Her throat cracked with dryness, paining her to swallow, ill-fitting gears grinding together. She bided her time for the right opportunity to make her move. She memorized the guards’ movements. Car’Annie raised the temperature of the room to “warm her as she slept,” and Fela studied the thrum of the activated atmosphere controls. The building employed low-level technology due to the extreme conditions of the Mzisoh world. In times of war, sometimes it was better to go with simple and durable rather than risk something elementary, like sand, clogging up advanced but sensitive equipment. Her room was a simple box, the technology rudimentary, restricted mostly to shackling her. The power conduit ran nearby, though.

Fela no longer felt her arms, the muscles in them stretched to uselessness. But she needed them to do one last thing for her. She willed them to raise her. Her arms shook with the effort. She remembered all those times during training with Maulana yelling at her. Fight for your sisters! This time, she needed to fight for herself. Lifting herself up along her restraints, she just needed to get her mouth to its level. Her chin reached the bar, and she bit into her restraints. Her dental implants activated, the program infiltrating the nanotech protocols, causing them to disperse. She relaxed without thinking. Her body’s weight yanked her arms, tearing the muscles in them further. The lights along the suspended bar blinked, a series of interruptions to its power cells, then flickered out entirely.

Fela collapsed onto the ground.

Her arms dangled at her side, all but useless. The ache in them so complete, the thought of moving them stabbed her in the soul. But she couldn’t tarry long. Still wobbly, her legs threatening to buckle with each step, she limped to the door. Testing it, the handle unlatched. She’d been Car’Annie’s plaything for so long, the guards had become lax. Or dismissed, with no accounting for how long they’d be gone. If they even remembered she was there.

Fela skulked down the hall. While there was no shame in her nakedness, she wanted some kind of protection, no matter how meager. She tore down one of the tapestries and wrapped it about her. Securing the curtain’s sash as a belt, she tailored a sarong. The slits at the sides allowed for easy movement, and she balled the remaining cord to use as a weapon. Pausing at the first juncture, she pressed herself flat against the wall and held her breath, waiting for a group of guards to march by. Her limbs still shaky and unsteady, she didn’t trust them enough to risk a fight if she could help it. In the distance, the tortured screams of some Mzisoh reverberated the wall. She ventured in the opposite direction of the shrieks.

Something wasn’t right.