Cerillium wrote:Nationstatelandsville wrote:The android paused for consideration, humming softly like a computer's fan.
And then it shot the penguin in the face.
"MOVE," it ordered the rest of the penguins "YOU TOO, HUMAN."
Its partner emerged from the caravan and pointed its weapon at the others, "MARCH."
The third android walked off, leading the new "slaves" towards the barracks - a large, long building, but nowhere near large enough. It opened the door, revealing row upon row upon row of slaves in bunks. Each bed was no more than four feet wide, five feet deep, and a foot tall; just big enough to accommodate them. The feet or heads of many slaves poked out. Each bed was stacked in rows of four - the bunks went on for God knew how long. Thousands. There were six of these buildings in this camp, Silvanigra. It was a small camp.
"IN," the android ordered. It was now that the Elfen Highers realized that the beds were surrounded by the huddled masses of new arrivals, all freezing and chattering as they no doubt were by now - desert nights are harsh. These were the new arrivals, and were at least as numerous as those who were in the beds, if not more so. They had not received sleeping arrangements, nor even uniforms.
Uriel was preparing for something; what, they could not know.
Fen kept her downtrodden head bent towards the ground as she shuffled in with her companions. She was seething inside and wanting to kill everything yet horrified at the slaves' situation and so very driven to comfort them. The conflicting thoughts emanating from the duality of her mind were a static tap dance which manifested in trembling hands and supple lips pressed so tightly together that they reformed her mouth into a cruel, thin line.
Fen wasn't cold. Quite contrarily, she needn't use any of her magic to cool herself from tropical heat or warm rooms. Her spirit was far from broken as well. She saw huddled masses but the opportunist dark corner of her mind saw an army of pawns that could possibly be riled up. Thousands. It would take a charismatic voice. Perhaps William's or even Frederick's.
"Shall we get to work?" Fen muttered to her companions once she was certain the mechanical guard was well out of their hair. "I sense we might not have much time. They didn't search us. They didn't strip us down or even bother to number us. We might be moved out soon."
Her eyes surveyed the masses and she snorted. "The oppressed pray for salvation. They look for hope. We can use that to our advantage. The penguins might walk the length and spread the word, perhaps?"
Sir Nilark looked at Fen curiously. Her word choice and snort seemed quite out of character for the cheerful, naive islander he thought he was getting to know. Elfen High hadn't warped her that quickly, had it?
"What word would you have the birds spread, might I ask? Hi, we just got here, and you lot have no idea who we are, but trust us to lead you in a revolution against the robot angels with lots of guns?" William replied, shaking his head, "We're supposed to keep our heads down and be a tad secretive about our business; sending a mob of penguins to systematically spread messages is quite likely to attract unwanted attention. Why don't we start off a bit smaller and try chatting with a few of our fellow newcomers and the old-timers? You know, things regular prisoners do," he continued in a whisper.