The feed clicks on abruptly with a burst of white light and Zo's half angered, half anguished cry of "Stop fighting!"
The feed is recording from the wall, judging by the view that's revealed as the light returns to normal: a meeting room, its walls a half-finished mix of wires, pipes, and monitors decorated simply with a table and chairs around which Riki, Dax, and Jason sit. Well, it looks more like Dax and Jason have been roughly shoved into their chairs. Riki, at least, is watching from a corner. None of them seem to notice they're being recorded.
"I didn't overstep any bounds," Jason said, heated and staring down Dax as if he either expects the other man to lunge or is waiting for the opportunity to do something worse. "May is mine; we agreed on this schedule."
"I know
why you had that little Q&A, and it wasn't to make anyone we rescued feel better. I
saw what you were saying to them!" Dax slams his hand down on the table. "We need to just leave them alone and--"
"That's fine for you, but it doesn't get me any closer to understanding them, does it?"
"You don't need to understand them when you learn by--by
vivisection!"
"I haven't done that yet."
"Yet!"
"Both of y' should shut up." Riki speaks up from his corner, frowning at the both of them. "Don't scare the kid."
"I'm not scared!" Zo's whine is pathetically incapable of hiding the tremors in his voice.
"Go back to building," Jason snaps, to which Riki stares him down impassively.
"I'd do a better job'n either of you," Riki said, shrugging.
"You would
not!" It's Dax who speaks up this time. "Who knows what you'd be putting in the Tower."
The three men exchange looks of varying degrees of annoyance while Zo curls up in a chair far too big for him. It isn't until the soft whoosh of an automatic door is heard that he perks up, looking pleased for the first time since the feed started. The other three are less excited--Riki snaps his eyes over to the door off-screen, Jason hastily swallows a half-formed argument, and Dax goes from angry to anxious in an instant.
"I've solved your problems!" The voice is female, perhaps an older teenager or young adult. She sounds childishly excited, like a little girl pulling apart a butterfly's wings in the name of discovery.
The feed cuts.