hit in the process."
"Ah. Would have just put them down, if it were me." the guard replied, passing back Cardinal's ID card once it was swiped. "Guess that's why I'm on guard duty, and not processing duty."
Cardinal snorted as she stuffed the card back in her coat. "We're low enough on staff these days. They'd probably take you."
"Especially since all the good Agents got a transfer to the Ministry main building..." sighed the guard, before perking back up. "Excluding you, Cardinal, of course. By the way, coming to drinks this weekend?"
"Oh, thanks for the vote of confidence." Cardinal replied, waving her hand as she stepped through the gap in the wall of wrought iron bars. "Drinks? I'll see. Probably." Maybe a glass of wormwood would make her feel better, she thought. Or a whole bottle...

The maze of hallways that made up the facility were very deliberately designed to be obtuse. Nothing led anywhere directly, and it was almost impossible to memorise how to get from point A to point B without assistance. That assistance mostly took the form of coloured strip lighting in every hallway segment -- you followed a colour, and the facility's navigation computer led you to where you needed to be, unlocking doors and metal gates as you went.
The hallways were dark, save for the red lighting strips guiding her. She had to think this dimness was on purpose, as with the labyrinthian structure. When you don't know what's down the next hall, and looking behind you wouldn't even let you know if you were being chased by an Agent until it was too late, there seemed little point in running off the only path given. Cardinal was always very aware that if her time came, there's nothing that she could do, even with knowledge of the inside. Today, at least, the lights took her to the office complex inside.
"Just you and me, this morning." said the section manager as Cardinal walked in.
Cardinal sighed, and put her tea cup down on her desk as if she wanted to smash it. Fortunately, the plastic could take it. "Let me guess..."
"Sawblade got a transfer, yeah." he replied as Cardinal dropped into her desk chair. "I'm going to request a replacement, but, we'll have to deal with any intake until that happens."
"Well, good for her, at least." Cardinal wondered for a moment why Sawblade would apply for a transfer. Apparently, she got her moniker for a reason... "Let me guess, External Matters?"
"Yep." replied the section manager.
Cardinal snorted. The very reminder of the External Matters Division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs amused her as much as the makeup of the Agents staffing it worried her. The most brutal, depraved, and terrifying Avians to ever be called an Agent, let loose on invaded worlds and unleashed upon captured spies. Of course Sawblade would end up there. "Oh, well, at least it looks like a quiet morning. I'll see what I can get done before the inevitable."

It wasn't long after Cardinal had left for the breakroom to make her first cup of tea that the printer kicked into action. The distinctive clattering of the teletype continued for a minute, followed by a thunk as the printed pages were collated and automatically stapled. Cardinal spotted it falling into the collection tray as she returned with her tea, and sighed. "Trade you for this paperwork." she said to the section manager, holding up the remainder of yesterday's reports from her desk.
"Deal." he replied, taking them on his own way past from the breakroom. "Have fun."
"Pfft." Cardinal replied, taking the intake report from the tray and giving it a brief lookover. "I'm not even sure why we do these intake interviews."
"If we didn't do them, we'd produce half as much paperwork." chuckled the area manager, dropping the pile of papers beside his terminal. "And the Ministry can't have that."
"Bureacracy begets bureaucracy..." she muttered on her way out, the office door locking with a secure-sounding thunk behind her.
The strip lighting glowed to her left, directing Cardinal down the hall towards whichever interview room that the Facility had picked. She didn't even bother looking at where the intake sheet said it would be, it wasn't like she could get there herself anyway.
Other parts of the intake sheet were more useful. Name, address, assigned position. Or rather, the former values of what those were. Below it were the replacements -- serial, identifier (if applicable), class, and newly assigned department.

Feathers of Green. Apartment 416 of Block 2187, Sector 7. Administration Clerk. Cultural Development, Ministry of the Primus.
0016-DE3C-D58DEEG6 "Sparrow". Class C Administration Assistant. Zoning & Planning, Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Cardinal shook her head a little as she entered the interview room. Bureacracy begets bureaucracy, and she was almost certain that the Ministry of Internal Affairs didn't really need yet another Assistant in their main tower.
"Feathers of Green? I'm Agent Cardinal." she said, closing the door and taking her seat at the other side of the table from the Avian already sitting there. She laid out her note book and the intake papers, as well as switching on the direct lighting, filling the room with light from the spotlights pointed at the one being interviewed. Cardinal always felt it a little over-confrontational when interviewing the volunteers, but it was how the rooms were.
"I- gah." The other Avian blinked in the light, holding up her arm to shield herself a little. "Yeah, that's... that's me."
"I'm sure neither of us want this to go on longer than it needs to, so let's..." Cardinal raised her head from the intake papers, and saw a face she recognised -- the Avian on the train earlier. "...let's get this over with."
"I think that would be best." sighed Feathers of Green, wiping her eyes a little. It was clear she'd been crying, and from the ruffled feathers and what looked like a scrape on her arm, Cardinal could guess why. "Did I... see you this morning?"
"Yes, you did." Cardinal replied, holding out her hand. "Your letter, please. Volunteering, correct?"
Green nodded and handed over the red letter, the side of it scrunched up from the intense grip she'd had on it before. "It's funny, I didn't think you'd be doing... this."
Cardinal took the letter, and started cross-checking items from the intake sheet, ticking it off as she went. "Oh?" she asked, looking up at the other Avian for a moment. "Why do you say that?"
"You seem... too nice." Green replied, with a shrug and a wry smile. "Different than the Agents at the gate."
"I got assigned here, like everyone else." the Agent replied, putting down the red letter once she was done with it. "So, I'm assuming you read through the information pamphlet that came with your letter, about the next steps."
Green shook her head a little. "Not... not really. I've heard things, so I think I know..."
"Okay, well, shall we go over it again, just in case?" asked Cardinal, to which the other Avian nodded. "Becoming an Assistant, even a Class C, requires the installation of the mental interface chip and the surrendering of all applicable rights, selective memories, and some ongoing thought processes."
Hearing it presented like that was a little shocking. "That... that seems a little much to do to me, if I'm just going to be working in an office..."
"Well, Class C Assistants are mostly used in high-security environments, where such precautions are necessary." Cardinal continued, ignoring the 'Zoning & Planning' designation on the to-be Assistant's intake sheet. A less security-focused place in the Accord there could hardly be. "However, the stories of becoming a mindless machine aren't true. Class C Assistants both working both directly for the Accord or for it's subjects as Personal Assistants do get concessions. Free time, personal possessions, mostly free association with the others. Plus, unlike the As and Bs, you get to keep your tailfeathers."
"I see..." Green said quietly, twiddling her thumbs as Cardinal flipped to the last page of the paperwork. "I'm not sure how that will feel, and... how much I'll miss..." The memory wipe hadn't occurred to her specifically before. She'd wished to forget some things in the past, but this possibly wasn't the way she thought it would happen.
"It'll feel normal, in the end." replied Cardinal, going to the last page of the intake documents and pushing it across the table to Green with a pen. "Sign here. This will formalise your role as a volunteer Assistant of the Accord. After that, we'll get you onwards to Installation."
Green looked down at the paper with a feeling of deepening dread. "I thought... my right to sign anything went away with my ID card..." she mumbled, picking up the pen.
"It did." Cardinal replied, suppressing a sigh. "Everything since you got off the train is just a formality, I'm afraid."
Gulping down her fear, Green quietly gave a prayer to the Goddess she'd not believed in since being a hatchling, and shakily scrawled her signature on the page.

Cardinal sighed and leant back on the office door as she closed it. "Volunteer."
"Ah." the area manager replied. "Are they taking it well?"
"They got roughed up by entry, and got kind of overwhelmed at it all." Cardinal said, throwing the completed intake report on her desk as she approached. "But, overall... doing better than I would."
The area manager nodded, moving one of yesterday's reports from the 'to-do' pile on his desk to the 'done' one. "Do you think of that often?"
Cardinal dropped down in her chair and shrugged, giving her terminal a slap until the screen came in focused. "It's hard to go anywhere in here without thinking of it. And all it takes is a desk Agent in the Ministry, and it's your life now."
"Cardinal, you're a desk Agent in the Ministry."
"Not an important one. They get Assistants."

Feathers of Green read the page that Agent Cardinal had given her a hundred times between the interview room and where she was told to go next.
0016-DE3C-D58DEEG6 "Sparrow".
Class C Administration Assistant.
Zoning & Planning, Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Goddess, what a boring life. Surely better than one on the Frontier, though. The Homeworld had breathable air, decent weather, tolerable gravity, and wasn't in constant border skirmishes, while the Frontier was very much "pick two". Not that she would have actually picked, the Ministry would have done that for her. At least becoming an Assistant was her choice.
She wasn't sure if that made it any better, though.
"Sit down whenever you're ready." said a voice from the back of the room.
Green perked up, surprised at the voice. "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't know anyone was... in here." The light strip had taken her to this room with no further instructions, and she had just stood inside, eyes on the single lit thing -- the padded steel chair in the center of the room. "I thought it was... automated."
"Not for volunteers." said the scientist, flicking a few more lights on, the extra brightness helping Green see where she was. "The Class C chip requires extra configuration afterwards."
Green stepped forward towards the chair, a little concerned about what there was to 'configure'. "I... see. Do you want this?" She held out the paper, having memorised everything on it by now.
"No, that's okay. You're up on the computers in here, Sparrow."
Green winced a little hearing that. Was her name already gone?
"To be honest, the paper's just to distract you a little." said the scientist, stepping into the ring of light around the chair. A young Avian, clad in a white lab coat. If it weren't for the different coloured feathers, Green could almost imagine herself to be looking in a mirror.
"I see." Green repeated, walking up to the chair and taking a deep breath. "Is getting the chip as bad as I think it is?" The scientist's eyes were kind, as kind as they could possibly be for someone doing this job. Green guessed that they were either faking it, or had as much choice in this as she did. As was the way in the Accord.
"Everything is done by the machine, more precisely than any Avian could. You'll be under strong anaesthetic, so you won't feel a thing." said the scientist, helping Green up to the chair. "Headaches afterwards are common, but the chip will soon reroute pain processing to itself and dull it." Once the to-be Assistant was sitting, she pulled the chipping machine down from the ceiling, leaving it just behind the chair's split head rest. "I'll have to do these restraints, to prevent you from hurting yourself as the chip turns on."
"Okay." Green sunk into the padded chair, trying not to look at the straps that hung from it, nor reflexively pull away once the scientist started doing them up to keep her in place. She wheezed a little from the straps placed against her chest and neck, but didn't complain. "Just... before we do this... what's your name?"
The scientist paused, a little surprised by the question. "Oh, me?" She started rummaging on the metal trolley beside the chair for something, out of Green's sight. "We don't usually say, the Accord gets worried about us being targeted. But, I'm sure it's fine for an Assistant to know." She found what she was looking for, holding up to the light to check the label. "Crest of Indigo."
Green nodded a little, as much as the neck strap would allow. "That's a nice name." she said, wistfully. "I'll try and remember it."
"I don't know if this makes you feel better, but I do like your identifier." Indigo said, tapping at the vial she removed from the packaging. "This is the anaesthetic. Just hold still..."
"Is now the time to say I'm scared of needles?" said Green, chuckling darkly. "Guess I won't be scared of anything after this..."

The free Avians sometimes ask the Assistants what it feels like when the chip turns on. Green hadn't in her past life, and she felt that maybe she should have, before the chip activated and it was suddenly very hard to think of anything at all.
Not because the chip was stopping her, at least not yet. It didn't need to, as the sheer amount of information being fed to her synapses was enough to overwhelm any semblance of thought while her mind attempted to make any sort of sense of what the chip was telling it.
Colours danced across what she thought was her vision, every part of her felt like it was simultaneously on fire and freezing, and all she could hear was electronic screeching, louder than anything she had ever heard before. Without any time reference, Green had no idea how long she endured it, before everything fell silent, dark, and numb.
"Hello?"
She didn't know why she thought she could speak, but she tried again.
"Is anyone there?"
Nothing, for what felt like an hour, before a sudden rush of feeling.
Light, so much light. A blurry figure in front of her, trying to get words through, checking vitals in a panicked rush. The sound of crashing waves in her ears, as if she was being pulled under the depths. Her lungs burned, her muscles burned, every part of her body was saying something was very, very wrong, when suddenly, it all went away.
"Sparrow, can you hear me?"
She nodded weakly at the dull voice, blinking her eyes in the hopes that her vision would clear. There was a figure in front of her, although they were so fuzzy around the edges that it was impossible to recognise them.
"Okay, good. You stopped breathing there for a second, but that's normal. Just collect your breath."
Sparrow noticed her panicked gulping of air, and tried to relax herself. She could breathe, now.
"I'm going to calibrate your hearing, now..." The figure picked something up from the metal trolley, and started tapping at it.
Sparrow yelped in surprise as her ears were filled with a piercing static.
"Oh, goddess, sorry." Indigo tapped away frantically at the datapad until the noise in Sparrow's ears fell away. "How's that? Better?"
Sparrow nodded, eyes watering.
"Okay. Now for your vision..."
She tried to squeeze her eyes shut, just in case, but the bright flashing of neon colours across her vision happened anyway. A few seconds later, they began to fade, and her eyes began to focus. She looked down as far as she could, feeling relief when she realised she could open and close her hand. Something was subtly wrong about her vision, though -- like everything had a colourful halo around it, colours bleeding from what ought to be their edges -- and she pulled on the wrist strap in an attempt to get her hand closer to figure out what it was.
"Relax, Sparrow."
Sparrow tilted her head up to see the scientist, Crest of Indigo, and did as they said, sinking into the padding of the chair without even thinking about it. The chip's intervention was a strange feeling, and one she spent the rest of the calibration session attempting to make sense of.

"Hey, losers!"
Cardinal looked up from her computer terminal to see Sawblade walking in through the door.
"Never guess who it is!" she said, grin plastered across her face, making her Agent longcoat wave around dramatically.
Cardinal shook her head in disapproval. "You?"
"That's right! Got my promotion and everything." Sawblade said, prancing over to her old desk and dropping into the chair, letting it spin. "I'm not here to stay, though."
"What is it you're here for, then?" asked the area manager, eyeridge raised. "You'd only come back to this dump if you needed something."
"Oh, you know me too well." laughed Sawblade, spinning around on the chair some more. "I do in fact want something -- an Assistant! Rather than wait, I thought I'd just come get one from the source."
Reflexively, Cardinal pushed the intake form for the volunteer underneath her keyboard, where the other couldn't see it.
"Any come through this morning?" Sawblade asked, standing up to look and see if the intake tray had any forms inside. "I think I'd like a fresh one."
"No." replied Cardinal.
"Yes." replied the area manager.
Cardinal peered at the area manager, who shrugged. "He means no."
"Oh, got one you're looking at for yourself, eh?" said Sawblade, sidling up to Cardinal's desk like she was hiding a box of chocolates. "C'mon, show me the report."
"Nope. This one's a volunteer, already assigned." replied Cardinal, pushing the other Avian away. "You can have an Assistant that I haven't seen burst into tears."
"Oh, but that means they're a sweet, innocent one!" Sawblade said, playfully pushing back. "Those are the best! Come onnnn..."
"No, Sawblade. Not with your reputation." Cardinal pushed back firmer, frowning.
"Oh, like I'd treat my own Assistant badly..." Sawblade said, moping unconvincingly. "She'd just make tea for me, and sort out my uniforms, and be a good test for my knives..."
"Sawblade! Goddess, get away from my desk."
"Oh, fine." With an exaggerated frown, the Agent sat back at her old desk, doing her best to look offended. "You don't actually think I'd mistreat my Assistant, do you?"
"Yes, I do." Cardinal replied, squaring away the papers on her desk that Sawblade had pushed around by leaning over them. "Find one I don't already feel sorry for."
"Oh, Cardinal. You don't really believe in the nickname, do you?"
The blank stare in reply told Sawblade that yes, Cardinal did.
"Pfft, like I actually have the stomach for that." Sawblade said, leaning back on her chair with a smile. "Nobody knows what goes on in the interview rooms or interrogations but those doing it, you know. No way for anyone to disprove the tales you tell at the bar that evening..."
Cardinal peered at the other Agent. "So, what, you just story-spun yourself into an External Matters transfer?"
"Yep! You should try it." smiled Sawblade, rolling her chair over with her hand out for the intake form. "Now, do you want your precious little volunteer to get sent to a soul-crushing office for the rest of their life, or take a chance with me?"

Every strand of muscle in Sparrow's body ached. The words of the scientist before chipping her echoed in her head -- the chip will dull it, don't worry -- but she had to wonder how long it would be until it kicked in.
"Right, that's all the calibrations we can do for now. We'll schedule some checkups to make sure everything is dialled in like it should. You can just ask the chip when to come back."
Sparrow tilted her head a little, happy that the neck strap was now off. "I... I don't know how to do that."
"It'll teach you." Indigo replied, reaching over to pull off the straps around the Assistant's wrists. "Are you right to stand, or do you need a minute?"
Without being held in place, Sparrow sunk back and slid down the chair a little. "Cardinal promised it wouldn't hurt..."
"Sometimes it's hard to know how any particular mind responds." Indigo tapped at her datapad, and put it back on the metal trolley beside the chair. "I prioritised the chip's takeover of your nervous system, so you should feel better any moment now."
Sparrow twitched a little as the chip did its priority deployment, the pain spiking for a second and then sinking back to more tolerable levels, making her howl in confusion.
The sound of pain from the Assistant made Indigo shift uncomfortably, but the scientist knew that it was better now than later. "How's that?"
"Why does everything that thing does hurt?!" Sparrow exclaimed, putting her head in her hands. "Goddess, I want it out of me!"
"That... that is unfortunately not possible, at this point. Any severing of the fibre optic links in your brain tissue will lead t-"
Indigo leapt forward as Sparrow began to scratch at the back of her head, pulling the Assistant's hands away. There wasn't much struggle, as the chip prevented fighting back against the scientist, but it didn't quieten Sparrow down much.
"It... it's just going to keep... keep hurting me!" Sparrow wailed, tears gathering in her eyes. "Please! Stop it!"
Indigo muttered an apology to the Assistant, picked up the emergency tranquilliser from the trolley, and pressed it into their thigh.

"Heh. She looks cute." Sawblade flipped through the intake documents, grinning at the black and white photograph at the front. "Maybe not a trophy Assistant like one of those Core exos, but, I think she'll do fine."
"You're just winding her up, Sawblade." tutted the area manager, leaning around his terminal's monitor. "She didn't have to hand over the form."
"Oh, fine." Sawblade handed back the form and crossed her arms. "I'll take good care of her. Promise."
"If you so much as..." growled Cardinal, grabbing the pages back and gesturing violently, "...I'll find someone to assign you to."
"As much as I doubt you're friends with a Senior Agent, deal." grinned Sawblade, turning back to her own desk with a triumphant strut. "I'll have my side of the forms filed by this afternoon. You just make sure she doesn't end up on a transport ship to Sector 1."

"She's just taking some time to adjust to the chip, is all." Indigo said, turning her datapad around to show Cardinal the vitals on screen. "She didn't cope with the chip initialisation that well."
"Is she awake?"
"I'm not sure."
The pair turned towards the chair, looking over the Assistant sitting there. She was sprawled out on the chair and her body drooped as if she was unconscious, feathers poking out at all sort of angles, plain shirt and skirt she wore crumpled and pulled up from her struggling earlier.
"Sparrow?" asked the scientist, stepping forward and taking the Assistant's hand, giving it a little squeeze. "How are you feeling?"
The Assistant groggily opened her eyes to look at Indigo, before letting them fall shut again. "Sleepy..." she managed to say, shifting a bit in the chair in an attempt to pull herself into a more comfortable position. "What... what happened?"
"You just needed a bit more rest." Indigo felt bad for the untruth, even if it was in the Assistant's best interest. It was unusual to remember things with that sedative, and what Sparrow didn't know couldn't hurt her. "We'll come get you in a bit."
"Okay... Miss Indigo..." Sparrow muttered, falling back into the depths of sleep once again.
Indigo sighed as she pulled her hand away, returning to the Agent. "Why do we do this to ourselves?" she asked, shaking her head. "For every deserter and criminal we chip, we do ten more innocents."
"For the good of the Accord." Cardinal said, repeating the answer she was given to that question in training. "For without Assistants, the empire would fall apart."
Neither of them particularly believed it.