It has been many years since Gale did not feel the heat of anger in the bottom of his chest. It burned his ribs. He had died his hair blue long ago, a cooling colour, and without dye his hair is going to get brown soon. On the Friday of their first week, only a few days into their labour, Gale is not warm. At least, no more than should be expected in North Marcanty. His muscles are torn, his cheeks red, and he drinks more water than in the river in The Sticks, but he isn't angry anymore. He's too tired to be angry.

By the end of the third day, the groups have become porous. He spends time with Faris, who he doesn't particularly like, but the women they were originally assigned to work with don't seem keen to participate in the activities. Sometimes, Kae is with them. He only sees Calath at meals. Mostly, the farmer is absent. No one particularly talks to Gale. Then again, Gale has slept better now than he ever has before.

The katydids are loud, but the noise of Neo Elysium is louder. Here, surrounded by criminals, Gale feels the safest he has ever felt before.

Toward the edge of the farm, Rhiannon Rose and Eurydice have made their own group. It is exactly to Eurydice's liking, as no one ever asks Rhiannon Rose to hurry along with the farmwork. Eurydice can be fussed to do work if they move at a slow pace. Occasionally, the pair talk, mostly gripes about the other people. They are beginning to learn each other's names, their real names. Despite Eurydice's resistance to the idea. Against her better judgement and will. Whenever the farmer does walk through the fields or show up at meals, he makes sure to call Eurydice by name.

The final group, continued to be made of Titus, Cosmia, and Norbu, also pops around frequently. Norbu shows up and asks Faris questions. Their interest in plants makes Titus nauseous, so he is more than happy when Norbu slips away. After two days, it seems Cosmia has grown tired of Norbu's racing mouth. She is shorter with her answers.

They are about to finish for the day, when she looks over at Titus.

"He's not as annoying as I thought he'd be."

Titus stops moving his hoe. Cosmia continues moving.

"The fighter?"

Cosmia shrugs, "yeah, him."

"He'd be less annoying if you didn't encourage him," Titus snaps.

"You're just jealous that he isn't as tired as you," Cosmia rolls her eyes. "Let me guess, you have three droids at home? Mummy still probably has your Harper."

Titus' neck feels cold. In the heat, even with the breeze, he hasn't felt this nice chill. At night he sleeps without a blanket, which at least is better than the scratchy piece of cloth he imagines Benji used to clean his countertops before shoving it on the bunk Titus shares with a bunch of idiots. He doesn't look at Cosmia.

"It's better to have a Harper than parents who don't even give a shit about you."

Cosmia throws down her hoe.

At the front of the farm, they hear the sound of a whistle. Cosmia looks over. The sound carries over the farm, even if they are grunting while lugging around heavy bags, or there is a truck on the road far away backfiring, she can hear it. It's coming from Benji's mouth, she's sure, but she isn't sure how he can make it so loud and cutting.

That is how they know dinner is ready.

All of them, across the farm begin to make their way back to the house. Cosmia catches a glance at Titus as they all climb onto the porch, Harvey included. After that conversation, she thinks she likes him more.

"Now, I'm going to throw together dinner, but Harvey has been doing the bulk of the work," Benji points out, smiling. "Go get cleaned up. Shower, or whatever else you need to do. It'll be dark out in a few hours. I'm coming around to talk to a few of you before then, but for now you're good to hang out."

Time.

Faris doesn't like having a lot of it. There was nothing in the panopticon except time. Eyes of course, but time was in abundance. Now, when he is supposed to find things to do, he sometimes sits still on his bunk, legs cramped and crossed beneath him, and he feels like he is there again. Faris has always been good at coming up with projects and schemes to fill his idle hours. Time is quiet here.

Norbu doesn't take a second to think. He sprints off, back into the fields. Last night, he went looking for the pond. It was dark though, and he thought it was better to break the rules at a later day, one where there was less things happening. Now, with the farmer distracted and cooking dinner, the time is perfect. He's going to cross the fence.

While he leaves, Titus goes to shower. He feels Harvey following behind him. Whenever they have free time, be it in the hour before dinner or otherwise, Titus can feel Harvey's eyes on him. Titus is fine with that. He has time, at least a week or two of it, and he will make Harvey wait for now. Eventually, someone else will cause a problem. If not, Titus can make a problem happen.

Perhaps the slick oil on Calath's hands will get on the sheets of Gale's pillow. He's a hot head after all, and then Harvey will have someone else to watch. A better distraction would involve angering Eurydice, but Titus enjoys having ten fingers.

Harvey doesn't shower. Unlike the others, sweat doesn't cake his skin. He lets other people go in first while he waits at the front of their building. His callused hands massage the smooth wood grip of his cane. While everyone else is in the fields, he is inside all day. He needs to adapt to the sunlight. Already, the others are browning, and if Harvey is going to work in the fields, he cannot faint like Rhiannon Rose.

Clockwork cannot fall to her mistakes.

When Eurydice gets out of the shower, wet bob slick against her head, she puts on a different pair of ugly working clothes. They are cleaner, certainly, than what she wore earlier that day, but uglier too. She takes her sweet time in the bathroom before finally slipping out to let Cosmia in.

By now, Cosmia is used to the cold water. It's a different luxury. The water in Cocta is technical safe for bathing, but it's nowhere near clean. In her younger years, the years after she left her family, Cocta was her heaven. She got used to washing herself with dry shampoo stolen from markets in Leth and rubbing herself down with wipes. She basks in the cold, especially in the North Marcantian summer. She wipes down the tattoos of birds on her arms, expecting them to flit off her skin.

On many nights where they have free time, Calath slips back into the shed with tools. Kae unlocks it for her early in the mornings and lets Calath sneak out a few tools. Then, Kae locks it. Today, however, Calath purposefully took to long so Kae would get antsy. Calath promised to lock it. Of course, she didn't. When Kae ran out, so did Calath. Now, in the unlocked shed, Calath is trying o catalogue every tool without a tablet and stylus to keep track. She did inventory in the garage in The Sticks, but this is more difficult somehow.

If Kae knew what was happening, she wouldn't be sneaking around the Benji's house. She rubs her neck in the hallway, massaging the crease. The single pillow, flat and dense, that occupies her bunk is now being stuffed with her stolen items. The coins, George Rooney's shoelace, the carabineer from a farm worker's toolbelt, and some bolts from the toolshed. All of it have destroyed her neck, but she still needs something more. Her knuckles are stiff. Her metal bracelet freezes the thin muscles in her wrist.

Rhiannon Rose has taken to applying sunscreen religiously. She hates the stuff, but she hates the way her skin peels and flakes more. For most of her life she has had no draw to mirrors, but occasionally she finds herself standing in the bathroom, peering at her own reflection. The splatter of freckles on the new, raw skin would horrify her mother. It's asymmetrical too, spreading on her biological arm and not on the cybernetic one. The sight makes Rhiannon Rose smile.

The hunger clawing at Gale's stomach leads him to the dining room first. He helps set the table. Most of the others don't, even with Clockwork staring them down, but it's a habit Benji has carried from living with his father, choking on his fist rather than on the unsalted dinner of cloned chicken and mushed slop. Those were the best nights then, when they could afford a clone chicken. Unfortunately, those were always the nights his father felt he had earned a reward. And Gale would always be desert.

Faris wanders in soon after, admiring the food Benji is beginning to plate.

"Can I check out the recipe book sometime?" Faris asks.

Benji looks over, puzzled, by gestures over to the cookbook. Faris takes it and sits down on the table. The other delinquents start to wander in, led by hungry bellies. While they sit, Faris is already devouring the book, flipping through page after page. He's been to fancy dinners, tried more food than many of the others could ever imagine, but even he is surprised so much can be done with the relatively small variety of what grows here.

They eat mostly in silence.

Cosmia is grateful she only sharpened the front teeth, and to a lesser extent. No one eats as slowly as Eurydice, who's sharpened teeth make chewing arduous. These past few days, Cosmia has been trying to think about things she is grateful for while stuck here. Only ever twelve at a time, one for each week. The farmwork empties her skull, so this fills it, at the least.

"Y'all are quiet," Benji clenches his jaw. "Don't tell me I've tuckered y'all out too much."

"Wasn't that your goal?" Titus grumbles to himself.

Norbu talks over his mumbles, "the food is just too good. If you want us to chitchat maybe give us he panopticon special."

"There's no talking in the panopticon," Faris says, surprised he can even speak aloud.

His eyes are glossy, his finger pressing harder down into the page of the cookbook, and Cosmia still cannot know for sure, but she is almost certain it was him. The person who went through a trial, who was in the panopticon for longer than anyone in years.

Kae was only in the panopticon a short while, but she touches the bracelet on her arm. It was just overnight. Pickpockets are not supposed to be seen. The eyes have followed her here. She squeezes her knees into herself tightly.

No one speaks. Eurydice opens her mouth to shout out a retort, but one doesn't come easily. It slips through her fingers. Not even a sigh slips from her mouth. Tough women like Eurydice are not supposed to look back. Remembering is a cardinal sin. She's too tough to hurt. Then she thinks of Norbu who tripped a man reaching for her and the fist the officer had curled about to launch at him. Weak women hate debts, strong women accept allies, surviving women remember nothing.

"This isn't the panopticon," Benji offers, looking around at the faces, more tan than ever before but suddenly pale. He grits his teeth. He's tried to make speeches, to offer them words of encouragement and an open hand, and nothing has worked. So, he gets up from the table.

"Everyone finish eating and clear the table," he shakes his head. "Rhiannon Rose, come with me."

She looks up from her plate to meet his eyes, but he is already heading out the room. Rhiannon Rose curls her fists at her side and pushes herself out from the table, the chair groaning on the ground. She follows after him.

The others begin to eat in silence.

Outside of the house, Benji leads her. They head behind the chicken coup, just past their shared accommodations and towards the back of the fence at the end of the land Benji manages. She rounds the head, and Benji has stopped walking.

There are two tables set up in a line. One of them has a black electronic, something rectangular which she assumes is a radio Strange glass domes with intricate flower designs cover the furthest table. There are plates stacked and some forks as well left out. Benji isn't supposed to leave out cutlery where they can access it, weapons. One of many rules he has broken today. He sees Rhiannon Rose looking at the table.

He catches her eye and steps over, lifting up one of the upside-down bowls, "I went out to town today. Jeremiah made these for us all. Seems word's gotten around that I've got a few tourists."

Rhiannon Rose snorts at the idea of anyone visiting North Marcanty for their personal enjoyment. She turns her head away from Benji, and stops mid eye roll.

There are a circle of wicker chairs, and in the middle planks of wood stacked up against one another. She'd recognize it anywhere.

"If anyone found out, they'd cancel the program and send you home," Benji mutters, covering back the sweets with the bowl. "I figured... well, I've read your file. They actually gave me printed copies since I don't have any tablets out here. I figured this was worth a shot, figure let you burn something so you don't end up burning down the wheat fields or something."

Rhiannon Rose casts him a glance. Benji digs into his pocket and pulls out a lighter. He offers it to her.

She leaps, snatching it from his fingers. No part of her can wait. It has been a long week, one without even a match to keep her company. Benji stands beside her, watching as she takes a piece of kindling from deep in the pile, a discarded sheet of paper, and she ignites it, tossing it into the pile of wood. Soon, it will burn, rise and swallow the sky. The sun is setting, but her fire burns brighter.

Benji waits beside her. After a minute, he holds out his hand. Her fingers clamp to the lighter tighter. Rhiannon Rose grinds her teeth together, shakes her head.

"I have to have it back."

Her chest tightens. If she weren't above begging, she could picture herself on her knees. Rhiannon Rose's eyes, flames flickering in her dark pupils, look at him. They start to water. Please.

"We can set another one in a few days," he says. "If you can prove to me you can tend to this one responsibly. Okay?"

Rhiannon Rose has never disliked herself. She is named after a wild thing that no one back home would dare touch. She disappoints her mother and sets fires. She has debased herself with farmwork. The most shameful thing she does in her life is hand back the lighter.

Benji nods at her, "go get the others."

She lowers her head and sprints back toward the house. Rhiannon Rose doesn't run from fires but towards them, but she's not risking the time to wander slowly back to the farmhouse. She skids on the floor, stopping in the kitchen doorway. The others, still pushing vegetables around with their forks, stare at her.

"Come on," she says. "The farmer wants us out back."

She doesn't waste time waiting. Neither does Norbu, who is up from the chair and blows past her before she even is around to the back of the farmhouse. The others move more slowly. Harvey brings up the rear, using the cane to navigate the uneven patches of grass around the building.

When they get back, Benji has the radio turned on. It crackles, the audio quality poor. Titus bets even he couldn't fix the quality, and he hacked the Neo Elysian government servers for housing records. Much to his annoyance, Norbu fiddles with it, taking the radio with him to sit on the ground. Norbu fiddles with the dials. The station gets more crackily.

"You in for hacking too?" Titus rolls his eyes.

Norbu laughs, "yeah, do I look like I have the patience for that. Labbital dealers and street fighters aren't known to sit around. You know... some of the others thought you might be in for using out in Flage. Here as some punishment bribery thing from your rich family. You're not going through withdrawal, and you work too hard to be a raver-"

"Are you watching me?"

"I'm a dealer, it's kind of my whole job to guess who I can sell to," Norbu laughs. He turns up the radio and holds it out in his hands. "You look more like a hacker than me. You give it a try."

Titus rolls his eyes, but does as he's told.

At the table, Gale grabs food for himself. It the firelight, Kae stares at the sweet sugary buns on his plate. She imagines their sticky feeling in her hands, like the thing she stole which got her sent here a week ago.

She's not being as discreet as thinks, because Gale holds out the plate and offers it to her. Kae steps closer, looking at the plate. Her hand moves slow, arm above it like the jaws of a crane doing construction. When her fingers close around it, the bun is soft, squishy. The one she stole was much harder back home.

"You can share with me," Gale whispers, looking back at the table where Titus and Norbu stand. "I don't mind."

Kae never had to share. She's an only child. All she's ever done is taken. She twists her wrist and her charm bracelet jingels.

She tears the bun in half and puts half of it back on the plae.

At the chairs, Faris takes a spot next to Calath. He looks at the dirt around the fire, where Calath is using a stick to draw an equation in the dirt. He chuckles. Her body freezes. When she looks up at him, wide eyes, Faris wonders if she just noticed him. Not at the fire, but on the farm.

"When I fix the farmer's irrigation system, I want to move around the piping," she says. "Its currently inefficient. Circular crop watering would be better."

Faris looks down at the symbols on the ground. Pie, numbers, and concentric circles scrawled in the dirt. Without looking away, Faris thinks of all the records in Benji's home that he wants to see, all the cookbooks and the books he wants to cook.

"Explain it to me."

Calath grins widely.

Rhiannon Rose also sits at the fire. Cosmia sits nearby but doesn't try to talk to the girl. Flames flicker in her eyes. She hangs on the edge of the whicker chair, leaning her burnt skin closer to the flame. From her more reclined position, it is too hot for Cosmia. She turns her head up and inhales sharply.

The days have exhausted Cosmia, and they wake up so early that Cosmia rarely is awake to see the sunsets. She hadn't expected days to be so long. The sun in the sky for upwards of sixteen hours daily. Now, it is undeniably dark. Now, she can sees stars above her. Thousands, likely millions, dotting the sky above her. Some brighter than others, all of them spilt on the sky, lingering like glitter in a child's bin.

He didn't lie to her when he promised her she could see stars if she came. Benjamin Mullins told her the truth. She twists her head, finding him at the table.

Benji's head turns to look away from her.

Standing back from the fire, resting on his cane, Harvey takes a spot next to Eurydice. She rocks on her feet but doesn't walk away. Together, they stare at the warmth fire, at the others.

"I hired you once, Blythe."

Eurydice doesn't want to flinch. Clockwork will notice everything about her. He is their own panopticon.

"So you know I'm useful then."

Harvey nods, "I'm looking to do some recruiting while I'm here. Wanted to see what you can tell by looking at these guys like marks."

"I'm off the clock," she scowls when she says it.

"I'm never off the clock," Harvey says.

"With jokes like that, I'm surprised you aren't doing stand up for in Hell's Haven."

The fire crackles. The radio gets clear for one second and Norbu cheers. Titus smiles a bit. She can hear Calath's rushed mumbles from here.

"I'm expanding," he decides. "I'm thinking Flage first. Maybe a drug route to MFZ."

"They don't call it The Sticks because it's full of wood," Eurydice snorts. "For some transportation hub, nobody gets to leave."

"I made it out of Cocta."

She turns her head to look at him.

Then, he looks back at her, "and I'm making it out of North Marcanty too."

A stick in the fire pops. It's as loud as a gunshot that will be fired in his direction in eleven weeks.

~~~~~

After finishing Perverse (which I did, if you didn't see it), I was like hungover for a month on apply fics. But this one, whoo boy. I truly love them, and I'm committed to them. I'm going to aim for updates every Sunday until this is done, which likely will be in June at the latest. Which is so far away, but I'm not going to over commit until this is done.

This chapter I think is best seen as like a review of other past moments as well as moving forward. So like, hopefully you didn't binge read some old chapters leading up to this! I am excited for the things to come bwahaha