We continued to practice with the "dummy" for about an hour, and to a degree, both Eira and I got better with each attempt. It was an interesting system in which Lycothans were using a computerized dummy to allow for a lot of the physical training exercises. It was something that made sense and gave me some relief that that sort of training wouldn't be done with someone that could be hurt or even potentially against another Lycothan. A part of me was curious at how well I could do in a wrestling match with the others in the barracks, which came as a sort of "locker room on steroids" sort of thing, but the rational part of my mind figured that if Lartara had us practice on each other, restraining strength wouldn't work out well. Eira towered over the meek mild Human that Emily had been and now as Harkaal, I towered over my old Human form, and was even bigger than Eira was now.
However, we couldn't work on those parts of our training all day, and Lartara as the Captain of the barracks had responsibilities that went beyond just training us. After all, while the others might have assignments on their own, there would likely be various other things that had to be handled and some of the rules and procedures that I'd gotten at the start of my training presented some of that. Just as we finished the last session with the training dummy a Servant Lycothan entered the room and waited for Lartara to address her.
"Yes?" Lartara said to the newly arrived servant.
"I must report that the scheduled prisoner arrivals will occur in about thirty minutes, Captain," the servant answered, "Alpha Jinara's orders."
Lartara then nodded slowly, which further attracted mine and Eira's attention.
"More prisoners are coming in, Captain?" Eira asked.
"Yes," Lartara answered after giving a dismissing wave to the servant and then leading you and Eira out of the training room, "while the number of newly captured prisoners has been going down for a while now, this facility has been selected to continue as a holding facility for other prisoners held elsewhere and for cases like what happened with Prisoner 997295. There are some Humans that have managed to hide out and will come here when captured. And with my position, I am tasked with making sure that new arrivals are not attacked by a Thrall or get out of line, and this will also require me to direct those on duty in handling new arrivals."
We then made our way back toward the one hall where the training had started that morning. This likely wasn't where those new prisoners would be brought in, but I didn't expect to have much interaction with them. While Alpha Jinara had apparently had me assigned as Amanda's guard as part whatever plan she had to get one of the few friends that I had made as a Human that were still Human, I knew that as a new recruit among the female guards at the facility, it wouldn't be standard protocol. The same would apply for Eira, which meant that we would likely get an assignment that would keep us busy while Lartara moved to some of her other duties as Captain.
"In the meantime, I want you to to focus on memorizing the prisoner numbers, particularly those that are already in the system," Lartara instructed to both of us as we entered the room with its long tables and a the cart full of tablet-like devices, "this is critical to our operation here, and as guards, you will be expected to ultimately know all of the prisoner numbers and to work with them. Not their names... as per orders and protocol."
"Would this include new prisoners, Captain?" I asked.
"For the moment, you won't be expected to memorize new prisoner numbers," Lartara answered, "for while those numbers may be assigned when they arrive, or would be transferred to us from other facility databases, those numbers may not be fully entered into our database before they're moved into their cells and so on. It may take the Servants running the computers some time to update what we have."
"Just like with Harkaal being left "officially" as a prisoner this morning?" Eira asked.
"Yes," Lartara answered, "though by now... Harkaal's status will have changed. That said, both of you will need to look over the numbers of those already in the system and work on memorizing them. If they update things quickly and you can remember some of the new arrivals and their numbers, that'll be good and will show that you're both sharp. But it won't be expected with the new prisoners."
I nodded and moved over to the cart where those tablets were, with Eira following relatively close behind. Lartara then moved back to the door. As Lartara reached it, though, she paused to look back.
"And I will quiz you on those prisoner numbers when I return," Lartara spoke pointedly, "what happens next will then depend on how well you do. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Captain," Eira and I both answered together.
That set us to work in going through the roster list of prisoners. I'd remembered looking over some this when the training session began in the morning, and I still felt some frustration over the fact that protocol demanded I treat people like numbers. It was one of those points where my memory of being Haley conflicted with the reality of being Harkaal. Though, I did my best, and admittedly it wasn't too hard. The facility had a decent total capacity and I could see the lengthy list of prisoners that had come in and then become Lycothans, including myself. As the Servants had updated my status with an image of what I looked like now, with my crest and the silver streak in it. For the moment there were only a few women in the women's cells at present that were still listed as active prisoners.
They weren't all from the specific floor that I'd been held in, but there were still relatively few female prisoners at the facility at present. And after Emily became Eira and I became Harkaal, only Amanda (Prisoner 995403) and Casey (Prisoner 997295) were on the floor that I'd been in. There were a few other floors, and in the woman's wing of the facility, they were pretty "empty" too. I'd checked over them to see if my biological sister was among those prisoners earlier and had found nothing to indicate that my sister was presently there, or had ever been at the facility. There were another three on the floor beneath the floor that I'd been on. Putting aside the names, which I knew I couldn't get attached to by protocol, I looked into those other numbers. Prisoner 995399 was captured shortly after Amanda from some remote part of Minnesota. Prisoner 995400 was a baker from Colorado and had been captured on the same day as Amanda. Prisoner 997294 was an older woman that had been with the resistance cell that Casey had been captured with.
It was on the floor above the floor where Eira and I had been on there were more prisoners. Most of them were marked as either coming in when Casey was brought in or were brought in after her, and here on that floor there were more five more prisoners. Prisoner 997296 had been with the resistance cell where Casey was captured, as were Prisoners 997297 and 997298. Prisoner 997299 was captured in a swamp in Florida and Prisoner 997300 was caught hiding in New Orleans, which was a surprise.
"I would have thought that the last one wouldn't have been caught in such a big city," Eira commented, "since most of them are being repurposed or demolished..."
"Maybe the projects have different priorities and some cities are taking longer to repurpose than others," I guessed.
"You might be right," Eira commented, "do you think the Captain would want us to go over the males?"
I flipped over one tab and noted that the number of male prisoners was even shorter than the females that were in the facility at present. It seemed like there were only two, at present.
"It wouldn't hurt, I suppose," I commented, "as they haven't updated the roster yet. We can go over the male numbers and then practice with the females and males until Captain Lartara comes back."
We spent the next few hours practicing over those numbers. Which ultimately worked in having one of us read the number and having the other describe the features of the prisoner based on the identification photograph.