Work begins as dawn barely peaks over the horizon. The beds are no more comfortable than those in the Panopticon. Titus cannot make himself fall asleep. He feels each spring poking into his back throughout the evening. It is so hot he wonders why they even bothered to provide him with sheets, as scratchy as the burlap sacks used to help control the weeds on the farm. In the morning, he drags himself out of bed again. At breakfast, he glares at the plate of food Harvey made him. The eggs are cold, loose and watery, and oddly they taste of oranges, which Titus is sure very few others here have enjoyed.

Harvey watches Titus as he eats. Everyone else is tired. Norbu devours toast, tearing it rabidly with his teeth, while leaning against the doorframe with his eyes closed. Eurydice plucks each grape on her plate off the stem and then pinches it between her fingers until it is crushed. Curled in a ball on the floor with her back to the wall, Kae's overall pockets are stuffed with three apples. For later to eat, perhaps.

Rhiannon Rose is not amongst them. Her plate sits next to Harvey on the countertop.

The nine are split into the same groups as yesterday. They are lathered in sunscreen, given hats and water, and then sent off with the farmhands once more.

"I'll bring Rhiannon Rose her food," Benji offers Harvey a smile, though it is quick and brief. "Thank you for your hard work, Harvey."

Harvey nods to him. Benji grabs the plate and brings it up the stairs.

They work in the fields, this time with more regimented breaks. The farmhands still do not speak to them. They explain the job by doing, waiting for the delinquents to copy them. Then, without word, the farmhands lead the delinquents out of the field and into the shade. They stay there for a few minutes, the eight of them gathered on the stoops leading into the farmhouse, before they are led back into the fields once more to continue their work.

At lunchtime, they are all led inside. The farmhands do not join them. The group eat once more, this time with Harvey and Benji joining them at the table.

"How's Rhiannon?" Faris asks.

"Rhiannon Rose," Benji answers. He puts down his fork on the plate, folding his hands up. "She's okay. She woke up an hour ago. She'll be helping Harvey this afternoon in the kitchen, but only for a few minutes."

"Guess fainting is a good way to get out of work," Titus murmurs to himself. His hands are split open in several parts. Harvey has provided him with clothes and water to rinse the cuts, but the skin stings even worse.

Benji gets up from the table, food still on his plate. He grabs a glass container from a cupboard and begins to shove the food inside. He isn't the only one full. While Gale cannot seem to fill himself, his body swollen and aching, needing something other than rage now to fuel him, Calath does not take a bite. They are aware that somewhere distant their body hurts. Living in The Sticks where the air smells like gasoline and sewage, Calath is used to eating through disgust and discomfort. This situation is somehow more unusual.

"I can bring up a plate," Harvey stands from the table.

Benji spins around, "it's fine."

"Fucking freak," Eurydice mutters under her breath.

Benji shakes his head, "she might be sleeping again. I can bring up the food."

The room stills. Sun is shining through the window, air blowing through the windows, fresh food on the table, but something is stale. Cosmia stares forward at her glass of water on the table. She waits for it to ripple, from the wind or someone else bumping the table. She waits for something to happen.

"Listen," Benji closes his mouth and then sighs, "I just prefer y'all don't go upstairs. In emergencies of course it can't be helped, but I'd rather keep you down. If one of y'all really wants to come make sure she's safe, I get that. But I'll be accompanying you."

Watching the others, Harvey makes quick assessments. The farmer acts as if he has no control over the group. He bends to their questioning, he apologizes for the mistakes of the delinquents as if they were his, and he seems unable to stomach the food since he portioned out his own plate. Yet, Harvey decides he is wrong. Only two half-days of farmwork and the delinquents are already bending to his will. No one offers an immediate clever retort, no one offers to go. This could be an indictment on how much they care for Rhiannon Rose, the casual criminal in the cabin with those who are known by different names in networks not connected to the largest legal providers in Neo Elysium.

Already, people are cracking. Harvey would smile, but of course Clockwork doesn't. Metalwork can be reshaped, but only when burning. Only when it is no longer what it once was.

"The offer remains open," Benji tells them.

Mostly, they eat quietly. Norbu's knee bounces under the table. It is such a pleasure to move. His hands have already been callused from years of leaping between staircases. He has only fallen once, and he isn't doing it now. While his body feels perfectly spent, his mind runs and runs.

He has yet to find that little pond. He still doesn't know much about the others.

Faris breaks after lunch first, hurrying out to the cornfield. It is not a windy day, and so he shuffles loudly in the corn. He wants to hum a song he knows, in private, just to do it, but he cannot. No matter how hard he thinks. At the lunch table, surrounded by the others where no one spoke, it was the panopticon. It was and always will be. Here, there is sky, and there is no one watching them. He tries to force the sound again, and instead he coughs, abruptly. His throat tightens, and he spins his head around.

No, he was wrong. Someone is watching him. There are no CCTV cameras on this farm that he has seen, but someone is watching him.

He is rejoined by the farmhand but not Calath, who had abandoned their task in the morning. Then, it is just him, and a person who also does not speak.

Of course, Calath does not think they have abandoned their task. There is something wrong with the irrigation system, after all, and Calath was brought here to help the farmer. Shucking corn is more than a waste of their time. Calath, at the very back of the farm, bends over to test the pipes once more.

Eurydice watches as Kae and Gale work around Calath, smirking as they do. She takes her time while drinking, the water dripping down the corners of her mouth as she sips and sips and sips. When she no longer needs the water, she continues to hold it there, mocking chugging still.

"Excuse me," Kae whispers, trying to hoe the weeds out of the dirt where Calath has pressed her cheek. "Sorry."

Calath looks up at Kae, their eyes bright and wide. Kae blinks, stepping back a bit. There is something about Calath that is inhumane. Not electronic, not mechanical. Maybe it belongs somewhere like this, somewhere wild and feral.

"Can I..." she trails off, then tries to puff out her chest. "Do you need help?"

"I need tools," Calath answers, feeling the hum of the metal beneath her. "The shed is locked."

Eurydice throws the empty water bottle into the dirt. It narrowly misses a squash, and she groans. If she had been paying more attention, her aim would have been precise.

Hearing the sound, Kae turns her head.

"I think this is our time to practice," Eurydice smiles. "Let's go."

She storms off. Gale watches with wide eyes, and once Eurydice is in the cornfield he releases a deep held breath, one that clenches tightly at his chest. He looks at Kae, looking to share the relief at Eurydice's departure.

Then, Kae follows her. And Calath as well, and Gale tightens his hand on his hoe, looking around. Maybe he should ditch too. However, if he learned anything from his conviction, he knows to be sure that there are no CCTV cameras leering down over him. He twists his head, turns and looks at the farmhand who's back is to him. No cameras anywhere.

Gale keeps working though, since he can never be too sure. He feels like someone is watching anyway.

At the front of the farm, Norbu, Titus, and Cosmia are trying to repair the trellis. They have not been given the proper tools to accomplish these tasks since they are considered weapons. Instead, the three of them share a dinky mallet, which Norbu uses on the rusted nails while Cosmia and Titus hold the trellis upright and prevent its collapse.

Of course, the force Norbu exercises with the mallet has cracked the trellis in two new places.

"Aren't you supposed to be a mechanic?" Norbu asks, looking over at Cosmia.

"I'm a technician specializing in robotics builds and electronic instrumentation," Cosmia explains. "Technically a mechanic, but my specialties lie in finer repair work."

"What about you?" he looks up at Titus, a boy who's name he doesn't even know. "What do you do?"

Titus tightens his grip. His right hand has begun to spasm so he holds it tighter, "I work on a farm as part of a youth diversion program."

Norbu shrugs his shoulders. The muscles are tight, and firm, but so is the skin on his hands. He's used to dry skin, from fingers exposed on cold nights while blowing through cities. Sore muscles aren't abnormal, and so when he swings the mallet, he doesn't hold back. It slams into the trellis, knocking two pieces of wood together. It splinters, and the whole thing cracks. Titus's left hand starts to shake, and the wood crashes between their fingers, snapping in half.

"Fuck," Titus groans, pulling his hand back.

Spilling from his fingertips comes a stream of blood, brighter than red wine. Titus tries to pinch the skin together, but his hand shakes. Norbu moves to help him. Cosmia watches as the farmhand goes to get help.

"You're busted, man," Norbu grabs a water bottle from his belt.

Titus only pulls away.

"I need to clean it," Norbu points out. "You might need stitches, the amount that's coming out."

Titus' face, pale white, is now the colour of the teeth he has scrubbed and scrubbed althorough his childhood so they would be perfectly clean. He looks at the red through his silver eyes. He doesn't know if he has ever let something so bright touch him in his life. Not even the sun out in Neo Elysium seems as powerful. He blinks, slowly.

"Hey, hey," Norbu darts forward, grabbing Titus since he seems to sway on his feet. "Let's get you to the shade."

"The farmhand's getting Benji," Cosmia seems to agree, although only with herself. She is worried he hasn't though, worried it's the farmhand's eyes on the back of her neck as she heads with the other two toward the shade of the house.

Inside, Harvey watches as the others head toward the house. From the kitchen, his view is obstructed. The glass windows are clean, but they have thin black screens behind them, tight and narrow, and he's never had a window with a screen before. There are bugs here, little tiny winged things that crawl across the window sill, and that swarm toward the lights at night. All animals are disgusting in Neo Elysium, but perhaps bugs most of all.

They live on concrete, poured down onto dirt which would poison any fruit. There are no birds that fly through their constant grey skies, even at the docks. In the tubes underground that connect The Sticks to Flage and Leth, there are no rats which scurry about in the darkness. There are only people.

And cockroaches.

Clockwork is used to maintaining control over many moving pieces. He is not used to some of those pieces being living and breathing creatures, sub-human categories of existence. Out here, there are flies which land on the food if the door is left open. There are chickens which cluck nearby, although they are quieter than the constant hustle of transportation through The Sticks.

Here, Harvey doesn't feel like he masters time. Not even clocks.

He notices the blood on Titus' hand. So, he takes the excuse to go upstairs.

Having grown up in Cocta, Harvey is no stranger to a creaking step. With a bad leg and a worse cane, he can't move as quietly as he might like. He tries to create as little noise as possible and heads up the stairs. When yesterday Benji led them through these narrow hallways toward the bathroom, just on his left, Harvey thought about how many doors were up here. Surely, Rhiannon Rose is no longer in the bathroom.

Harvey takes a step, and another. Now is not the opportunity to abuse the farmer's trust. He closes his eyes.

"Titus is hurt," Harvey calls down the hallway. He made a habit to listen to their names this morning when they were put back in their groups. He thought Benji would appreciate the gesture, might fall in more easily. "I'm not sure what's happened, but his hand isn't okay."

"Coming!"

A door closes, somewhere far away. Then, he hears another, more loudly shut. Something locking. In a few seconds, Benji appears down one of the hallways, somewhere around a corner, and he is hurrying down the hall. He checks his watch as he walks, then curses to himself below his breath.

"I was supposed to check on Rhiannon Rose ten minutes ago," he says. "Can you pop in? She's just across the hall from the bathroom. Knock, first."

With only a quick nod from Benji, he hurries down the stairs. Harvey waits for a second, to listen to their conversation.

"What did y'all do?" Benji asks.

"The wood split it," Norbu answers, for Titus.

Then, Harvey heads off.

He walks over to the door, knocking once and waiting for an answer.

"What?" Rhiannon Rose asks.

Then, Harvey twists the doorknob, opening it. The room is as he should have expected it. There are two sets of bunk beds, not unlike the little houses they live in on the farm. Inside, Rhiannon Rose is sitting on the bed, a clock draped over the back of her neck, and her bright red hair pulled away from her face and tied up. She looks pale, again, which is an improvement on her previous skin that bloomed with ache and pain. The colour of an error light.

"You done pouting?" Harvey asks. "There's work to be done."

Rhiannon Rose stands up. She may be shorter than him, but she tilts her head back and looks down her nose at him. At his crooked smile, teeth only slightly better, and at the way he holds himself like so many of the men in The Arch. Perhaps a wiser woman would cower from him but Rhiannon Rose is not wise and she knows it. It takes knowledge to know how to build a fire, but wisdom dictates that one should not.

"I'm not afraid of you," she says. "I know who you are, and still. Seeing you, I feel nothing. Maybe you shouldn't throw your weight around so carelessly, considering you don't know who I am."

She steps closer to him, hoping that he will move out of her way so she won't have to knock into his shoulder and muscle her way out of the door. Maybe he isn't working in the fields, but he's just as gross as the rest. She bathed this morning. Properly, in cold water but without ice this time. She cleaned under her fingernails and in her hair. Rhiannon Rose has never minded getting a bit of oil stained in the grooves on the pads of her fingers. She has never been one for appearances.

But that isn't farmwork. Maybe Harvey thinks he can intimidate her, but he can't. With her little fainting spell, she has the perfect excuse. The kitchen will become her domain. Without his help.

She heads downstairs, where she sees three of the others and Benji gathered around the kitchen table. Titus has a white knuckle grip around a bottle of brown liquor. Beside him, Benji wraps his hand tightly.

Norbu could have done it, if he had the supplies. Benji offered though, and he's taken the opportunity to go through the spice rack in the cupboards. While he has never lived in the MFZ, his family did. Long before that, they lived in Tibet. So many of the artificial foods come pre-flavoured now. Actual spices were too expensive for his parents to procure, but he goes through the cabinet, feeling all of history in his hands.

Cosmia tries her best to preoccupy herself with her hands. Its better than staring at Benji as he wraps up Titus in white gauze.

Just around the corner, Kae is bent over the barn, sticking in the paper clips that she and Eurydice stole from the kitchen the other day. It is not easy, certainly not, but her calves hurt from crouching more than her nimble fingers.

Eurydice watches on, carefully looking around. No one is watching. There are no cameras. She feels eyes anyway.

Finally, the lock clicks. The metal padlock lowers, and Kae pulls it open. Then, the shed doors swing open. Calath scuttles inside, squeezing between the doors of the shed before they can properly swing open. While they dig through the piles of tools, Eurydice stands next to Kae.

"Should've been a lockpick," Eurydice points out. "You're probably better at it than whatever got you caught."

Kae doesn't let herself smile. The urge is tempting, however.

In the vegetable patch, Gale throws his hoe. No one is helping him. As always, he's alone. The problems are his to deal with. He picks up the hoe and brings it down on a squash, smushing it. The green guts spill at his feet. Gale stomps one of his feet into the squash, then again and again and again. It mashes beneath him. He isn't satisfied though. It doesn't feel complete. Eating the squash wouldn't have filled the hole inside him.

He steps back. His foot, slick with the guts of an unripe squash, is slick on the ground and he lands on his back. He groans, thankful that only the farmhand is there to watch him, and she won't tell anyone.

The cornfield is thick, and other than the rustle of the stalks and husksfrom the light breeze, it is quiet. Faris takes a breather, only for a second, bringing water to his lips. His farmhand is down a different area in the corn, not even visible. For the first time in months, he actually feels alone. He still feels like he's being watched, however. That will need to improve.

~~~~~

Yessir. Yessir lets go. I am excited for the next chapter. Anything you've really enjoyed so far? Anything excited to see? I'm about to exit the planning stage so feedback is always appreciated!