Captive (Among Us Logic)

Wish You Were Here

Player awoke in the dark. He felt something hard and metal underneath him. His head still hurt from getting clocked by the Ald's gun. He rolled up into a sitting position.

The low hum of an engine filled the room, but not as much as the cries of a zoo's worth of animals. Their squawks, screams, and barks assaulted Player's ears. To say nothing of the smell -- the cargo hold reeked of stale air and animal odor. How many creatures were stuffed in there, Player couldn't tell, because he could barely see past his own cage in the dark.

Wait.

Cage?

So it wasn't a bad nightmare.

The red Bean tried backing up, but he barely moved a few inches before brushing up against wire mesh. The kennel was just big enough to hold him. He couldn't even stand all the way up. He pressed his paws against the wire.

"Hey! What's going on here?" he yelped.

Nobody answered him, of course, and his theatrics jostled the cage underneath him. Its occupant, a tiger-striped reptile with threatening red markings, whipped its head up and snarled at him. Player jumped, banging his head against the top of the cage. The reptile glared poisonously at him. Its jaws unfolded, revealing two rows of needle-like teeth.

Player fell into a heap of red fur, shivering. He glanced around, trying not to think about the murder machine directly below him, and that was when he noticed the band on his ankle. The metal band had no features except for a tiny lock and what looked like a battery pack. His claw, a dull nub on his finger, couldn't fit into the lock. It would take a key the size of a sewing pin to open. Player had no idea what it was supposed to do, and his sneaking suspicion it was some kind of shock device kept him from messing with it.

He rested his head in his paw. The device must have been put on him while he was sleeping. Now he was angry at himself for falling asleep in the raider's spaceship during this unwanted transit. But it had been oddly warm in there, and it was dark, and the old engines were surprisingly quiet. The bad guys moved him into the cargo hold (of the bigger ship, probably) during his nap, too. Of all the crazy things that MIRA missions had thrown his way, getting kidnapped by space poachers had never occurred to him.

The light in the ship shifted. Player thought he saw the outline of something bean-shaped in the dark. His heart jumped. One of his friends? Maybe he wasn't all alone! He stood up as straight as he could (which wasn't very straight up at all) and waved his paws.

"Hey! Hey, anyone there?" he shouted, louder than before.

The Bean uncurled themselves and responded, "Will you shut up? My last chance to get a good sleep for a while, and your dumb ass won't pipe down."

It was no voice he recognized -- a hoarse female tone with a bit of an accent. Her eye glinted in the dark. He couldn't make out the color of her fur.

"Wha--?" Player blinked. "Who are you?"

"I should ask you the same thing. But you're a Bean like me, huh. I take it you got kidnapped when these blokes raided your ship?"

"Please, if you know anything, tell me. My friends, they got captured too, and I don't know what the raiders did with them."

She laughed joylessly. "They split 'em up and boarded them on different ships, obviously. Good luck finding them again."

Player's heart dropped. "No. No, no, no! I-I-I can't lose them! Veteran and Mother and the others--"

"Then either find a way to escape, or hope that MIRA can find them. They don't always recover the crewmates who...go missing in action."

"What are you talking about? What do these guys want with us?"

"Same reason they brigaded your ship and stole the equipment. The right buyer would pay hundreds of credits for a cute little Bean of their own."

Player felt a cold sweat forming under his fur. "Are...are you telling me..."

"We're being trafficked, kid. The exotic pet trade."

"No!" he cried. "I'm not an animal! I'm a guy! I-I got friends, and a job, and a family--"

"And can you tell any bystander that? Not unless you speak Standard Galactic. All they hear out of us is chirps and chatters."

Player fell back on his bottom, panting. He could feel the panic rising in him. The terrible prospect of him not seeing his friends again crossed his mind. Mother and Gnome and Veteran and Ninja...He squeezed his eye shut tight to keep away the tears. No. He'd have to find his way out of his mess, reunite with his friends, and go home. He wouldn't give up. And he told the other Bean as much.

"Well, I'm not going to stop until I'm back with them again." He sighed. "I just wish I would have been nicer to them before this happened. Like Captain...God, I was so mean to him. All he wanted was to be friends. What if I never get to tell him I'm sorry?"

"I don't know," the other Bean said crankily. "Now shut it. I wanna sleep."

They curled up into a tight cinnamon-bun shape and didn't say anything else. Player couldn't tell if their snuffling meant they were asleep, or they were intentionally making the noise to ignore him. He curled his feet inward and glanced down tentatively at the reptile monster below him. It hadn't moved much since its initial outburst at him; maybe the chill air of the cargo hold was acting on its cold blood. It cracked open its bloody red eyes and stared at him for a few moments. Player held his breath. The reptile made a sizzling noise and flicked its tongue out before turning its face away from him. The red Bean sighed in relief. As long as he didn't rattle its cage any more, the thing would probably not threaten him again. Hopefully.

Unfortunately, it seemed that other things planned on threatening him in the future. He tried to catch some more sleep so he'd be more alert, but of course, it didn't come easily to him. Not with the looming threat of not ever seeing the others again. Looking off into the dark, Player wondered where his friends were, what they were thinking. Did Veteran put up a fight? What happened to Captain? He could talk to the Alder in a language they both understood. Would they try to pass him off as a dumb animal -- could they even do that? He winced at the thought of Engineer and Gnome, or Mr. Cheese and the Gentleman, crying out for each other, separated from their partners.

His bad thoughts kept him awake for a while, until at last, the ship unexpectedly shook. Player yelped as he was tossed about in his cage. Worse still, the rattling woke up the reptile and it started hissing at him again. While he clung to the wire mesh in desperation, the cargo hold doors opened and the glow of electric lanterns filled the room. A few Alder entered, picking up boxes and other items. Player didn't know what it was all about until one approached him and picked up his cage. He got carried out through the junky ship and onto this new planet they'd landed on.

And the place was a dump! Rusty-colored rocks made up most of the landscape, under a polluted yellow sky. The skyline of a city rose up nearby (the barge had landed at a space dock not too far from an urban area), but the place looked like a bomb had been dropped on it. The buildings were broken and dirty, and though it was night-time, few electric lights shone in the dark. The Ald who had Player's cage carried him towards a strange truck-like vehicle that hovered a foot or two off the ground. They said something to him. Had Player spoken Standard Galactic, he would have heard:

"Welcome to Haldrus."