He closed his eyes tighter, not willing to wake up and lose the little gain he had made. “You can’t just leave them wandering about,” one of two voices said. This was the reasonable one who sounded like a patient teacher. “I know that,” the other one said, this one petulant, peevish, put upon, the way his mother used to get when she caught him doing something disgusting, like drinking milk from the carton. “I imprinted them with the rules. They can’t leave the estate.” “They belong in quarantine. Out of sequence, into quarantine.” “And I get a thousand questions. Who messed up, how, when? My unit’s been in trouble like this before, and I don’t want to go there again. Not my fault that they keep sending me newbies who don’t know squat. I’ll find the culprit and take measures, and meanwhile these two can put in time here, not in quarantine. They haven’t done anything to deserve that.
