Chapter 30

Chapter 30

There is no such thing as the status quo for me.

No sense of stability, nothing I can really take for granted, no emotional bedrock or historical precedent that lets me know everything will be okay.Visit no(v)eLb(i)n.com for the best novel reading experience

Oh, sure, I live on the station. But thats like a feathermorph living on Earth. That, at least, is something to count on. But Earth has volcanoes and tsunamis and the milele isiphepho, and sometimes cities just go away. And my home, sometimes, has chunks carved off, taken over, crippled, or just worn down by time.

I replace what I can. I add anything that looks usable. But the truth is, no matter how used to having a high definition holo-theater I get, theres always the chance Ill have to jettison it into space when an isolation cell crashes into it.

I cannot get used to anything.

But, and I admit this with some embarrassment, I have a bit of frequency bias when it comes to life changing events. I need you all to understand; short attention span or not, I *do* have enough knowledge of general mathematics to single pawedly run a golden age Sol University department. And part of that is statistics. I *know*, with all the brainpower I can bring to the fight, that one upheaval does not reduce the chance of the *next* upheaval.

And yet? I mean in the last few months, so much has changed. I have people to talk to, and a voice to do it with. More and more of my home opens for me, lotus-like. I have more free time, and fewer local emergencies. Even on the surface, things shift; I am worshiped like a god in one small city, and worshiped like a demon on a small island chain.

And I start to think the time of change is done. Surely, with *all that*, its time for things to settle down, and get used to this new normality?

I think this because I am an idiot. I am the smartest idiot in orbit, right now.

There is an alarm going you know what? You probably know this. I dont think I ever actually monologue like this if there isnt an alarm going off. Running from place to place leaves a lot of thinking time, and rambling makes a good distraction.

Regardless. Alarm. Sort of.

Its more of an alert? Or a notification. I dont know, dont question me.

The point is, its not so much warning me of anything, as it is letting me know someone is attempting to contact me on the point to point laser communication dish. I know this because its one of the few pieces of hardware that Troi France installed when they owned the place, and the notification noise is this low, wailing trumpet noise. Like a mourning brass cry, it fills the stations halls. For not the first time, I wish that there were more crew, so I could be *not* the only person on duty, and the alarms could maybe not be *literally everywhere*. But I live with this burden, so I do what I need to do, and run for the comms conduit the system is hooked into.

While yelling.

Glitter! I swear to the sun, if youre trying to find *another* protocol, Im going to I searched for a meaningful, and yet low-impact threat as I also searched for the right ventilation tube that would let me slide up a deck. To I was having trouble with this. Ill think of something! I decided.

Glitters voice came back, only barely pushing over the ongoing horn of the notification. Still prim and proper, but with just a hint of sarcasm. Of course its not me. I found all relevant communication protocols days ago. Glitter says, ignoring the number of alarms she set off herself in the process. Im not the only one who would wish to talk to you, after all.

Well thats just silly. No ones ever talked to me before.

Okay, well, there are people on the surface that contact me sometimes. Usually using language passed down over generations, on antique radio or hyperwave comm units. Also, usually theyre begging for help.

And, I mean, I guess theres the occasional attempt from an old automated system. Sometimes orbital ones.

Speaking of orbit, I suppose there *are* living people up here. I once got messages from the secondary moon. And a few attempts sometimes from one of the surviving habitats. But its not like I carried on conversations. After all, what was I supposed to *say*? Its not like I can talk to

I can talk to people.

I can *talk to people*.

Ennos! I yowl out, the word echoing through the metal ventilation tube as I am carried at high speed up to an access point - one where I removed the grate ahead of time; Im *learning* - where I am spouted out onto a different deck. Ennos I can talk to people!

Lily, I have bad news. Ennos yells at me as I catapult down the hallway toward the conduit. Turn around! My AR display lights up, showing a path through the station in the opposite direction as my sprint.

What no! I can barely hear my thoughts over the horn. Im right here!

One of your incredibly specific scanner routines is screaming at me that theres a surface disturbance, and I have no idea why. Ennos cries out. And for some reason, this has agitated three different *things* that were dormant in the code, and *I need to hide or something*! Heres your scanner! Please deal with it! Ennos goes quiet, the AI cutting the last word with razor sharpness.

My incredibly specific scanner routines are the only way I can get parts of the station to acknowledge that emergence events even exist. Also, I dont really want to leave Ennos in the dark with a bunch of weird attack programs roaming around their home. I course correct, snarling as I feel the brass horn beating into my sensitive ears, and haul myself toward the command and control deck.

Emergence events are weird. Weirder than normal, I mean. Weve talked about them before, I think, so I wont overwhelm you with complaining.

Long story short, digital minds have a bizarre blind spot for the things. But if you put in hyper-specific physical conditions to search for, automated sensors and ground-pointing lenses can at least pick up the after effects. And then let me know. Inconveniently.

The command and control deck provides me with enough screens and projections of information to keep a team of twenty data archeologists busy for a month. I flick my eyes around and scour what I specifically need to know off the surface in about fifteen seconds, and then hop up onto the console station of the stations non-existent engineering chief, perch on top of a control board without hitting any of the buttons and launch myself up into a *different* ventilation shaft.

I love these things. Theyre so convenient.

What I dont love is whatever is going on surface side. An emergence event, probably a class 2 or 3 at a guess, somewhere on York Isle. This is one of those ones where, no matter what I do, the local ecology is going to be hosed; its partially underwater, and whatevers coming out is obviously aquatic.

Recordings that I try not to focus on show local fishing skiffs being torn apart by swarms of something small and made of teeth. By the time I reach the firing cradle for the majority of my guns that point downward two minutes later, most people within a quarter mile radius are dead.

Theyre mobilizing a defense, judging by the energy readings. Some kind of highly reflective screen projected around the rivers that cut through the isles artificial land mass. Scanners feed me knowledge of a thousand pinprick emissions of weapons fire. This is *good*, hopefully. If Im lucky, they can clean up after I close the breach.

The breach in the middle of a small river, surrounded by support struts and possibly populated civilian stacks.

Tricky.

This would be less tricky if I didnt care about mass murder, which is inconvenient for me, a cat who does care. But we live with our choices, I guess.

Hello is how people start conversations, right? I dont do this often enough to know.

A screen comes to life. I find myself looking at a human woman. Old, by human standards, and clearly genetically adapted to life in space. Maybe seventy or eighty years old. Modified, too. Her bald head has a number of visible cybernetic implants in it. But her large hazel eyes are all natural, and widen as the connection stabilizes. Behind her, a worn, battered, and scraped bulkhead shows age beyond her own. But for all the damage, the room shes in is clean. Maintained. Just used. Hard, and for a long time.

I notice that theres a smaller image in the corner of the screen showing myself. Probably what the station is transmitting back.

Sah, chumah? The woman started to say, right up until she saw the video feed. And then, her tone changes to something that I *think* is annoyance. Jest? Za you?

Right. Linguistic drift.

Well, lets try anyway.

Hello. I say again, cheerful as I can be. My name is acting commander Lily ad-Alice. May I ask why youre calling?

Wow, I managed to be polite to the people whove been ringing in my skull for the last hour. Im impressed with me!

On the other end of the transmission, I can see the moment the woman realizes that perhaps the cat she is talking to is, in fact, not a practical joke. I see her look down, check her worn input board, and then snap her head back up so hard Im worried her lightweight bones might shatter.

There is a look in her eyes that I instinctively recognize as fear.

Ahm baddun here! She exclaims. And then *bows* to the screen. No, not just a bow; shes practically prostrating herself for the camera. Mass slippup! Null con, null con!

Her words are rambling, filled with a hard edge of panic that I am very used to hearing from humans when they call in emergence events or roaming monsters or other genocidal disasters for me to shoot. The kind of fear that their world is ending, and theyre taking a long shot on living to see tomorrow.

Except this is different.

Shes not calling because something is threatening her. Hell, she looked almost *bored* before she saw me.

Shes afraid of *me*.

And from the way she reacted, she wasnt expecting to see a heavily armed cat.

Oh no.

I deflate slightly, sagging back into a sitting position on the chair that Ive never figured out how to adjust into a higher position as I realize whats going on.

Im a wrong number. And apparently a terrifying one, too.

Oh. I mumble, trying not to look at the screen. Uh yes. Its fine. No hard feelings. I say. The woman doesnt really respond directly; shes still not looking at me, still repeating the same words that I think are meant to be placating.

I cut the connection.

I sit in the comms conduit for a while, just staring at nothing in particular. I didnt actually activate the lights when I came in here, so its mildly dark and unpleasantly cool. But I dont really have the energy to fix that, or go anywhere else right now.

I just want to sit. Or lay down. Not to nap, just to expend less energy.

Some time later, Ennos voice finds me.

Lily? Are you alright? The AI sounds a little echoy. Is this where you are? I cant tell, it looks like youve been here a while, is that right?

m fine. I mutter. Oh. Oh, I forgot to help My stomach roils. I forgot my friend. Ive been sitting here doing nothing while Ennos

Hey. The AI interrupts me. Im functional. And largely undamaged. Also, there is now one fewer conflicting piece of code regarding the short range heat detector. For reasons I will not explain. Ennos pauses, and I get the impression I am being studied. Are you alright? You do not look well.

Am I scary? I ask with a soft mewl.

Terrifying. The AI deadpan responds. Why, yesterday, I watched you menace a grow bed full of bell peppers with such fervor, they may never recover. And the cleaner nanos report that you shed, constantly. You are an icon of nightmares, truly.

I almost laugh. But not quite. The person who was calling was scared of me.

Interesting. Ennos says. More likely, they were scared of the station. *You* are soft and non-threatening.

The station isnt threatening! I meow back in protest. Its home!

...Okay. Ennos concedes, and I already know that I am crushingly wrong. Hey. Please eat something. I cant make you. But I would appreciate it. Ennos is wrong; they can make me. Asking in a compassionately concerned tone is far more than enough to make me do anything they want.

Lunch is a schematic for a drive shaft assembly, rendered in ration. I am, for the duration of my meal, less sinkingly exhausted, and more confused. It still tastes like ration.

Maybe a nap would help. Maybe I can nap until I am not sad anymore. Maybe I can take several naps, until I am not sad anymore.

Ennos interrupts my attempt at the first nap, just as I am getting settled. Lily, I would like to wish you good rest. They say. But also why is there a whole fighter craft parked in our upper bay?

I exercise my right to make this someone elses problem.

Ask Glitter. I yawn.