Chapter 61

Chapter 61

The codecat wanted me to tell you theyre gonna be trying something with one of the living programs. Also. Why are you down here? Dyns voice radiates through the small gap in the bulkhead that Ive been wedged into for the better part of an hour.

I do not know how she knows I am down here, because I am inside a wall, with only a small layer of secondary alloy keeping me from the void of space, and she would have had to have gone through three internal airlocks, and two crew hazard warning projections, just to get to where she can stand and yell at me.

They sent Dyn, of all people. The least social person on the whole station. Its pretty transparently a bid for more information, and I appreciate the relative subtlety, compared to, I dunno, sending Dog. Or trying to wedge Jom down here in the access tubes.

They is my sisters. Because they know I wont tell them anything.

Now, we are nine. It seems poetic, but I cant remember why. I think there was an old Chinese myth about something like this, but I dont have time to cross reference my cultural archives.

Even our newest sister, an impression of a cat named Lily, locked in a feline shaped violently sliced moment of time, doesnt quite know what Im doing. Shes the oldest of us, now. She and Alice watched all eight timelines, all the way through. Thirty three hundred years, give or take. She didnt have the same pressures as I did, most of the time, but she is old.

And she got to spend all that time with our mom.

I still think of Alice that way. I dont know why. I kind of know why. Im over four hundred years old and I still want to go back to being a dumb kitten, sitting in her lap. I dont need the world to make sense, I just want to eat a vat treat, be warm, and let the hours go by.

But I barely knew Alice, even if I can respect beyond words the dedication it would take someone to watch for thousands of years, looking for an opportunity. To give everything, not to try to survive, but to try to win.

I could barely last ten years before I started trying to fix things. I suck at it, but I still keep trying.

This new Lily has spent thousands of years getting to know Alice. Who she was, who she became, who she ended up at the end. I could ask so many questions.

But Im down here instead, in the outer guts of the station.

Im not jealous, to be clear. Im glad one of us knew our mom so well.

But our mom never lived past a certain point in this timeline. In most of our timelines. Not that the other ones ever existed, anymore.

Time travel makes my head hurt. And thats on top of cat-adapted painkillers, and one hell of an uplift program. Im almost glad the time machine melted when Lily came through. Almost. It would have been nice to have had a backup plan.

What a stupid time machine. A one way bridge of information that requires the sacrifice of a whole timeline. Im mad at it. Im glad it melted. I should go melt it more.

The other Lilys, my sisters who were already here, they dont know what was passed on to me. Neither does the one who brought the message, really.

And Im not telling them. I told them I wont. Not cant, not shouldnt. Just wont. Ive been avoiding them.

So I guess they decided getting the least talkative human on the station to come chat with me while I was working was a good idea?

Oh right, Dyn is still hanging out there. Sorry Dyn! I call through the metal tube Im in.

I hear her grunt in affirmation. And then a few seconds later, a grudging addition of information, Good opportunity to clean my gun.

Her gun is a paramaterial rifle that shoots bullets with exactly enough electromagnetic force to damage the target, unless the target is the inside of a hull keeping vacuum out. I made it myself, its a flagrant violation of causal physics, and Im very proud of it.

It does not require cleaning. Your gun doesnt need cleaning! I yowl back at her, trying not to yelp as the fur of one of my paws gets pinched in a small divot and nearly yanked out.

My other gun. Dyn clarifies. One of them. She further clarifies.

Ive gotta ask. I keep forgetting, but I absolutely need to know before I lose the chance. Where do you keep finding those?

Dyns pause is almost as heavy as the feeling of open space on the other side of the hull plate. If open space could be a little sarcastic. Theres a lot of stuff on this station. She says.

Dyn raises her eyebrows as her deflection somehow works. Really?

Technically yes. I answer, with a fancy and powerful cat term for not quite lying. I havent had to use that one in a long time, but I find that it dusts off alright. Also dont change the subject.

The young woman in a dying body sighs next to me, more emotion in it that I think Ive heard from her before. Her hands still hold the anchor steady, but her voice is tired. Im not getting in the pod, girl. She says quietly, voice wavering but resolute. I dont even remember how old I am. I worked my whole life for my people, and they threw me away. Im done. She shifts overhead, and I make the final weld before we move on, her lagging behind me just a bit. I did my job. Im done.

Theres a lot of things that bounce around my head. I could tell her that Im older, and Im still going. That Im tired, and Im still going. I could fight her head to head on any of the flare-level stupid things she just said.

But Ive been hanging out with Glitter a lot lately, and Ive gotten a much better idea of how to break someones arguments.

You said it was only almost a year. I say as I unfold the flexalloy anchor and move one end while Dyn mechanically braces the other in the proper spot. Ive marked the spots already, its not supposed to be that impressive, but I legitimately dont think she looked at the mark before she started moving.

What? The kid asks, confused.

Since you started working for your people. You said youd only been here almost a year. I was paying attention this time. Ive gotten better at paying attention. Sort of. My sister was trying to teach me some mindfulness exercises. Its not working, Im just constantly mindful of all the different things trying to kill us. Which, I mean, makes me empathize with Ennos a lot more.

I Dyn stops talking, and the anchor slips just before I start the weld. I glance up, and shes pushed herself against the back of the tube, hands not holding the anchor in place anymore, looking down at me with something between confusion and fear. What?

Dyn, I may be awful at showing it, but youve been my people since the moment you set foot on this station. I tell her softly. Even when I didnt trust you. Even if I wasnt sure if you were one of the threats Id have to vent into space, like that one time a paperclipper got on board, or that one time a human who was a little too racist got on board, or that one time I could keep listing things. I dont think I will. You mightve been a gamble, but youve always been welcome here. And I dont want you to go.

What I dont say is that I dont know if I could handle that. I dont know if I could take more people dying. Not like this, especially not like this, when the solution is right there and all Dyn has to do is take a vacation.

You vented someone into space? Dyns voice is scratchy as she takes exactly the wrong information away from that conversation.

Wow, thats a question I dont want to really answer! Lets try anyway. Ive vented a lot of people into space. I say. Most of them awful people. Some of them just fools. They all died the same, though.

The woman laughs. Yeah, that happens. She sucks in a rough breath. Silently moves back into position. We mechanically get back to work, but my hearts even less in it now than it was before. Give me some time. She eventually says, as Im welding the last anchor.

Okay. I say. Just dont take too long.

Dyn flips a tool out of her artificial hand, and flattens out an edge that shouldnt be sticking up. Why? She asks. You on some kind of deadline? Or am I?

I flatten my ears and feel my tail droop without my control, a natural reaction to my terror over whats coming up. Yeah. I whisper. Im waiting for something. Soon. Not sure what, but soon.

She scoops me up and carries me on her shoulder as we glide out of the curved tube. Dyn opens her mouth to say something with a wry grin, probably going to compliment my perfect delivery of a spooky warning. Which is when an alarm sounds.

I tighten my claws through her work shirt, and Dyn jerks so hard she slams her head into the metal around us and pulls back trailing blood and inventing new swear words.

Is that what youre afraid of?! Dyn demands. Or was this just a stupid way to get me to hurt myself?! She continues swearing.

I check my display. Check it against the timeline in my head that Second-Lily put there.

Dyns making jokes, but she shouldnt.

Were out of time.

Im gonna have to adjust my plan.

Command deck. I meow out with cold determination. Now.

Dyn doesnt hesitate to start running, and I start issuing commands, as the emergence event that just opened in our upper sensor array starts dropping invaders into my home.