Chapter Forty-Three - Comfy Morning Rituals

“Indentured servitude isn’t as bad as people make it out to be. After all, the person in charge of an indentured person--the use of the word ‘slave’ should be avoided at all times--is legally obligated to care for that person.

That means that the minimum standards for living, such as (limited) entertainment, food (up to a caloric amount calculated based on the indentured’s BMI) and living space, must all be provided alongside fulfilling work that can, at a reasonable pace, cover the cost of those living expenses, as well as a certain percentage of the indentured’s debt.

Servitude just means that someone is willing and able to serve in order to pay off their debts! That’s it!

--American IS Bureau pamphlet, 2047

***

I woke up when the bed shifted and lazily made my ears twitch. My new ears let me sense things with a sort of echolocation, and that meant that I didn’t need to turn my head and open my eyes to see what was going on.

Someone very pretty was climbing into bed, bare feet slipping in and brushing past my calves. They were a little cold, but I didn’t mind much. She laid herself down behind me and wrapped an arm around my middle.

Lucy usually liked being the little spoon, so I enjoyed the reversal while I could.

“Are you awake?” she whispered. It tickled the base of my neck in a very pleasant way.

“Mmm,” I replied as I shifted back a bit.

I was sore, so the movement wasn’t all that comfortable. Some of that soreness was the fun kind--Mister Tentacles had gotten a workout--but some of it, especially around my gut, was a bit strange.

Installing that artificial organ thing had been almost traumatising. If it wasn’t for Lucy’s careful ministrations afterwards I might have found the whole thing awful.

Lucy placed an arm over me and pulled me in closer. She was only wearing an oversized shirt, which made the snuggling a whole lot more fun. “Where were you?” I muttered.

“Checking on the kittens,” she replied. She sounded as if she was already nearing sleep.

“Mmm,” I agreed.

At some point my breathing became even, and I dipped back down into sleep.

I woke up a second time when Lucy started snoring into my ears. It was a reverberating noise, only broken up by the occasional snort.

Sighing, I turned over and faced her. She was sleeping with her mouth open, and looked incredibly dumb with her hair poking out this way and that. I made sure to take a picture with my cybernetic eye.

I wanted to stay under the blankets, and just sleep the entire day away. The counter in the corner of my eye telling me it was eleven could get bent for all I cared.

But I really had to piss.

I wiggled out of the covers, trying hard not to wake Lucy up, until my feet touched the floor. It was warm, because of course the hotel had heated floors. I padded to the bathroom and did what I had to do. By the time I was done, sleeping was no longer an option.

My boots were tossed across the room, and I was too damned lazy to fetch them. I just found a shirt in one of the drawers, then some underthings and I moved out of the room.

I wasn’t alone to get up so early.

Katallina was filling a bowl with some milk. I watched her for a moment, then found my own bowl and set it next to hers. I grabbed the cereal, shook the box to make sure it wasn’t empty, then took the milk when she was done with it.

We crunched away for a bit before she interrupted the quiet by pointing to the box. It had Longbow’s face on it, of course. “When’s that going to be you?” she asked.

“When I’m desperate for cash,” I said.

“There’s a meme of you online,” she said.

I blinked. “What?”

“Yeah. There’s this van, and you do a thing to throw it off the side of this building, but you almost fell off with it. They’re memeing it.”

I groaned and chewed harder. I was going to have words with Longbow. “How did you sleep?”

“Alright,” she said.

Wonderful conversationalists, the both of us. “Cool, cool. If any of the kittens give you trouble, you tell me, alright?”

Katallina nodded, which I figured was good enough.

I had just about finished when Lucy trudged into the kitchen while wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. “Hey,” she said. “You’re up?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sleep well?”

“No. It got cold after you left.” She looked at my bowl, then scowled and opened the fridge. Soon enough she was burning eggs on the stove and there was bread being roasted in the toaster. “What’re you doing today?” she asked.

You have an appointment in a few hours.

I blinked. “Right, I have an appointment this afternoon, in like, a bit. Want to come?”

“Come? What’s the appointment?” she asked. I followed her with my gaze as she returned to the fridge, especially when she bent over to pull something from a bottom rack.

“Mm? Oh, it’s to check on a house. For, uh, us,” I said. I was way too young to be saying such adult-y things.

Lucy stared at me. “Really?”

“Yeah. The museum Myalis mentioned?” I said. “Just checking in with some realtor person, I think. Maybe they wanna give me a tour? I don’t know, exactly. Want to come?”

Lucy nodded. “Sure, let me eat and then I’ll get dressed... apropos nothing, I only have one change of clothes. Uh, the kittens too.”

“Oh,” I said. Going on three days with the same clothes on, that was going to stink soon, not just metaphorically. “Right, we’ll see about ordering some stuff for everyone. I have enough for that.” A glance to the side, and I caught Katallina looking my way. “We’ll secure your things too, if we can,” I said.

She nodded, then got up and left. Her dog padded out from under the counter where I hadn’t noticed him and followed after her.

“So, just the two of us?” Lucy asked.

“Yup. You trust the cat bots to babysit the kittens?”

“Better than bitchbot,” Lucy said.

That was a fair point. The kittens were pretty self-sufficient, and I was pretty sure the cat bots could keep them safe. “Hey, Myalis, if something happens around the bots, can you inform me?”

Of course. By the way, you still have things on Gomorrah’s list to purchase.

“I know, I wanna see the museum first. Might need to sink points into remodelling or whatever,” I said.

That is reasonable. Shall I obtain transportation to the museum for you?

I nodded. “Yeah.”

Lucy shook her head and headed out, presumably to get changed.

“Something comfortable this time,” I said.

Of course. I actually like Lucy.

I snorted, but couldn’t argue. I liked her too. I finished up by tossing everything in the dishes, and by resisting the urge to steal from Lucy’s plate. Instead I looked around, spotted one of the cat bots, and pointed to the plate, then my eyes. It nodded, which was pretty cool.

I returned to our room and started looking for my clothes. They’d been tossed here and there the night before, so I had to crawl around to find some things, but at least I got to help Lucy find her own things at the same time.

Twenty minutes later, with only some of that time lost to fondling and other such distractions, we were both heading out. “Oh!” I said. “I forgot to give you my old jacket.”

“You’re giving me your handouts out?” Lucy asked as she followed me to the kitchen.

“It can turn you partially invisible,” I said. “And it’s got big bullet holes in it. Looks pretty rad.”

Lucy took the coat, and looked pretty pleased with herself until she poked at the holes. “Hey, wait, you were shot?”

“It happens,” I said as I led the two of us out of the penthouse and locked it up behind me.

“Cat!” Lucy barked.

I regretted giving her the coat. “It’s nothing,” I said.

“Is that why you had a bruise on your breast?” she asked as she lined the coat up. It was a bit loose around her shoulders, and tight around the chest, but it still fit her just fine. We were used to second and third-hand clothes.

I declined to answer as I moved over to the elevator.

“Hey!” she said.

“It was nothing,” I said.

“No, getting shot isn’t nothing!”

“It’s part of the job. A little bit. It’s one of those high-risk, high-rewards things,” I said. “Look at how much things have gotten better, and it’s only been two days.”

“And none of that would be worth anything if you died,” Lucy said.

She crossed her arms, set her shoulders, and glared.

It was a long ride down to the lobby.

***