#left to my own devices. // ( arc // petty thief. )

[p-paradoxa]

Andor Appreciation Week

Day Three: Favorite Arc/Episodes - Narkina 5

Melshi observes. For @andorappreciation. Some Melshi x Cassian; warning for brief injury description.

Unit 5-2-D, Table 5. Twelfth—no, thirteenth shift since the new guy arrived. I don’t really keep count, but Keef’s as good a reference point as any.

The room’s not falling behind any longer, Kino says, but it feels like we’re rushing more than we used to. Building up our productivity little by little, pushing our limits further. I think Kino knows it, too, but he’d be damned before he admits it.

There’s some tension on the floor today. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. You get numb to it eventually. But the way that guy at Table Four—Jergen, I think his name is—seized up when they got fried yesterday seemed to rattle the newer blood. It was grim, I admit; the way he went down and his limbs all locked up.

Not all guys take these kinds of things the same way. Most of us just look away. We can't do anything about it. Others—newer guys, like I said—stare and gawk, especially if they haven’t been fried past level one yet.

But I was standing there at the table, across from Keef, and I couldn’t forget his face as Kino called the med tech.

Keef didn’t look rattled. Just angry. A shake of the head, that clenching of the jaw he does, restraining something. It was subtle, but I saw it. 

I think he gets it. Gets that this isn’t punishment. 

If I were Jergen, I would’ve worked harder for the sake of the table, and to save my own hide. But it’s not as if he did anything wrong. Well, I suppose we’ve all done something wrong. But our captors don’t really care about that. A petty thief gets fried just the same as a murderer. A man with one shift left isn’t spared more mercy than a man with a hundred.

It’s not punishment. It’s cruelty. A slow and calculated torture. They could build machines to do this work, but they won’t. The Empire was born using loads of cheap, disposable lives. It isn't going to stop now just because we don't all look alike. We can’t just drill or weld or build our way out of this.

Jergen’s back to work now. Saw him on program this morning. I can’t see how he’s doing, and I don’t care. All I care about is being able to stand on my own two feet without feeling like I’m walking on cinders.

And I don’t want to see that happen to these guys, either. Especially not Ulaf. I don’t think the old man could take another volt.

It goes well. We’ve hit our goal, and if we get another down, we’ll surpass it. Might even get some flavor for dinner tonight.

We’re screwing on the outer shell, finishing up the device we're working on, when Xaul shouts “Kriff!” all of a sudden.

He drops the drill onto the table and pulls his hand back.

We glance up at him. “You good?” I ask. He looks fine to me; no blood drawn. But I have to be sure.

“Yeah. Just fucking pinched it.” He’s rubbing his right index finger. Must’ve caught it between the rivets. It happens. It’ll heal. We have to move on, though. We're almost there.

Keef decides not to let it go.

“I’ll cover you,” he mutters. He moves in and finishes the rivet Xaul was drilling.

“Like hell you will,” Xaul chides lightly. “Kino’ll have your ass. I’m fine.”

“We just gotta build one more, right? He won’t notice in time.”

We’re ahead of schedule. If we weren’t, I’d say that losing a man would slow us down too much. But Xaul’s taking his sweet time nursing that finger. He’d slow us down, anyway. So I don’t complain. Neither does anyone else.

“Alright,” Xaul relents. “Let's be subtle about it, okay?”

Keef nods. Xaul hovers over him while the last rivets are drilled in. His finger looks a little swollen.

The rest of us have finished our part. I watch Keef finish the job, his eyes trained on the little metal bits. He’s still fresh, still getting used to the motions, but his hands know when to release the switch. He’s good with them. Must’ve been a technician or scrapper of some sort.

I don’t realize I’m still watching until Jemboc motions for us to lift the thing up. It’s already done.

“Melshi, let’s go!”

I push down some lump in my throat and I nod. We lift up the device and get moving. One more to go. 

Dinner tonight is syrupy sweet, like chocolate. More of a dessert than dinner, I guess. It tastes painfully artificial, only an approximation of what I remember dessert being like. But it’s a nice change of pace. We haven’t been the lead table for some time.

Kino praises us. He means it genuinely. He likes to see good performance; thinks it reflects well on him, too. Today, I don’t have the heart to tell him that it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care about performance. I just want to live and eat and sleep. That’s as much as any of us can hope for.

But as I finish up and prepare to collapse into sleep, I realize I’m feeling better than usual. It was probably the food. Being in first place didn't hurt, either.

The lights dim. The floor goes hot. I turn to get into a sleeping position. I see Keef down there, reclined against his cell wall, looking up ponderingly, and my breath catches a bit.

Wrong on both accounts. It’s him.

It’s true. The new guy’s been interesting. He’s skilled and observant. Plus, most other guys ignore my advice. They go on about how much they’re looking forward to getting out, and it just leads to mistakes. The ones who count down the days inevitably slip up, and suddenly their number’s higher. I’ve seen it happen too many times. I wish it wouldn’t.

Keef hasn't been like that. He listens, quietly, and I can tell there’s something boiling beneath. I could see that yesterday.

Then today, I learned a bit more. He’s concerned about himself, sure, but I learned he’s nice. That might put him in a tough spot one day, if it hasn’t already. But I don’t think that would stop him.

I briefly wonder who he is. What he’s done. I never care about that, but I want to know just for the sake of knowing him.

I ignore that. It’s dark, but the soft red light catches in his eyes and I know he sees I’m watching.

I let this feeling hang in the air for a bit, whatever it is. I look away first. I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. There’s only the buzzing of the floor and the chorus of familiar breathing. Some guy down the row starts to talk, and another one tells him to pipe down. It goes quiet. It keeps going quiet.

Nothing I could say would change anything about my circumstances. Not here.

I just lie down. Have to stay on schedule. I think I hear a “Goodnight” from the man across the floor, but it could’ve been my imagination.

I take longer to go to sleep, but eventually, I do. 

Then it’s the same routine again. And again. I can't know when it ends.

I still don’t look at the number. I never do. But I find myself looking forward to the new day a little more.

[clydebvrrow-blog]

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