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Sleeper Sensorium

17 December 2024 — 20 December 2024

Summary: An exploration of the Sleeper's senses, shown through their experiences on Erlin's Eye.

Word Count: ~4.5k words

Author's Note: Getting into "Citizen Sleeper" was not part of my 2024 bingo, but hey. Last minute surprise! I love "Citizen Sleeper" so much. It's everything. I pulled from aspects of my game-play while also trying to keep it as generalized as possible.

Also on AO3

1: Taste

One of the first things you remember when you had first arrived on Erlin’s Eye was how empty you had felt. Not exactly in a physical sense, though you had surely felt that way from how cramped your joints had been after you had finally stretched your limbs out from the wrecked freighter ship you had smuggled yourself into. Suddenly having the room to do that, your extremities allowed to move far away from your torso, had left you feeling cold and empty.

But you quickly discover that beyond the everlasting emptiness you feel when you think a little too hard about yourself and what you had done to get here (well, not exactly you; what the emulated mind of whoever resides in this mechanical body of yours had done), you are also empty in a simple, deeply human way.

Your body requires food. Simple energy to keep yourself going and prevent your condition from deteriorating faster than it already does.

Whenever you feel your systems start complaining, small vibrations running up and down your abdomen reminiscent of a stomach growling, you head down to the Bright Market. Among the bustle of the crowd, you expertly drift your way down to a certain stall in the corner of the open market. If anyone asks, you say that you’re just following your nose.

It isn’t hard once you know where to go, for the air around your favorite food stall is heavy with the scent of spices, both as seasoning and as something that assaults the senses. Some days, your eyes blink rapidly as Emphis throws down a dash of red powder into his hot wok. Other days, you catch him as he squeezes thickened liquid onto someone else’s fixing before loosely tossing together the meal and handing it off.

When he sees you, he gives you a nod and starts preparing your meal. You set aside the fifteen cryo necessary for it, and the two of you exchange money for food with a nod and what you hope is a smile. You’re still trying to find those requested mushrooms for him, but for now, you hope that he doesn't mind seeing your familiar face around here with nothing but cryo to spend on his food.

Emphis’s spiced fungus is one of the few things you feel is potent enough to stimulate your very limited taste sensors. You waste no time in stabbing a few of them onto your fork, along with some of the loose leaves mixed in, and shoveling it into your mouth. Immediately, your sensorium is sending warning signals repeatedly. Spicy, it alerts, spicy!

Spicy, you think to yourself as your feet tap the ground in bliss. A mixture of a sigh and a moan of delight escapes you as you will yourself to slow down and savor your meal. You don’t know what Emphis puts in here to make it so tasty, but you know that you’ll always come back here for more as a fungus fan.

Today, you consider licking the bowl clean. You manage to restrain yourself from it (as tempting as it was, just to get every last bit of the sauce that coats the mushrooms and leaves), and place it in the dirty dish container.

“Good luck Sleeper,” Emphis says as you turn to leave.

Reenergized, you spin on your heel to face him and give him a playful salute. Your eyes shine and you do your best to communicate a smile with your limited facial muscles. Whatever expression you manage to flash to him pulls a chuckle out of Emphis as he goes back to his wok.

“Thank you!” you shout, the remnants of the spicy fungus still leaving your taste sensors reeling. “And I’ll be back!”

Emphis’s bark of a laugh shoots through the market and settles into your body, energizing you just as his meals do.

------

2: Touch

You know this body of yours can metabolize food, as it likes to remind you every few cycles, or when you push yourself on a bad day. But it doesn’t require water, like a human body does. Still, you always wonder if it can metabolize something in between the two.

Namely, alcohol.

Alcohol is known for providing empty calories with nothing beyond that to boot. No vitamins or minerals, and it even dehydrates the drinker despite being liquid.

You, however, aren’t exactly normal by human standards. If anything, the alcohol should just give you energy.

At least, that was the plan before you had found yourself two drinks in, twelve cryo poorer, and harassed by a spacer. You didn’t know if it had been true malice towards you (and what you were), or if it had been a combination of the spacer’s own job stresses catching up to them as alcohol loosened the lips. All you had known was the sound of glass shattering on the floor, pointed words, then the owner of the bar coming to your rescue.

One, final glass had sailed towards your head, and in your hopes to salvage what little pride you had left, you had tried to catch it. The spacer’s words had rattled you more than you had liked, and the shot glass had instead become embedded in your arm in multiple small shards.

The owner of the Overlook Bar, Tala, clicks her tongue as she nurses your wounds. She takes her tweezers (they were more like pliers, but she said that she had sanitized them, so they were tweezers now) and gently picks out the shards from your arm. One hand stabilizes your arm as you prop it onto the bar table, while the other maneuvers the tweezers in a way that shows that this wasn’t her first rodeo.

You didn’t feel the pain of the glass entering your arm, and you don’t feel the pain of the glass leaving your arm either. You only feel the small status messages lightly pinging you about dermal damage and exposed structures. You close your eyes and take a deep breath in, waving away their repeated pings until they’re nothing but static in the background.

“You’re doing good so far, we’re almost done,” Tala says, voice low. She digs her tweezer into your arm to dig around for a small splinter that seems insistent on staying in you. She manages to pull it out, drops it into the metal container she brought along, and strokes your arm with her thumb. It’s warm and tender, juxtaposing her hard stare and pointed words towards the spacer from earlier. “If you need a break, let me know.”

You shake your head, and she continues her work. Her fingers brush over a scar on your forearm. It’s a rough little split, one that never healed up properly from your previous work at Essen-Arp. You forgot where exactly you got it from, but sometimes you find yourself rubbing it, near the end of a cycle. Was it a scar of defiance or one of pain? You hope it was the former.

Your eyes drift to observe Tala’s work. While you can’t exactly feel pain, you can feel other things. Vibration for one thing, as it’s often your first sign of a collapse in the work environment. Temperature, though dully so sleepers don’t get too comfortable for Essen-Arp’s liking. The different types of touch, you can feel to varying degrees. You can discern a tight hand on your shoulder and a soft nudge of another sleeper’s arm against your own.

Tala’s hands are warm, her grip on your arm firm and gentle. As she picks out the last of the glass splinters, she looks up and meets your gaze. A mix of a smile and a smirk crosses her face and you jolt a little in your seat. You look away and Tala’s laughter graces your ears. The tweezers clank into the metal container and you feel one of her hands squeezing yours tightly before letting go all too soon. “You did good Sleeper,” she says, her dark-colored eyes twinkling. “The Overlook is a safe place. I make sure it is. Now, if you’re looking for a place to stay, or a job, then just knock, alright?”

She places a firm hand on your shoulder and squeezes it once before patting it twice. “Just don’t become one of my drinking regulars,” she adds as she heads to the back to place her supplies away. “I’d hate to see that happen.”

You slowly step out of The Overlook, the memory of warm hands already fading on your physical body, but staying strong in your mind.

------

3: Hearing

Mina’s tour of her block (“Mine and daddy’s block!” she corrects you) leaves her pockets full of snacks, her face littered with crumbs, and the neighbors charmed at Lem’s daughter and her robot babysitter. Of course, they don’t call you that name, but Mina’s nickname for you sticks with some of the kids in the Lowend as the little girl calls out to some familiar faces. You’re a bit tired today, having used up most of your energy working elsewhere, but you had promised Lem that you’d watch over Mina while he works on the Siderail Horizon. His and Mina’s ticket off the Eye to a better life.

Maybe that would be your ticket off too. If you can get your tracker taken off you (Feng, maybe work a little faster on that?), then your opinions would open up.

But for now, you’re being dragged around the Lowend by Mina and Bun-Bun, the hand-sewn rabbit having seen better days. She drags you past a grocery store and you pick up her wiggling body before backtracking your steps. “Groceries, Mina. How about we surprise your dad tonight, hm?”

Mina’s face twists into something unrecognizable as one of her arms finds its place around your neck. She lets out a small huff. “I miss daddy,” she murmurs as you enter the grocery store and pick up a basket. She wriggles around in your arm and you pause to readjust her and give her one of her pocketed snacks. The sound of her crunching near your audio processors shouldn’t bother you a lot, but today it does. You don’t dare show it on your face.

Despite your energy being stable, your condition is fading. You can feel your joints aching more, the smaller things setting you off. Despite having enough energy for the day, you can’t do as much. You have one vial of stabilizer left, but saving up for another has been a bit of trouble. You often have to decide between not starving or setting your cryo aside for your medicine. Not starving often wins nowadays.

You fork over the cryo to pay, watching the metal chits holding the money get stored away by the cashier. Maybe you can pick up a shift elsewhere in exchange for some cryo or free food. You leave with Mina’s cheek resting against your shoulder. You rush back to Lem’s apartment and drop off the groceries before warming up some food for her. You take a slate and open up some books to read to Mina.

The sound of your voice and warm food in her stomach soothes Mina to sleep, and you don’t dare move, even when the apartment door jiggles open and Lem steps in. His eyes are tired but they light up when they see you two. He drops his things off and carefully picks up his daughter, hushing her as she squirms a little in his arms. As he carefully moves to her room, you stand up and feel a few of your joints lock up. Your voice box hisses quietly as you stand there, waiting, begging your body to move a little soon. Eventually, your body listens just as Lem steps out and closes the door behind him.

“Hey, Sleeper,” he half-whispers, half-sighs. “Thanks for…you know.” His head jerks towards Mina’s room. “Groceries too.” He shuffles over to the bags and looks through what you picked out. They were things that were on sale mostly, though you had tried to get a few nutritious options for Mina. “Do you want to stay for dinner? Maybe a drink?”

“Please,” you say, already drifting forward to help. “I’d appreciate it.”

The kitchenette can’t easily accommodate both you and Lem, so you’re jokingly pushed off to the table to help chop things up while Lem bares the heat of the gas stove. The dish is simple, but it’s hot and fills you up. Lem pours you a drink and you accept it to be polite. Conversation is heavy tonight, as Lem confesses a few things about himself and Mina. How she’s not really his, the guilt he feels over it and his actions. If what he did was giving Mina a good life right now.

You stay silent as the conversation lags, the bustle of the Lowend slowly fading as the cycle comes to a close. You don’t know why you decided to do this, but if anyone asks, it was the alcohol.

You stand up and press the side of your head against Lem’s chest. Your audio processors pick up on how his heart stumbles and quickens, and you barely catch the sound of his lungs sharply inhaling (though that might be the sound of his mouth, not his lungs…you might inject your stabilizer tonight).

You stay there for a long time, maybe a minute or two. Your hand presses against your bare chest, feeling the emptiness there. Your body houses an emulated mind, but it can’t be reprogrammed. You breathe because the human mind will panic otherwise, scared that it’s choking. You eat because your body can metabolize the energy, reminding the mind of what it’s like to consume something. You close your eyes and listen to that steady beat, imagining it in your own chest.

Lem’s hand finds its way on your head, stroking you before you shift and move away. The house seems louder now: each creak pounds at your head, a whirr of a machine providing heating and cooling buzzes nearby, and you can hear your own shallow quiet breaths.

“Sorry,” you manage to choke out.

Lem rubs his eyes, face flushed from the drink. In the dim lighting, you almost miss how his hand twitches closer to where your head once was. “It’s okay, Sleeper.”

“It’s getting late,” you say. “I should go back.” The word ‘home’ lingers in your mouth, but you avoid saying it. “Thanks for the meal.” As you step away, your processors pinging you with irrelevant things like ‘warm temperature’, you hear Lem shift towards you again. You turn around and jolt as his face nearly meets your own.

“Thank you again, Sleeper,” he whispers. “For looking after our daughter.”

On your way back to your empty container, your home for now, the words ‘our daughter’ tumble around your head until you close your eyes and dream of a little girl’s laughter on a planet far, far away.

------

4: Smell

Some days, when you’re low on energy and can’t risk a lot more for cryo, you step into Min-Gi Express for work and a guaranteed meal afterwards. When you open the door and step inside, the smell of salty noodles, hot broth, and savory sauces almost immediately wafts over you as Lowenders order, some with take-out to enjoy in their units, some to enjoy in the small dining space Min-Gi provides.

Min-Gi gives you a nod and jerks his head to the door leading to the basement. You clean your hands and step in, the stairs creaking with your weight. The air is saltier here, thick with a dampness that’s different from the steam above. The kelp stack is a dry golden brown, and a packet of white powder sits nearby for you to use alongside some water. The kelp is already clean and dehydrated, so you set about pulverizing it with a machine that used to clank loudly before you fixed it up.

You mix the powdered kelp with a few scoops of water and the white powder (sodium…something; you’re not really a chef, you’re just following what Min-Gi taught you) and mix them before molding them and twisting them into a tangled nest. The noodles are a pale white, almost clear like glass. Customers here say that a long, long time ago, kelp noodles were a healthy food craze. Now though? Kelp noodles are just food, something to eat and enjoy.

The work is mechanical to you, something to zone out to and think. You had messed up a batch or two a few times, but each time you would get fed. Sure, you had to eat your botched noodles because Min-Gi couldn’t serve anything less than ideal to his customers (and they’re unpleasantly gooey…just thinking about the texture makes you shiver), but you still eat something.

The money you get from noodle making is just a small bonus.

Min-Gi steps down a few hours later to check up on your work. His eyes scan the batches you’ve already made with a discerning look, then he nods. “Good.” He takes a tray up to the kitchen and leaves you alone once again.

When the door shuts, it carries with it a small blast of air from the kitchen above. It’s always a strong salty smell upstairs, one that clings to your clothes long after you leave and quite possibly sticks with you for a few days afterwards. Sure, it can make you a bit nauseous after smelling it for too long, especially if your condition is low or if you freshly injected your stabilizer (you remember one such moment: you had woken up the cycle after injecting it and the smell of Min-Gi’s food on your clothes had been so strong to your newly refreshed body that you couldn’t summon the energy to go out and do much, so you had stayed in your home hacking systems instead), but it was familiar, and it was energy for yourself.

You quite dislike starving yourself.

Another few hours pass by and Min-Gi brings down a hot bowl of soup for you made with the noodles you made today, along with a few cryo. You raise the noodles to your mouth and slurp it down. First the heat hits your sensors, then the salty taste. As you eat your well-deserved meal, you let your mind drift off to the oceans that these kelp came from. How far away were they? For kelp noodles and a price this cheap, perhaps there’s a place on the Eye where kelp is grown.

Maybe you can find it and smell the salty ocean yourself.

You finish your bowl and exhale.

Maybe without too much kelp though.

------

5: Sight

Zero gravity is an interesting situation for your sensorium. On one hand, you don’t have to worry about feeling nauseous to the point of physically puking everywhere, which is what some spacers unfortunately experience. Gross and embarrassing. On the other hand, your senses aren’t built to experience zero gravity when your condition isn’t optimal and stable, and even less so when you go beyond flickering to fading to dying.

You’re working on changes for that, tinkering with your body with pieces of scrap that you find and sometimes buy. So far, your scrap is useful for repairing your body to stave off the need for stabilizer, though not by a lot. You also manage to unlock your photosynthetic skin, allowing you to spend some of your energy under the lights of the Eye to avoid starving via producing glucose like a plant. On top of that, you manage to better your work with digital interfaces, sometimes finding yourself five cryo richer from intercepting others. Now, you’re not going to share how that happens; some things are best to remain a secret. You’re also working on improving your more social aspects, so you feel like you’re doing pretty good with the different ways you can approach your problems.

As you float in Gimbal Lounge, surrounded by other spacers heading through for a very nutritious but otherwise very bland meal, your gaze drifts down to down to a part of the Eye that you have yet to explore. A lush green stretch of land floating precariously in space, disconnected from the rest of the Eye in both physicality and data-wise.

You had figured out the toll to board the Founder’s Ferry to get to that section, and it was a painstaking 150 cryo. That’s the cost of one, maybe two doses of your stabilizer. 150 cryo. It’s a one-time fee thankfully, so your plan is to save up at least 200 cryo before handing over the fee to explore what lies beyond the Founder’s Gap.

For now though, you can look at it and wistfully imagine.

Your gaze shifts from the green stripe of the Eye to the other parts that you’re more familiar with. Down the Free Spoke that allows you to access the zero-gravity section of The Hub, you spot the Lowend, where Yatagan tries to keep some sort of government and control over the people living there. You idly remember the caches of Havenage data you had hacked over the past few days, and consider selling it to them. Then again, you also have caches of Yatagan data you can sell to Havenage.

You quietly laugh to yourself and shake your head. The government here is so confusing and as much as you would rather avoid it all, the political groups here always seem to drag you back into it, one way or another. Whether it be for your stabilizer, a favor, food, connections, you always find yourself being pulled into the lives of everyone here.

Beyond the Lowned and the Bright Market, your eyes pass over the Rotunda and the Shipyard, then they settle on Drago’s scrapyard and your first home: an empty container. It’s also currently your only home, but you’re hoping that the derelict unit you found in the Lowend would be your new one — or at least a second one — soon.

You push yourself out of your seat in the Gimbal Lounge, having long finished your spacer meal, and float there for a breath. Two breaths.

Then, you hear the tell-tale sign of someone retching nearby and you quickly push yourself away and towards the door. You’ve already seen what vomit looks like in zero-gravity once, and you don’t really want to see it again.

You float and bounce around outside, surrounded by the endless expenses of space around you. Above, below, and all around your sides, are millions of bright stars. You never had enough time to admire the stars back in your time at Essen-Arp, and now that you can admire them without risk of someone punishing you for it, you think that the stars are the most beautiful thing ever.

------

+1: Data Mind

There’s a certain place in the Eye where you feel almost untouchable. Physically so, unless someone manages to touch you and jolt you out of it, but you never enter that place unless you’re in a quiet and safe area. That was usually at home in your empty crate, but the formerly derelict unit is now fully repaired and yours and you can access the Data Cloud in the Lowend a little easier now. Gone are the days of straining your emulated mind to traverse through the thick web of data to reach far-off nodules, and you thank yourself for that.

You wonder how it must look to others: you closing your eyes before your body slumping against a wall. You know your body��s not useless down there, but it’s almost as if your senses to your physicality are dulled, instead becoming highly attuned to the web-like structures of the Data Cloud. It’s like you’re floating in a dream, where you know you have something tethering yourself to the waking world, but if you dare look down at yourself to try to visualize or feel that anchor, you might wake up and interrupt your hacking.

Your usual activities in the Data Cloud are saved for your low-energy days. Havenage and Yatagan leaks are easy enough to hack into and sell, but occasionally Feng has you try to hack into higher-security systems, which take up more of your energy. You grumble at those sometimes, but the promise of your tracker being removed from you keeps you working at it.

Today however, in your rented Kisho Capsule on the Hub (Capsule 0451, you think to yourself as you frantically enter the Data Cloud, Capsule 0451), you throw the entirety of your energy towards the three nodules of highly encrypted data that hold the Hub’s fading Data Cloud together. Get rid of those, and you have a chance to run back to where you had slotted the shipmind holding NEOVEND — no, Navigator — and save the sentient entity from Killer.

How you had managed to escape the strange vortex that’s holding Navigator captive, you don’t know. What you do know is that you’re not sure how much time you have before Killer’s sharp, blind head will find Navigator in the void of the Data Cloud.

You unlock one nodule, and the Data Cloud shudders. You feel it slightly in your physical body: a pulse in your head and a twitch in your limbs. Your emulated mind, floating in the Data Cloud, processes it as a full body shudder. You press your mouth shut and float to the other two nodules.

The second nodule you undo sends a shiver down your spine.

Quiet clicks sound behind you, the sound of a quadruped moving towards its prey. You barely manage to hear a faint whooshing, like a knife being swung through air.

You freeze. Hold your breath.

Killer’s sharp head slices the space to one side of you. From your peripheral vision, you see the protocol’s gouged eye sockets. If it still had eyes, what would it look like? What would be its emotion, if any, as the protocol hunts you down?

One end of Killer’s bladed head nicks your shoulder.

You stay silent, still. If you pretend you’re dead, then maybe Killer will stalk past you.

Killer moves away and disappears into the void.

You pull your mind back into your physical body, your hand already clutching your shoulder as sharp pain blooms deep within it, radiating out. You feel your condition slip, and without caring about other potential renters in the capsules, you scream. You scream until you feel tired, until you’re sure your vocal processors are raw and crackling. No one has knocked on your door.

You dive back in and rush to hack the last nodule, reentering your body and rushing out before you can fully settle in. Your head spins as you bounce and float to Navigator’s physical location.

The Data Cloud might be perfect for your low energy days, but something always feels good about your physical body gripping cords and ripping them out of their sockets.

Take that, Killer.

#reblog #beautiful #citizen sleeper

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