Chapter 37

Chapter 37

The fresh crisis comes as were just finishing our first ever weekly meeting.

For the last two hundred years or so, ever since I really started to get a handle on things, began understanding how to work with the station instead of just survive it, and opened up my paws and gunports to helping where I could, time has been a challenge for me.

Time was a challenge before, too. But also during that era of my life, for different reasons.

Before the uplift - which I am certain is working fine by the way - my life was very day to day. Eat, sleep, explore, move when I wanted to move, what I assume is typical cat stuff.

Afterward, though, I started to be able to take a longer view of things. When the implications of my immortality set in, I learned to take a *very* long view of things.

Wake, eat, explore, sleep, turned gradually into plan, scan, learn, save.

It took maybe two years for my augmented brain to reinforce the new capacity for thought with the gooey filling of knowledge. I took to reading like Id been starving my whole life, looking through whatever texts and recordings I could get my paws on. All the while improving my behaviors, learning, growing. And letting my perspective get broader and broader.

And then, one day, I qualified as a person.

And the station, the absolute crustacean, switched back on the protocols for alerts, and turned off a tremendous portion of the required automation for when it was uninhabited.

And suddenly, my perspective found itself *slightly narrowed*.

Naps became measured in minutes, not hours. Not that I needed as much sleep anymore, anyway. The small tricks Id learned to save time getting around were now critical if I were to clear all the alarms going off, and I refined them to a razors edge. Broad range distress calls were everywhere. Old automated threats were everywhere.

Plan, scan, learn, save, had to change. Had to compress.

I planned just what I needed to overcome a crisis. I didnt waste time on plans when I had downtime, because downtime lasted hours, days if I was lucky. Sometimes it lasted longer, or I got into a fugue state and ignored a lot of problems, but I couldnt rely on that at all.

I watched smaller areas, focusing my scans on the area close around me, and on parts of the surface Id pass over without course correction.

I learned what I needed to learn. I took what I needed to take from the wreckage of civilizations scattered around up here. Spare minutes were spent trying to drag weapons back to undefended station sections, or installing shield systems.

I saved who I could. To the expense of all else.

My world narrowed to hours. Minutes. Seconds.

The click of the counter, in the corner of my AR. The breath between quiet and chaos, the moment between someone elses salvation, and their doom.

Not fun!

I bring up this subject so heavy it has its own gravity well to sort of give contrast to you, so that you understand that when I say that we had planned weekly meetings, that this was a level of stability heretofore unbeknownst to me.

I learned the word heretofore long before I had the luxury of regularly living whole quiet days.

But quiet was happening. Or at least a reasonable condition that was quiet-adjacent. And the stability had grown to the point that we were trying *weekly* meetings.

Because, lets face it, we were all bad at communicating, and my tiny brain can only handle so many inputs at once. So I cant just beam status reports back and forth like the AIs do.

The surface still had a few problems, but several of them are no longer *my* problem. Glitter was managing the Haze, the morphophage infestations, the one city seed shed spotted, and a couple other things besides. It turns out, when you dont need to nap, eat, or blink, and you actually enjoy the math of firing a laser through atmosphere, you can turn that kind of work into a hobby. Which Glitter has done. Because Glitter is a good friend, whom I love very much.

Other surface problems that are still in my court include shooting down emergence events, trying to control nukefire season with minimal loss of life, calibrating a scanner to be able to check under the oceans, and building a language database. Two, actually. One for whatever Chvtick is, which appears to be one of several caste-based languages spoken across the Outback, and one for Drem, which is French, but worse.

I have four different languages in my records that are French but worse. I understand that systemic education is a challenge on the surface, but I expected better of Earth than this.

Ennos refuses to help with my language lessons. They say they have other things that matter, which I believe. Theyre trying to get a Luna Polis etching compiler to work with the hunter code theyve made to let them track down and understand the hundred different things living in the grid. A sentence that really made me jealous, because the only thing living in my home is a dog that only ever wants to play when Im trying to calibrate a railgun sight. Apparently, its taking most of their focus, which is why theyre quiet at the meeting.

The mimic satellite arrived in the cargo bay, and started tearing into my stockpiles a lot faster than I had expected. Double checking my AR displays to make sure I had the right spots, I started talking.

Command override B, six, Aelph, two, captains authorization, emergency situation, ignore safety warnings. Designate location one four dash five five eight. Seal, decouple, and purge designate location. Time zero one.

Huh. My voice sounded different there. Very regal, very captainy. I should talk like that more often.

Also this is *way* easier to do when I can speak! The last time I had to eject a section of the station into space, it took me so long to get there with just paws on a projection display that I had to throw out two whole decks by the time I got there.

Security shutters slam into place around the compromised area. The station rumbles around me, a violent set of tremors from explosive bolts firing, power cables discharging, and atmosphere draining. And then, a metal squeal that echoes through the bulkheads and screams in my sensitive ears, and a pulling sensation in my chest.

Then things are quiet.

Alright, that was pretty easy. I bob my head, shutting down my AR. I think Im gonna get lunch. I hear its soup today!

I am so void-blessed happy that theres soup. I cant even be a tiny bit mad. Theres soup, and its probably awful, but its so good. In a week, Im gonna have cucumbers, too. I should see if I can get a medical chamber to sharpen my teeth for me before the harvest.

Do we want to talk about the murderous satellite? Ennos asks.

I take responsibility for the murderous satellite. Joms text report scrolls across my vision, and I am again reminded that unshackled AI have no concern for any customization options I have on my AR. I await punishment.

I had nothing to do with the murderous satellite. Glitter says. Well, that murderous satellite. Glitters voice is a breath of soft laughter, exactly whats needed now that the crisis is resolved.

No one worry about the about *that* murderous satellite. I say as I excitedly offer the dog that had followed me down here food, and get him to pluck me off the ground and carry me on his back in bounding leaps toward the galley. Hes starting to learn his way around, but I dont have the heart to tell him this is the opposit direction. It was just an old Polite War weapon. Ive seen em before, just not active. This is kinda my fault it triggered, I bet.

Ennos irises the lens on their nearest camera drone at me. See, *they* already have an adapted gesture for showing incredulity. I need to get one of those. But it was sitting there for days. Jom brought it in seventy hours ago.

It was an old corporate thing. I explain. They were at war, but they had a whole rulebook, and they followed it *exactly* to the letter. One of the things was that you werent allowed to interrupt board of director meetings with assassination attempts.

...you are joking. Glitter says, knowing full well I am not.

I am full well not! I cluster my sentence up. Anyway, it activated when we ended our first ever weekly meeting. Which was very polite of it, to not interrupt. Im actually pretty grateful to it. I was enjoying the meeting! It would have been exhausting to have to restart it.

No. No, Lily Ennos sounds like they have something to say about the nature of warfare, or of meetings. Thats not...

I turn, paws wrapped around the tentacle points on the dogs back, to look at Ennos camera drone. Would you prefer that things keep interrupting whatever were working on?

There is a brief pause. Well, no. They admit.

Yeah. See? A very polite weapon, for a Polite War.

Ennos sighs, and sends the drone hovering ahead on a track that loops back toward the galley, the dog speeding up to chase it, almost throwing me off its back, tongue lolling out of his mouth, goofy grin on his face. I refuse to engage with this madness. Ennos says.

Yes, I agree. Glitter sounds almost put out. You know something is weird when Glitter and Ennos see perfectly eye to eye on something. It is not that strange, Lily. This is just madness.

So you wanted the weapon to just try to kill us right away? I ask.

...enjoy your lunch, Lily. Ennos and Glitter say in unison.

I want to protest, and say that I have a list of reasons why this is totally normal. Preferable, even! But theres soup, and Im kinda focused on holding onto the dog.

Lunch is delicious. And the next problem also waits until Im done to start up. Though it does so because of coincidence, and not any sense of politeness.

I already miss the Polite War.