"I think I can walk now. I kinda need a nap but there's too much to do first. Can't just sit here for hours."

Nom nom on another purple fruit. Sip the water.

"Yeah, let's get this guy turned in and then we can figure out where you can sleep." He puts a coat on over the wings. "We go up for that?"

"Yeah. Spin grav is a bitch, it's about one point oh five here."

(He's not going to try to resist any more at this point. He can get out of a Station Security cell. Probably.)

"Yeah, spin's out of vogue where I'm from." He puts the guy on wheels.

Kaia picks up her backpack. They go along corridors and up stairs. They pass an elevator shaft but Kaia doesn't even glance at it.

Four flights of stairs up, there are voices that turn out to be a bunch of teenagers drinking beer and playing cards in one of the slightly more intact side rooms. One of them has a metal lower arm. They stare but don't interrupt.

Seems fine. "Elevator broken?" he asks Kaia.

She just lets out a short 'ha' like he made a good joke.

"It might take an actual miracle of God for the lower decks elevators to be working and stay that way for more than a day. We're lucky the tram in the trench still runs. Let alone elevators in the abandoned seections."

"Bad design, incompetent repair, or sabotage?"

"Yes.

...Mostly the last thing."

"Who sabotages elevators?"

"People looking for copper to pawn, and the Revolution, I think."

"What are they revolting against, do they have a platform?"

"Shit, I dunno. The big fracas twenty years ago was over changes to the laws- 'Indefinite detention without trial'. So it's probably that. And, you know, Security being corrupt as fuck. They arrested and executed this guy who cracked the GRM on Nutrifruit like ten years ago, and eventually managed to eradicate the cracked strain too. That's pretty damn infuriating if you ask me. And it makes too much sense if 'power failures' and 'water treatment plant breakdowns' are cunningly timed. The upper decks never suffer like that. An' some of the upper deckers are really odious, like they kill people and get away with it."

"Huh. What prevents people from leaving this station for pleasanter climes?"

"Cash for a ticket. Security screening for 'criminals'. And not liking Cyberstan- That's the cheapest and closest, uh, major power I guess? And they're creepy AI-lovers over there."

"What does that cash out to, being creepy AI-lovers?"

"It's an algocracy. They run everything by constantly monitoring everyone's everything and feeding it all to some super-AI they call Central, which spits out decisions and you're supposed to just follow those. They don't hold elections, they don't have a constitution or rights or anything like we notionally still do around here. Cyberstanians say it's nice but then they say some shit like 'I was sent to therapy for watching too many music videos'."

"Huh. That does sound creepy. Are there system-level rules about establishing new stations?"

"You're not talking to an educated persona here. There's lots of slowboats around, I even heard of a guy managing to salvage one and become an ice miner, so it's probably not too too locked down? Thinking of establishing Cam Station?"

"I would give it a more tasteful name!"

"Ours is so generic. 'Republic Station', sheesh. The Republic of Silos we were originally a mining outpost of doesn't even exist anymore, you know? The federal level dissolved."

They are now close enough to actually populated parts of the station that most of the lights work and the distant roar of conversation and activity can be heard in the background.

"Yeah, that's tacky. I'd call a station 'Atriama', I think."

One more stairway and now they're officially passing actually inhabited compartments. Rows and rows of neatly labelled little side doors, not much decoration. It would be really easy to get lost until you learn the system.

People are walking around with groceries or deliveries and so on. They look askance at the prisoner. Occasionally there are neon signs and paper ads. One of the compartments they pass is a water store, and another loudly announces that it buys all scrap.

She sees a flash of red uniform down the hall.

"Hey, Security! Over here! We've captured someone on the wanted posters!"

The guy comes over at the jog.

"That's the Butcher! He's wanted for murder. I'm calling for backup!"

And starts speaking into his radio.