Calibration Room

[pidge_out]

The room you find yourself in is definitely a bedroom; made obvious by the fact that there’s very clearly a bed on the middle. But it seems kind of… weird. Like it’s been split perfectly in half.

One side of the bedroom is brightly lit from the outside, sunlight streaming in through the window. Outside is a place that’s clearly on Earth; a quiet, very normal-looking American suburban residential area. There’s a desk with an intense-looking computer on it, two monitors hooked up to it. It’s hard to tell what’s on the displays from afar, but getting closer will show that one has what looks very much like an MMORPG game open and the other appears to be a half-written essay. Despite no one sitting at the desk, the game seems to continue on its own while the word document is on an endless loop of spellcheck.

On the wall next to the computer is a mess of a corkboard. Pinned to it are a bunch of photos, including a large photo of a boy and a girl who both look strikingly similar to Pidge; depending on the angle you look at it, either the boy looks more like Pidge or the girl does. Pinned around the photo are family pictures and certificates of excellence, awards for various academic achievements, commendation letters, all for someone named Katie Holt. Obscuring most of those items, however, are other photos; these ones definitely featuring Pidge. The most prominent of those appears to be a selfie of Pidge in the Galaxy Garrison uniform looking nervous and alone, but every now and then Hunk and Lance seem to pop into frame, arms slung over Pidge’s shoulders and making faces at the camera.

There’s a dresser next to the bed, the top of which is covered with books of a variety of types: math and science textbooks, books about coding and programming, so on and so forth. All of them are resting on top of a white and purple dress as it half-hangs over the edge of the dresser.

The other side of the room is darker somehow, the scene outside the window showing an endless starscape and the darkness of outer space. The window itself is slightly obstructed by several dozen holographic computer screens, all floating in a semi-circle that faces the bed. None of the text is in any recognizable Earth language, but fortunately there isn’t a lot of text to be read; most of the displays show symbols and scales and circular dials. One monitor is running a scan, endlessly searching an image database of people who appear to be prisoners of some sort. Next to that is a cluster of smaller monitors that are all color coded - yellow, blue, black, red, pink, and orange - each one locked behind a V-shaped logo.

In the furthest corner on that side of the room is a stack of machinery and robot parts, all in various stages of assembly or disassembly. The mess extends from the corner all the way out toward the center of the room - tools, metal strips, circuitry, wires - and tucks itself under the bed. Above the mess of machine parts is a calendar, except it only shows one page on which a specific date has been circled in red.

The bed is fairly standard-looking, green sheets with star patterns. It’s a mess, though; open books, bits of paper, empty bags of chips, a can of soda or two. In place of a pillow there’s a large plush doll of a robotic lion, facing out from the bed toward the door. Getting closer to the bed will get you within the range of where the lion’s half-purr half-growl is audible, a low, steady sound that feels completely protective. Which makes sense, since settled right between the plush’s front paws is Pidge, sitting there with a laptop open, contentedly typing away as if absolutely nothing is wrong. Trying to speak to Pidge directly gets no response. But there must be some way to get Pidge’s attention…