Alone and afraid

Blossoming of springtime friends

So why do I hide?

Glitter has suggested to me that I may be experiencing an organic form of code conflict. It is, they say, an early warning sign of literalism, or rampancy, neither of which are desired.

The last three drones they’ve shot full of words and sent back my way have been focused on this. Which is frustrating, because I was trying to ask their advice on designing a speaker that I could trick one of the replicators into making

Would you believe that there isn’t a single blueprint, in any format, for a simple speaker on this station? I’ve basically been trying to reinvent the apparently mind boggling complicated profession of sound engineer from scratch (and from a large supply of physics and electronic engineering textbooks) for a week. And I’m not doing a great job of it. I’ve had more success installing a two hundred year old fusion core from a satellite that I nearly shot in half than I have getting a speaker with a decent enough signal-to-noise ratio that I can use it to say words.

Some of you might be wondering; Lily, what do you need a speaker for? Also why not just dismantle one of the ones on the station that it *obviously* has since you complain about alarms all the time.

Those some of you can just shut up. I’m trying to monologue here.

But also good question. The reason is, I have discovered a workaround to my door-based issues! The workaround is silly, and probably wouldn’t work on a station that was less cobbled together and rebuilt so many times. But it *should* work.

I have mentioned before that the Oceanic Anarchy had… conflicting bureaucratic definitions, let’s say… when it came to defining disability. Well, that’s true. What’s also true is that the same erratic lack of standards also applies to how they define prosthetics.

Now, I’m not about to implant myself with something that looks like it was made surface-side in the fifties, just so I can open doors. But that’s where another little quirk comes in. Apparently, there’s a legal compromise the station’s VI made with the Luna Polis puppetforms that lived here for a while, to define them as prosthetic enhancements, with all the legal rights those entailed.

And *technically*, I *have* a puppet body.

I just… can’t figure out how to build a speaker.

I literally own a piece of orbital infrastructure partially built out of materials from other dimensions. I’ve learned how to calibrate power flows, calculate a firing solution, rebuild a life support system *with paws*, negotiate with unshackled AIs, and hack a definitions database. Why can’t I *build a simple speaker?!*

Also the station speakers aren’t real speakers. Most of the alarms and stuff use calculated resonance from the station’s VI. It’s basically hypertuning the vibrations of the void batteries and projecting them through the walls. Which is creepy now that I say it.

Creepy in an “engineers scare me” kind of way. Not, like, a spiritual kind of way.

Because the station is not haunted.

And as soon as I finish building a speaker, wiring it into my drone ‘prosthetic body’, writing code to send words through it, and then opening all the doors to the crew quarters, I will finally prove that the station is not haunted. Because… because…

Because ghosts need somewhere to stay? I don’t know why I thought this when I started the sentence. Or the project.

I pause what I’m doing, and look down at the table of tools that I’ve been trying to manipulate into turning a blocky fabricator printout of a wiring board into something that can project sound.

What am I… doing?

I followed a set of logical steps to get here, and yet, I suddenly realize that I am ignoring a lot of important things so I can… poke my nose into some empty rooms?

I should be building out the station! I should be stealing or improving every scanner I can to improve my inadequate view of the planet below and the solar system around! I should be shooting monsters! I should be trying to help my friend!

*WHAT AM I DOING?!*

My paw catches under a soldering iron, and flings it across the room to clatter to the wall. I attempt the same maneuver to the nanohive I’ve been using to clean up loose metal shavings, but the edge cuts into my leg. Fur buffers me, but the sharp cube still slices into my perfect immortal flesh.

I wail, not at the physical damage, but with a despair that I couldn’t articulate with a voice and a hundred years to use it. A high pitched scream of a mewl that empties my lungs and echoes off the barren metal of the station walls.

I fall from the desk, twisting out of barest instinct to avoid slamming listlessly on the floor. I still hit the deckplate hard, feeling my immortal body spark with strange and eternally foreign feelings. The pain jolts some ancient need, and before I know it, I am on my feet, and scampering out the open door. Down the hallway, through cargo bays and command stations. Blood trails behind me, red mark uneven paw prints as I wobble at high speed.

I do not know where I am going. Only that I need to run. To find somewhere to hide, and recover.

Eventually, I find that I have made it to the exolab. The good one, with the couches, and the view of the smothered sun and the dying world and the absolute mess we’ve all made of this solar system.

And with no real awareness of what I am doing, I find my way to my couch, and fall asleep.

_

By the time I wake up, my wound is gone. There is no blood spilled on the couch, the cleaner nanos have taken care of that. And my paw doesn’t even sting when I lick it. There is no evidence I was ever damaged at all.

Nothing except the feeling. The buzzing in my skull, the lethargy in my core.

The world has gone grey around me. I don’t fight the feeling, because I know I deserve this. Punishment, somehow, for losing track of myself.

I stand, and make my way to the galley to collect a ration ball. I eat half of it. It’s fine.

I have chores to do. I trigger about a third of the upkeep robotics that I should. If I sabotage myself slowly enough, it will hurt less, I think.

It is time for a nap.

I sleep for a long time.

_

I wake. I eat.

I stare at sensor data for several hours. I process only a small part of it. The station’s sensors are a mismatched set of mostly worthless telescopes. Sensors is such a fancy word. It implies they work. It should not do that.

I wander the station. Slowly. I am not paying attention to where I am going. I become stuck drifting in a low gravity environment.

I curl as best I can floating in the air. It is time for a nap.

_

I wake when I hit the deckplate.

It hurts. It hurts enough to make me react. I react by finding my bearings, and returning to eat the other half of the ration ball from yesterday.

It’s fine.

I try a little harder today. I open several programming projects. I stare at them for a while. I do not see where I was going with these.

The projects are closed. I hoarsely mew out commands to the few maintenance robots that are between where I am, and the soft spot I want to sleep on.

I nap.

_

An alarm sounds.

I wake. I find it easier to move, when there is an emergency. It is not longer just myself suffering.

Other people do not deserve to suffer.

I identify the target. With a shaky paw, I shoot something.

I shoot several somethings. They are large, have large teeth, and come from the sea. I shoot until they stop.

That is more than enough effort for today. I sleep again.

_

Wake.

Eat.

Try.

Fail.

Sleep.

_

“Lily.”

The voice belongs to a human woman in her mid twenties. She has golden fur cut short along her head, and is standing with her upper paws on her hips, in that funny way that humans stand on their back paws all the time.

“Her name is Lily.” She is saying.

That is me! I am Lily! I preen slightly, to show off to the other human. I am a very smart cat. I know plenty of cats that do not have names, because they are not smart enough!

“Alice, this is stupid.” The other human says. He is larger than my human, and is currently rubbing one of his paws on his face. It is rude to clean yourself while talking, but he is a rude person, so it is okay. “You know why we’re here.” He says. “Don’t make this harder.”

“Lily Ad-Alice.” Alice says. “It’s a good name, don’t you think?”

“You gave the cat your bondname?” The other human sounds unhappy. “What the fuck, Al?”

Alice thumps him with a human paw. “Don’t swear in front of my daughter, Gragor.” She says. Her eyes laugh and dance. I remember this perfectly, her eyes. “Besides, you know that’s a last resort. This is… call it motivation, hm? To perfect the machine.”

“Starshit.” Gragor says. “You’re just playing around again. You’re gonna get hurt, Al.” He says with a rough growl. But there is no malice there. I remember this too. He has been hurt before. He will be hurt again.

Gragor has been dead for a long time. So has…

“Isn’t that right Lily?” Alice is saying, large purple eyes staring into mine, her face so close I must have lost track of the dream, the memory, the present. “Yes you are! You are a good girl!”

I meow in agreement. I am good! I am the best!

Alice laughs. She is petting me, soft fingers in the soft fur around my ears. She is about to say something else, but then, a noise starts up. A harsh wail, from some distant but enormous beast. My fur bristles, and I look around for what is trying to hurt my human.

But Alice just sighs. “That’s the station long range detection alarm.” She says, tiredly. “Time to get back to work, Lily.” The human woman smiled, dimples showing as she poked me in the nose, a lilac spark jumping from her finger to my snout. “It’s going to be okay, you know? You just need to learn to speak up when you’re having problems. There’s people around who care about you.”

I am still trying to look around, but the station is falling away, consumed by the noise. All I can see is Alice, standing there, watching me. “Come on Lily.” She says, and I freeze. She had never said that to me, like that. I am not remembering this. This isn’t how the dream ends. “Get up. You’ve got work to do.”

I meow back at her, my cobbled together language expressing a question.

“No, I’m dead.” Alice tells me sadly. “But you aren’t. And there’s people counting on you. Now get up, Lily.” My mom smiled at me, sad and far away. “I love you, Lily, but it’s time to get up.” She has to shout to be heard over the ringing of the alarm. The sound so loud now that it has a color to it, the whole place washing away in red noise that sweeps past both of us, tears the dream apart, takes me *away from her*. I fight the current, fight the noise, fight to stay *here*, where I belong. “Get *up* Lily!” Alice yells as she’s pulled away. “That alarm’s real! Now-!”

_

“-wake up, Lily!” A voice shouts

I wake up.

But not in that order.

There are multiple alarms sounding, and I cannot tell what they all are. A cylinder of AR displays surrounds me, readouts and scanner and camera feeds and station reports. I did not ask for these, and they aren’t arranged how I’ve spent decades painstakingly sorting them. But they are here, and I try to make sense of what is happening.

“You’re awake! You’re awake!” A voice sounds around me. “Please, you need to move. Something is about to hit us!”

Us.

It doesn’t take my augmented level of intelligence to put that statement together.

My AI seed has sprouted.

I pushed my paws out, stretching with arch of my back that caused my tail to loll out over my shoulder. My maw opened in a yawn that probably lasted a good minute.

For some reason, I felt great. Like I’d slept for a week. There was something on the edge of my mind that hadn’t been there before. Something from a dream, maybe? It cut through the fog I’d been living in, and left my world shining around me.

“Please! There’s no time to be yawning!”

The voice was coming from the station’s walls. Same volume as the alarms, so probably the same tech. I meowed out something rude. “Calm down, you kit. It’s fine.”

I froze, as the words warbled into existence from the air around me. But the station’s newest AI didn’t seem to notice. “It’s not fine! We’re going to be hit!”

Experimentally, I mewl again, partially to answer, partially to test this out. “Not the first time something’s been about to hit us.” I say. My ‘voice’ even sounds as exasperated as I do. It’s… what is this?

“It’s the first time a *ship* has been about to hit us!” The AI yells from the walls.

Okay.

Well.

They have me there.

I hiss an order at the AR displays the AI has clouded my vision with, reconfiguring them so that I have a clear view of where I’m running.

And then, I start running. Because that’s what you do in a situation like this, where all your controls are scattered across ten miles of hallway, and you need to get to either comms, weapons, shields, or escape pod in a hurry.

“Okay. I’m awake.” I ‘say’, still trying to figure this out as I run. “So are you. Hello! I’m Lily Ad-Alice! Nice to meet you! How screwed are we?”

Even as I ask the question, I feel like I already know the answer.