The Daily Grind - Chapter 400 (Patreon)

"So we think they'll like it here too.  A new world, with new bodies.  How lovely will that be?  We have a new apple.  For everyone in the world."  -We Know The Devil-

_____

There were a lot of things, in the wide expanse of the world, that Banana needed to learn.

In a way, she was really, really glad that the first thing she’d been enraptured by after Alanna had pulled her out of The Place had been Animal Planet.  The calming and caring voices of humans like David Attenborough, Steve Erwin, and Jeremy Wade all dragging Banana out of the terror that had made every day a waking nightmare, and replacing it with very cool things.  It was very hard to see and hear about the enormous number of animals on the planet, and not be engaged.  Not care.  Not want to learn more.

The way that they had taught her things had primed Banana in a way even she didn’t fully understand still.  The experience, combined with the much more personal, kind voices of the medical staff and her visitors explaining things to her, had irrevocably changed her into a person who loved learning.

Banana was still learning how to meet people.  Talking to anyone was scary.  Talking was scary!  But learning wasn’t.  When she was learning things, it was like she was exploring, even if it required the talking part.  There was a pattern to it, and she was getting good at the pattern.  Realize you didn’t know something, figure out what you didn’t know, try to ask people who did know, then use that information as a foothold to start digging deeper and expanding the web of information.  It was like a scavenger hunt, except with less running.  Usually.

But there were some things she didn’t really like learning, because, as far as Banana could tell, they could only really be learned through experience.  And sometimes those experiences were bad.

For example, there were several words she’d needed to learn the complex meanings of.  Words like mom, for Ann, and how it meant so much more than just the person you had to listen to who was in charge of home.  Or aunt for Alanna, which seemed to mean different things to different people but to her it meant someone who would show up both whenever Banana needed her or sometimes at random to inject delightful chaos into her life.  But learning those things had meant being scared.  Being separated from where she’d finally begun to feel safe in the clean hospital room, learning that she wasn’t going to just be with Alanna and James forever outside of medical, and having to struggle through that while also adapting to a reforged body that was unlike anything she’d ever expected.

In the end, Banana knew more, and understood more, but the process wasn’t fun!  She wanted to learn things by having a smiling Australian tell her about crocodiles, not by wrestling with her own bile-inducing fears while hiding under her bed.

Learning was supposed to be fun.  Learning was fun.  When Banana got to do it her way.

Right now, she was in the process of learning the less fun way.  Sort of.

Ann was in quarantine, which was another word she’d rather have learned through a documentary and not experience.  Which meant Banana had to stay somewhere else for a little while, and not at home.  If it were just a day or two, she’d be fine.  And if it were just Ann, she could have gone next door and stayed with Daniel for the time, but Daniel was gone too.

And while Banana was confident in her ability to survive, people fussed, and worried that she wouldn’t eat or go to school properly, which was dumb.  She wasn’t a fledgling or a baby or any of those other young things, she knew how to go to the Lair’s restaurant, or how to get to the bus in the morning!  She wasn’t helpless anymore!

And she explained this at length to Lavant, who was also staying in the same apartment as her.  But the crocamaw didn’t believe her.  Which was horrible, and also unfair, which were things Banana had needed to previously learn to emotionally grapple with as life experiences and not in the fun learning way, so at least this time she knew a little of what to do.

Or maybe he did believe her and she was just overreacting.

”Heyyy.”  Banana’s voice - her voice, her very own - still had an almost purring buzz that emanated from her throat whenever she spoke.  It made it hard to whisper, but she didn’t think she’d ever give it up anyway.  “Hey Lavant.  Are you awake?”

They were sleeping in the same room in the apartment that was so much messier than Banana’s home.  Part of why she’d been indignant about was that, while she knew Keeka, and she knew he was older than her, Banana also knew that the ratroach who was supposed to be her temporary guardian didn’t know her daily schedule as well as she did.  But, at least there hadn’t been any argument about her and Lavant sharing the room for the time they were here.  That had happened before, the last time Ann was gone.  Well, it had sort of happened.  Mary Ann was a nice old human but like a lot of old humans she had ideas about how boys and girls were supposed to act, and Banana disagreed, and it had been a different learning experience.

This was easier.  And Banana didn’t want to be away from Lavant.  They were friends.  They even had a relationstick shared!  Though it hadn’t filled in yet, because of reasons Banana didn’t know.

And also she really didn’t want to sleep alone in a place that wasn’t home.

”Lavant?”  She buzzed again.

”No.” The crocamaw mumbled back from the cocoon of blankets he had created for himself on the floor.

”…No you’re not alssleep?”  Banana’s voice, still so new to her, twisted against her will as she spoke.  Her flexible beak snapped shut, but she was long past getting angry at herself for messing up words.  Just lightly embarrassed.

And it helped that Lavant had never once made fun of her.  “No.”  The young crocamaw repeated out of the side of his mouth that poked through his blankets.

Banana rolled over, and looked down off the edge of the bed, smushing the black feathers of her chest against the mattress as she stared at the lump in the darkness that was Lavant.  “I don’t think you’re asleep.”  She pressed.

“Sleeping.”  He said.

”No you’re not!”

”Cause you’re talking.”

Banana couldn’t really dispute that logic.  So she didn’t try.  Besides, she’d gotten what she wanted.  “I caaaan’t sleep.”  She informed him.

”Cause you’re talking.”  At the words, Banana’s face scrunched into her version of a smile.  She could hear that he knew he was being funny, which meant he wasn’t going to be actually angry at her.

She pushed herself farther over the edge, two of her legs shoving against the mattress with all the fine motor control she’d developed by now that meant she could do it without clawing holes in the bed.  “Why can’t you sleep?  Really.”  She asked.

Lavant took a minute to answer.  And when he did, all the joking was gone from his voice, and Banana could hear him breathing heavily into the bedding.  “It’s stupid.”  He said with a tight throat.

Banana let herself drape forward off the bed, the unfamiliar blankets tangling around her.  “Cause it’s only been a day?”  She wasn’t really asking, because she felt like she probably felt the same way.

”Mhm.”  Lavant’s noise of agreement came through his cocoon.

”And everything is okay.”  Banana said, her slide continuing until her elbows were propping her up on the floor, her body reacting to the sensation of maybe falling by splitting her elytra in preparation for having to flare her wings.

”Mmhm.”  Lavant agreed again, blankets rustling as his concealed hands did the crocamaw replacement for a nod.

”And they’ll be back soooon.”  Banana buzzed as her legs slid off the bed behind her narrow body, the first one catching her balance, the other three following as she just kind of flopped into a pile of the sheets and blankets she’d pulled with her off the mattress like a wedding gown.

This time, Lavant didn’t say anything.  Just curled up a little tighter in his own pile of blankets.  Banana didn’t really wait for him to answer.  She just kept creeping forward, until she was half laying on the padded mat that Lavant was sleeping on, and she could feel the shape of his body through the blankets as a solid object.

”…I s-shouldn’t feel homesick when it’s upstairs.”  Lavant finally said, sounding angry with himself even as his breath came in faster pants from the other side of his maw.

Banana completed her subtle ambush.  Throwing the edge of her blanket that had followed her over top of the ones Lavant was under, and then prying her way into his cocoon, she scooted forward until she was laying against the bumpy scales of his back.  One of her arms got thrown over her friend, along with half her legs, capturing him where he was curled with his hands clutched in front of him.  “Here.”  Banana said with the softest buzzing she could manage, slowly pressing the stuffed shark she had brought with her into Lavant’s hands.

He took it almost without thinking, and then suddenly found that it was impossible to clench his claws too tightly when there was a risk he might damage something priceless.  But now that Banana had gotten him started talking, he felt like there was too much to say.  “What happens next time?”  He whispered to her.

”I dunno.”  She said quietly into the back of his head.  “But I don’t like it.”

”Me either.”  He said.

”Annnd we have school tomorrow.”  She said, adding to the indignity of it all.

”Today.”  Lavant corrected, one of his eyes peeking out and seeing the burning red lines of the clock on the nightstand.

”Worse.”  Banana said sleepily.

”Yeah.”  He replied in the same tone.

It was a strange thing to learn, Banana thought as she drifted off.  None of this actually made anything better.  If anything, it should make it objectively worse; they were, after all, sharing things that upset them and that had no solution.  They couldn’t just tell their moms to stop being what they were, and they couldn’t just make them come back, and they also couldn’t just not go to school where the world would pretend to be normal.  Well.  Okay, they could.  But Banana didn’t want to do that.

But for all that they should have been even more sad, because they had an extra thing each to be sad about…

They were both asleep in moments, feeling a little lighter, despite the extra blankets.

The relationstick corridor would politely wait until they woke up to inform them about its development.  The spell coin that Lavant’s inbuilt magic produced wouldn’t; that one would sit in a pile of blankets for at least a couple days before someone discovered it.  And at that point, the someone wouldn’t be either of them.

_____

It was sometime around two in the morning when Reed crept into the Lair’s basement workspace that reminded her like nothing quite as much as the computer labs from high school.  Long desks with little divider walls between stations that could easily be folded down, monitors standing as cold sentries among tightly controlled cables, a light amount of magic dusted on top, the normal stuff that high school computer labs had.

Maybe.  It hadn’t been that long for Reed; she didn’t like to remind everyone that she was actually kind of young compared to some of the people working here.  But she seemed to remember the closed off computer workspaces having their own kind of magic to them, when she was a student.  Like they were secretive and special areas that you only got to go to sometimes, and when you did, there was a bounty of very stupid tricks to learn.  So not actual magic, but something magical anyway.

Currently, Reed was creeping because even though she had enough authority here to host one of the infomorphs of the same name if she wanted, and also there was no rule against working at 2AM, she was trying to catch someone.  Someone who had been coming in here at hours when they, specifically, shouldn’t.

The computer lab had a single light on, which matched the one active monitor.  Reed’s tails slipped through the door as she ducked in, applying just enough force to soften the sound of it closing behind her.  It gave the place a strange liminal look; it wasn’t dark with one person working in the darkness, and it wasn’t lit like it would be during active hours.  Instead it was caught in between; heavy shadows and the enhanced air conditioning sounds muffling everything outside of the back corner that was being used.

Reed kept low to the ground, for some reason feeling like she was obligated to be weird about this, as she prowled by the edge of one of the long tables.  Not going under it; never going under it, that would ruin so much cabling work.  But keeping herself hidden, until she was able to round a corner, stand to her full height - she still wasn’t used to being short - and cross her arms at the girl staring at the monitor.  The supposedly normal human teenager, thick headphones over her ears, had a notebook out that looked like it was about three quarters full of cryptic details so far, and she also had apparently no peripheral vision, because she didn’t react ot Reed at all.

Reed had no idea what to do now.  She cleared her throat, the noise coming out as a wet clicking before she remembered that the physical action of doing that was different as a ratroach if she didn’t want to end up coughing.  But still no reaction.  She shifted on one paw, and then realized this was going to be a lot funnier than expected, but only for her.

It took three minutes for Emma to actually notice, and only when she paused the video she was on and started to scrub back through it for a specific point.  The shadow of the woman standing next to her suddenly registering as not belonging in her brain.

Emma screamed, and whipped around, something flowing into her hand in a small exhale of grey fog as came very, very close to stabbing Reed in the chest before she slipped and fell out of her chair.

Reed just looked down at her, knowing that she had exactly one chance to not seem like the kind of person whose heart was about to detonate from the spike in her blood pressure.  “Please don’t swing the knives that cut wi-fi around in the room where we have all the public work computers.”  She said.

”Ow.”  Emma said from the tile floor.  “Oh no!  I’m sorry, I-!”

”Also please don’t swing knives at me?”  Reed’s voice squeaked, as she tried to downplay the moment.  “Emma why are you in here?”

The girl scrambled to her feet, standing almost like she was at attention, but still clutching the bronze blade she’d just conjured.  “I’m sorry, I can leave!”  She said.

”…That’s not really what I asked…” Reed wasn’t good at this kind of thing.  “Are you doing okay?  I mean, you’re supposedly in school, you probably should be asleep, right?  So why… also you can put the knife down… why are you…?”

The knife hit the side of the keyboard with a sharp clatter as Emma practically flung it at the table.  “Sorry!”

Reed sighed, and ran two of her paws down the length of her muzzle, tugging at her whiskers in a way that, despite her frustration, still felt just so cool.  “Are you still working on Wastes stuff?”

”…yeah.”  Emma admitted guiltily.  “I’m not going fast enough, and I thought…” she trailed off.

Reed chittered as she pulled a rolling chair over, flicking her tails out of the way before she sat down on it to face the younger human.  “I think child labor laws say we aren’t supposed to keep you here on a school night.”  She pointed out.

”I’m not a kid.”  Emma replied with an indignant huff.  “I am almost nineteen!  I don’t even know why I have to go to school anyway, when I have a normal job now.”

The switch to righteous defensiveness was so abrupt that Reed found herself snickering awkwardly at it.  That, and the strategic deployment of the word ‘almost’.  “Normal job.”  She muttered.  “Also you’re in school because you never finished high school?”  Reed pointed out, going off what she knew of the other girl from a pretty limited set of interactions.  “You can just get your GED if you want I guess?  I dunno, I’d have killed someone to have a fun high school experience though.”  She paused to look away for a moment, deeply annoyed at the one common emotion she seemed to share with James.  “Anyway go to bed!  The Wastes delves can wait, and besides, doing it all on your own means you aren’t cross referencing with other people so it’s not as helpful!”

”…Oh.”  Emma ducked her head.  “Sorry.  I just… wanted to be useful…”

That got a glowing grimace out of Reed, who, despite her daily life, somehow always felt blindsided by the constant theme of traumatized people in the Order seeking to prove their value out of fear.  Including herself, if she were being honest.  It just felt somehow worse to hear a human kid say the thing that she usually heard from ratroaches.  “Cool, you know you can just ask, right?”  She told Emma.

”If I’m useful?”

”For something useful to do.”  Reed sighed and spun back and forth in her chair, trying to motion for Emma to sit down, but the girl just kept standing like she was being interrogated.  “If you don’t sit down I’m standing up, and I’ll be sad, because I’m lazy.”  Reed decided on a new tactic.

Emma sat.  “Okay, but… I’m not smart.  And I know I broke all the rules about being an adventurer and a fighter while I’m a girl, it’s not that, they never… I don’t have to… that part’s okay.  This is just the one thing I actually know how to do, and…”

”I worked in a tech support call center before this.”  Reed cut in.  “You are allowed to learn things.”  She gave a quick chitter as she shook her head.  “And there’s so much random stuff that we need done around here, especially for the next few days, since everyone’s… you know…”

”Hurt.”  Emma whispered.

”Well most people aren’t hurt too bad.  And I think it’s some kind of medical privacy violation to tell you about the people who are?”  Reed grimaced again.  One guy had lost an arm, and she only knew that because Deb had called her to discuss the merits of a permanent magically assisted prosthetic versus a large scale shaper surgery.  “But my main assistants are both in quarantine, along with half of Research.  So if you want to help, I do have an opening for someone that makes poor life choices and pokes dangerous dungeontech!”

It was weird working without Nik.  Reed hadn’t noticed how much she relied on him.

Emma didn’t hear that part, exactly.  Instead, she heard what she wanted to hear.  “I can keep working here?”

”Emma I’m not firing you.”  Reed had clearly said something wrong, she assumed.  “I’m telling you that you have school tomorrow, and it’s weird that you’re doing a job I gave you at… 2:33 AM!”  An auspicious time, Reed knew.  There were probably people assembling in what used to be the break room she ate lunch in, waiting for a door to another world to open up for them.  “I’m basically one step away from calling your guardian, but you are an adult-shaped person, and also… actually wait you live in Townton!  How did you get here this late?”

”Oh I’ve been here all day.”  Emma said.

”That’s so much worse.”  Reed groaned.  “You see how that’s worse?”  She could already tell Emma did not see how that was worse, nor did she get the reference.  Reed really needed to just start making people watch stuff so they got her references.

Emma blinked owlishly as if she hadn’t really considered that maybe, maybe, a nineteen year old student should actually do something other than just generate progress on a Research project.  “Oh.”  She muttered.  “I… I did take a break?  Does that help?”

Reed really, really did not want to interrogate the singular that was in there.  “Sure.”  She sighed.  “Go sleep.  You can come find me tomorrow and help me with the useful truck, okay?”

“Instead of-“

”After you’re out of school.”  Holy shit Reed sounded like her parents.  She didn’t know when this had happened but she didn’t like it, and there was a non-zero amount of consideration that maybe she should just tell Emma it was okay to ignore her and show up anyway.  But she didn’t say it out loud.  Reed was getting better, but there was still too much lag between her thoughts and her social instincts on what she should actually vocalize.  Body swapping into an infinitely sexier and slightly more insectile body hadn’t changed that she was still a massive dumbass when it came to other people, as far as she could tell.

Emma started to scowl at him, then caught herself and snapped back to looking both guilty and chastized.  And that time, Reed noticed.  The sudden shift in emotional expression, the way her hands clenched, the small signs that were actually quite obvious because teenagers were never really that good at deception.

And Reed remembered that Emma was a brainwashing victim.

”I can-“

”You can decide.”  Reed cut her off, tails swishing behind her chair as she stopped rotating back and forth.  “Personally I think school sounds more fun?  And we aren’t in a rush with anything.  I know there’s some stuff going on with your brain, so I’m telling you, as an official adult, that it’s cool if you want to take time to hang out with your friends and learn abouuuut… Shakespeare?”  She took a random stab.

Emma frowned.  “Don’t you know what they teach us?”

”Not even remotely!”  Reed cheerfully confirmed.

Emma’s frown stayed in place, her next words forced out and bitter.  “You shouldn’t treat me like that just because of… of what happened.”

”Yeah I should?”  Reed blinked her eyes in rows, enjoying the sensation of the deliberately perplexed motion.  “Because what happened to you is real, your feelings are real, and I am also real, and so I get to do what I want!  So I’m telling you it’s cool, you can skip class if you want.  But I’m giving you permission to not do that?  Does that make sense?”

”It does and I hate it.”  Emma scowled at her.  “It shouldn’t… I shouldn’t… it’s so stupid that there’s magic words that make me feel better!”

”Yeah that’s… that’s everyone.”  Reed said sadly.  “You’re just a more extreme case.  Anyway, tomorrow!  Go to bed, padawan”  She said, hopping lightly to her feet.  Paws.  Whatever.

Emma nodded, before realizing Reed wasn’t going to let her just go back to working on the next delve recording.  “Alright, tomorrow.”  She said with a clearly defeated sigh.

Reed still stuck around to make sure Emma actually went home.  She felt like there was something deeply unsettling about the way the abused Mormon kids acted sometimes.  They could be normal kids one moment, and then all of a sudden, their behavior could slam into a mental wall when they tripped one of the Mindful Reverberation conditionings they’d gone through.  But so much of what was etched into their brains was just… the same traumas that a lot of the normal adults in Reed’s life had, only enforced to an extreme degree.  The need to be useful, the need to obey authority figures, the need to act ‘properly’, all of that was stuff that had been hammered into her own skull back when that skull was shaped more anthropomorphicly.  And it was stuff Reed was still trying to heal from.

It was really hard to get past the ingrained obsession with generating wealth, or the hostile attitude toward sex, or the way she still choked back talking to anyone about her hobbies because she’d been conditioned to believe that mentioning Star Wars to anyone would get her laughed at at best.

The world sucked enough already without needing to magically brainwash teenagers to believe it was their fault.  Reed just wished she had an easier fix for it than ordering Emma to work around it.

Maybe they could figure it out tomorrow.  Well, tomorrow for Emma.  Reed was wired on two energy drinks and an absorbed yellow orb, and she wasn’t going to sleep for a while.

_____

There was a sound from the stairs outside the apartment.

Camile the Crimson did not move from her position.  The sound was a steady set of the same noise, over and over.  A brief rasp, then a heavy thump, then some kind of shuffling.  Over and over, getting closer.  In this city, it could mean anything.  It most likely wasn’t going to try to kill her though.

But she still had a brief moment of wishing she had a different set of senses than the ones gifted by her father.  Though, if something was hunting her…

Camille the Crimson cycled through her Victim sense, poking at the threads that bound her to outsized threats.  Things she could never possibly handle, that would turn her into prey rather than opposition.  It was something she had never actually thought to do before, but there was something about being here that made her feel uniquely vulnerable.  And not just because her armor wasn’t on.

She was being forced to adapt to a situation that required more creative use of her strength to survive.  Or at least, that was what she was telling herself, and ignoring the smaller thoughts that told her that she wasn’t sure she actually wanted to leave the place with hot showers and a soft place to sleep and a man that treated her painfully like a real daughter and not…

The Crimson cut off that line of thought and focused on her Victim sense.  It drained quickly, she was new enough that she hadn’t had the time to truly train it the way her sisters here had with their own.  But it was enough, when turned inward, to see two things.

Whatever was approaching the door had, somehow, the potential to weave itself into her identity as a victim.  But it was not something that would make her one, which was, at least, a small amount of safety.  And the other thing she saw was the impossible crushing weight of the cords that bound her to a thing that loomed in the darkness behind the curtain of reality.

Camille snapped her extra eye shut before it ran out.  It would be inappropriate to give herself a headache by misusing her power.  Ignoring everything except the useful information, she stood sharply and moved to open the front door before anyone could make her headache worse by knocking.

When she did pull it open with a quick tug, there was nothing in her line of sight.  It took a minute amount of time for her to scan downward and see the camraconda, along with one of the unnerving living camera drones sitting on its head, but that was still enough time that the Crimson knew she was more rattled than was proper.  Though she did also notice the camraconda was curled like they were planning on waiting without knocking at all.  Almost like they’d expected that she would hear the approach and react accordingly.

”Yes?”  She said.

The drone on the camraconda’s head started tapping at the snake with one of its bat-like rotor wings, pointing with the other one up at Camille.  The camraconda didn’t move their head though, instead seeming to stare straight into the Crimson’s legs.  “Yes thank you.”  They said out loud with a voice she recognized as TQ’s from the repeated conversations of her sister’s that she’d eavesdropped on.  “But while they look the same, this is not the correct person.”

The drone seemed to deflate, before crawling to the edge of TQ’s head, and bracing itself to peer up at Camille.  Then the tapping and pointing started again.

”Your… companion… is correct.”  Camille didn’t know the proper word.  “I am Camille the Crimson.  You are looking for my sister.”  She paused, and then offered more information as a gesture of goodwill.  “Identifying scars are the most useful way to tell us apart.  Though for the Azure… for Cam… you are also looking for wings.”

”Yes, and her coat.”  TQ agreed.  “It is very distinctive.”  The drone finally gave up on signaling, and seemed to settle back onto TQ’s head.  “Now, we can deduce that Cam is not here today!  This is information.  Our fact finding mission has progressed!”  The drone seemed to perk up at the words.

”She is in quarantine.”  Camille offered.  It had been more than a day now, and it was… an alien sensation.  Being alone, in a home that wasn’t hers.  “Did you require her assistance?”

TQ hissed softly, still not moving his head.  “Only in a recreational sense.”  He explained.  “I had forgotten Underburbs procedures.  And I require minds that will play board games with me.”

”…why?”

”Oh I have simply not been trained on the new protocols, and did not participate in the most recent action.”  TQ explained.

”No.” Camille bluntly corrected, either him or herself, she wasn’t sure.  “Why do you require minds?”

TQ hissed joyously.  “Because I am very bored!”  He told her.  “Being disabled has reduced the number of activities I can easily participate in!”

Camille gave him a second look, trying to understand what injury he was talking about.  And then, it registered in her mind that TQ wasn’t moving his head.  He made no indication like every other camraconda she had seen that he was watching or emoting.  “I apologize.”  She found herself saying quickly.  “I did not realize you were blind.”

”It is temporary.”  TQ assured her calmly.  “Would you be amenable to socialization?”

”I…” Camille had been about to answer in the negative on reflex.  But something stopped her.  She wasn’t quite sure what it was, but the adaptation she had gone through had led her to the relatively new behavior of internally asking followup questions over what had previously seemed like basic situations.  She blamed the Azure for this.  But also, it meant that before she could finish vocalizing a ‘no’, she was asking herself a ‘why’.

Why was she about to say no on reflex?  Well, because she was a daughter of the Last Line Of Defense.  She didn’t socialize.  She didn’t waste time on entertainment.  She was required to maintain a ready state at all times for the next mission.

But that wasn’t true here, was it?  She might be a Camille, but she wasn’t currently on standby for a combat role.  She didn’t socialize because of… well, because of a whole web of interactions in her standing orders, none of which applied here.  She could socialize if she wanted to.  The only question was if she wanted to.

”I have never socialized.”  Camille the Crimson told the camraconda on the doorstep of the home she had been waiting in.

”It is a terrifying experience.”  TQ said as if that was supposed to be helpful agreement.  “I have found that lingering quietly around specific people you like, until you find yourself capable of being vulnerable with them, is a very effective track to take.”

That sounded like a lie.  ”Really.”  Camille wasn’t above a little sarcasm sometimes.

TQ hissed humorously.  “Sometimes.”  He said.  “Other times I simply acquire new people by inviting them to play games I have stolen from James’ apartment.  Would you like to learn how to play Cosmic Encounter?  You can excuse it as training strategic thinking!”

Camille started to raise her hand off the doorframe, then paused. ”I am disappointed in myself to learn that this does work on me.”  She said slowly.  “Will there be food?”

”Yes.  Though if you require food I will bring you food.  Cam and Ami were… similar.”  TQ said sadly.  “Oh!  Or you can eat many of the various plants in the park!  Did you know, not all of them are edible, even if you expend the proper effort?”

Camille the Crimson didn’t know what that meant, and didn’t want to know what that meant, because she wasn’t sure she could handle tracing her own future along the path her sisters were walking at the moment.  Instead she just nodded, and then realized that it was unlikely the camraconda could see her do that.  “I am interested.”  She said.  “But the Ochre has instructed me to know my limits, and so I may at some point abruptly flee.”

”Oh, excellent!  You have reached the fun stage of conversational banter much faster than either of them!”  TQ said happily.  “Now!  I am going to be rude and ask you to carry me down the steps!”

”…how did you get up the steps?”  The Crimson asked slowly, trying to connect the sound she had heard to serpentine motion.

”Deliberately.”  TQ replied without answering.

_____

Ava and Hidden were practicing their stealth techniques when they intruded on a deeply personal moment.

It was easy to say that they were ninja-like in their behavior when they were out in the normal world.  Hidden was a little baby about it sometimes, but Ava loved sneaking into buildings she wasn’t supposed to be in, and just… opening doors.  She’d reached the age where she felt like she was supposed to have a philosophy about life, and so her philosophy was that she should be allowed to look in any door that said ‘employees only’ on it.

But here, in the Lair, that was harder to do.  There were other infomorphs here, for one thing, which meant Hidden didn’t have a whole deck of escape cards.  But also, the knights were trained to spot people sneaking the way Ava liked to sneak.  And while her mom was wrong and it wasn’t pouting, she had been appropriately indignant to learn that they were training on her and Hidden, which she felt like she should get paid for.

Their mom had informed them, when Ava pitched that, that they were paid in all the pastries they stole out of the Lair’s bakery.  Which was both fair and also meant they needed practice because the new guy who ran the bakery had a list of what they’d taken, and that meant they were getting caught.

So Ava and Hidden were ‘training’ in sneaking.  One of the few things they actually agreed on doing, because as Ava’s official younger sister, Hidden was wrong about everything all the time by default.  But it was slow going because they didn’t really know where to start.  The thing was, they kind of knew what was going wrong; they were being spotted by their opposite form, and then located when a better set of eyes was brought in.  Mostly humans that couldn’t see past Hidden’s baffling that were still seeing signs of Ava’s passing and reporting them, but also some assignments that Ava had learned to evade getting a sense for where Hidden was and pairing the two of them.

But practicing meant learning how to sneak against the people who they weren’t good at evading.  And that meant hard work.  And Ava was a lot of things, but focused wasn’t one of them, as Hidden repeatedly reminded her.  Still, they were trying.

Which was why they were creeping through the bamboo around Moth Courtyard, one of the little community gathering places around the apartments their family lived in, and trying to figure out how to not be noticed in a more unified way than just Hidden prodding minds away from looking at them.

And it was where they found Planner.  Kind of a lot of Planner, given how much of their manifestation was sitting at the end of one of the open circles of space at the corner of the walking path.  And who better to practice on than someone who was mostly eyeballs?

Hidden felt like maybe it was a little rude, since Planner was talking to someone, but she still helped out.  Wrapping the two of them tightly in her latest attempt at folding attention away from them, without changing anyone’s thoughts in a way that was noticeable.  Ava helped the effort by getting down into the soil that the bamboo and ferns were growing out of, accepting the future disappointed look from their mom at the state of her shirt as she pulled herself and her sister forward slowly, minimizing the amount of attention that needed to be deflected and also trying to do it without disturbing any of the plants.  Because that was noticeable too.

It was probably partly working because someone walked by and didn’t even glance their way.  And after a few minutes of holding back delighted giggling as they got closer and closer, they were practically right on top of Planner.  Close enough to hear the assignment speaking, actually, their angularly coiled tentacle limbs and bundle of eyes focused on something off the side of the path that Ava couldn’t see but that definitely wasn’t a person.  So talking to themself, maybe?

“Eavesdropping is rude!”  Hidden passed the thought to Ava directly, instead of whispering.

Ava replied the same way, the process second nature to her by now and just as easy as using her lips to talk.  “We’re not in a house, there’s no eaves here!”  She’d been saving that one.

”That… you… but… fine!  But I’m not listening!” Her sister stuttered back at her.

”I am!  I’m curious!”  Ava’s internal laughter wrapped around Hidden’s trepidation like a happy blanket.

About fifteen feet away, Planner kept speaking to themself, clearly not noticing their dedicated stealth efforts.  “…job that I am not suited for.  Or, perhaps that is wrong.  Not made for.”  The infomorph sighed, tentacles shifting loosely as they did so.  “We know the rule, that life is not to be made to be tools, and I love them all so much for holding to that ideal.  But I was, as you would know.  Made for a purpose.  And I know I am not bound to it, and thank you for that, but some days I do wish it were so simple that I knew what I was doing.”

Planner stopped talking, thirty slitted eyes rotating around from the tentacles they were embedded within, and for a moment Ava assumed they’d been caught.  But then they just settled themself again, the manifestation’s limbs flowing as if in a river current as they made a motion that was almost like a bow or something.  “But I did it anyway.  Am doing it.  Am improving, day by day.  I am going to take care of them, come hell or high water, and they are going to know they can trust me with their lives.”  They paused.  “Did you ever see this happening?  Was it what you wanted for me?  I wish I could ask you.”

They went quiet, and Ava had the sudden sinking feeling that she was listening in on something that was too private.  That wasn’t a funny joke anymore, but that she was way too close to escape from without drawing notice and making someone - making Planner - upset.

Planner’s floating form, stripped of all the angles they normally held themself in, seemed to twist in on itself as they made a sad musical sound.  A note of regret and sympathy.  “I hope you would be proud of me.”  They told whatever they were talking to, before their movements smoothed out, and some of their tentacles brushed others into position.  “Now then.  Hello girls.”  Planner said in their more normal voice.  Their guarded voice, Ava realized.

Well, she realized that, and then also realized that they’d been made.

”Scatter!”  Ava declared, rolling one way while Hidden peeled off from her in a bloom of ethereal teal scales and made to escape through the bamboo.

Neither of them made it more than ten feet before Planner caught them.  “Now.”  The assignment said as the two girls were deposited from the tentacles that had snared them with almost contemptuously casual grapples and settled before Planner’s main manifestation.  “While I appreciate the attempt at self betterment, I would ask that you refrain from interrupting anyone in this place in the future, please.”

”Sorry!”  Ava defaulted to apologetic right away, and actually meant it too.  She felt like she’d made a mistake, in a very guilty way.

Hidden, surprisingly, went a different direction.  “What… is this place?”  She asked Planner, her eel body twisting to try to see past the other assignment.  “Or, why here?” She added as Ava tried to hush her.

Planner didn’t take offense though.  Instead, their tentacles shifted aside, their main body moving like some kind of enormous anemone, moving to reveal a piece of rock that was set on the side of the out of the way walking path through the basement’s gardens.  Except it wasn’t a piece of rock, Ava realized.  It was too clean, a rectangle with rounded corners that was settled back among the first row of growing bamboo, and it had a little stone shelf at the base with a candle on it.

A gravestone.  Was someone buried here?

“Who…” Hidden started to ask, and Planner interrupted by layering a tentacle under the single line of writing on the rock, bringing it into focus for both of them.

For you, unremembered.

”A long time ago,” Planner said with their clean voice of a pen on parchment, unwavering as they explained, “there was someone else like me in the Order.  Did you know, no one knows where I came from?”  It seemed like such an abrupt tangent, but Ava was listening raptly.  “The Order of Endless Rooms didn’t know how to incept infomorphs when I arrived, nor how to convert aggressive ones until much later after I had grown.  I remember what I was before, I remember being a memetic curse.  I remember what I am now, a person living among hundreds of biological minds and companions.  But no one, including me, knows what changed.”

”They did.”  Ava said, getting it.  “It’s like when people spot us from the things we bump into, right?  You know there was someone hiding.”

”Not hiding.”  Planner’s voice wasn’t sad, but it felt like there was an ocean of sorrow concealed by the proper tone.  “Gone.  Lost.”  Their eyes turned back to the stone marker.  “I come here, from time to time, to pay respects.  And to update them, if there is anything left, on what their actions have rippled into.”

Hidden moved forward, sliding past Planner to face the memorial stone with every eye on her body.  “Who put this here, then?”  She asked.  “You?”

”I do not know.”  Planner said with a curious chuckle.  “Perhaps it is not even for who I think it is for.”

”Who were they?”  Ava asked, curious herself.

Planner’s chuckle this time was definitely sadder, and even she noticed.  ”I do not know that either.”  They said.  “And it has been advised that we never learn, as doing so could cause harm.  So I suppose their name will always be hidden to me.  Just one of life’s obligatory secrets.”  Their tentacles gave a rippling undulation out from the core of their manifestation, before they refocused on the two girls.  “Now as for your stealth efforts,” Planner’s voice snapped back to aloof business, “do try not to crawl through any material soft enough to be displaced by your passing.  It ruins any better interdiction your sister has crafted for you.”  They motioned back to the small furrow Ava had left in the soil.

”…Oh.”  Ava’s cheeks heated up in embarrassment.

”Best of luck on future attempts.”  Planner told them both politely as Hidden tried to wrap around Ava’s head and flick at her face with her fins.  “Do fix up the garden before you make them though.”  They said, as they folded their manifestation up, vanishing from view, and leaving behind two sisters who had a brand new chore to take care of before they went back to sneaking around the emptied out Lair. 

_____

Faye and Oliver were hardly the strangest kids to live with the Order of Endless Rooms.

Being barely into their teens was a little weird, sure, because everything was weird at that age.  Every experience was at least a little new, but they weren’t even close to the youngest people here.

Being rescues from a Status Quo wasn’t weird either.  People who had been rescued from something actually accounted for a shocking portion of the core membership of the Order, though most of them weren’t Status Quo related.

Being human was actually a little strange, but only because they had to suddenly account for the fact that human wasn’t the only option.  But that was too cool to actually feel weird about.

Being in the possession of strange and obtuse magical powers also wasn’t that odd.  Plenty of the other people who’d come from Status Quo had magic, and had even shared it sometimes.  Someone had birthday magic.  Someone else had… well, they kind of were like the Pylon’s skill levels, but so fragmented it was practically useless.  Compared to that, the mild shapeshifting tricks that Oliver and Faye had were basically unimportant.

That was what was weird.

Their parents had vanished one day, along with Sophie’s parents, leaving the kids in the charge of a bunch of comically unsuited shapeshifting protectors.  The three teens were all aware of what both their parents and the Order called dungeons, and they all had a little magic themselves, but they’d never been in serious danger or anything.  So when their parents had never come back, and their protectors had taken them on the run before the final confrontation that had led to their capture, it had felt like the most important adventure in the world.

And to them, it was.  The stakes were high, and they fucking knew it, because their friend was dead.  One of the mimics was dead too, and even if the surviving kids kind of never wanted to see them again, they hadn’t wanted them to get shot.  Rise had been nice to them.  Or at least, she’d been funny.

But now they were here, where their story was everyone’s story.  And that was what was so weird to them.  They were suddenly normal for the place they were.  They weren’t adventurers or heroes or fugitives or anything, really.  They were kids, who had to be reminded to wash their hands before meals, who had their own hobbies and preferences, and who might not ever really recover from the complete destruction of their daily lives.

All of this was explained secondhand to Connie, who, in turn, was explaining it thirdhand to Lua during one of their catchup lunches.

”You know when I told you that we needed therapists, I wasn’t trying to trap you in an elaborate web.”  Lua told her friend with a friendly voice and a hint of a smile.

”Don’t use your therapy tone on me.”  Her old college roommate replied.  “I’ve been here long enough to settle in.  I’m worried, which is why this is a business lunch and not a friend lunch.”

Lua let her mind work as she took a small bite of salad.  “And why we’re in your office.”  She surmised.  Talking about patients wasn’t a matter for idle gossip.  If there was something that needed to be shared, it was done behind closed doors and with a full record of what and why.  “Most of that lines up with Oliver’s own experiences.  But I’m a school counselor, Connie, I don’t see everyone.  And Faye goes to Greenway.”

”Still weird you didn’t take the promotion.”  Connie pointed out with a shake of her head.  Who would want to work at a normal school when they could work at a magical one instead?  Lua surprised her sometimes.  “Well, I’m worried, so what’s different?”

”Oliver doesn’t see himself as an outsider.”  Lua summarized.  “He’s coping with grief and regret, and he is still afraid of being outed about his magic.  I think it’s probably a good idea to let him and Faye know that we know something, but that we’ll be keeping it confidential.  Transparency early always helps.”

”Doesn’t it just.”  Connie muttered.

Lua’s return smile was a little sad.  ”But all of that is because he doesn’t think of himself as out of place.  He understands that he’s a victim and that things have changed, but he’s moving forward.  It’s… it’s impressive.  For someone his age.”

”You sure he isn’t just playing it cool, trying to impress his school counselor with how mature he is?”  Connie prodded with her own sad grin.  They’d both seen that enough times to know it was a real possibility.

”Oh, maybe.”  Lua sighed.  “But even then, it’s not all that.”  She speared a cucumber out of the container she’d been given before her eyes met Connie’s again.  “Have you also talked to Faye’s therapist?”

Connie nodded with pursed lips, the woman’s cheeks puffing out as she transitioned to a disappointed shake of her head.  “He had similar things to say.”  She said.  “I think I know what I’m seeing here.  Prince, and to a lesser extent Ruby, are projecting their own experiences onto the kids they’re not around anymore.”

”Well yes Connie, I’m not blind.”  Lua laughed.  “Far from it.  Oh, congratulations on your own recent level up, by the way.  Welcome to Empathy three.”

”Feels like cheating.”  Connie said as she bit through a crouton, flicking around bits of greenery in her salad to find another of the cubes.  “And that isn’t a complaint either, before you start on me!  I can feel it coming!”

”Well yes that is rather the point.”  Lua said with a pleased smile.  “But I don’t want to sidetrack us.  It sounds like you already know what the issue is, so why did you really want to talk about it?”

The sigh Connie gave was the long-suffering noise of someone whose professional peers were all mental health practitioners and whose personal life had a lot of overlap.  Not that she was innocent of using the polite prompt for information voice on people, but she knew, for a fact, that Lua did it to her because Lua thought her reaction was funny.  And now she really did know it, with her Empathy stat climbing higher and higher.  Not that she hadn’t confirmed it a long time ago by just asking, but this way was, itself, more amusing.

She was also in danger of getting sidetracked.  Empathy could do that, especially every time she advanced it and hadn’t gotten used to the new sense yet.  “The problem is, I don’t think it’s something we’ve seen before.”  Connie told her peer.

”Oh?”

”Oh.”  She agreed, pulling a face.  “The feeling isn’t right.  And the way they talk… I checked my notes from our sessions, and I think it’s getting worse.  Less so for Ruby, actually, but I do believe that they’re both undergoing a mental shift that isn’t something humans experience.  Not just normally, but at all.”

Lua set her fork down with polite precision. ”It can be hard to remember that some of our friends are really quite a bit different from us, especially when they have very human bodies, hm?”

”It’s not just that, though.  I know you’ve talked to more than a few ratroaches, so you know how they are.  Their minds are human minds.  Or close enough that the details simply don’t matter.  And I know you’re a little out of the loop, but I’ll tell you, most of what I suppose we call ‘sophont’ is similar.  Oh, there’s quirks.  Camracondas are a good example!  But umbral?  Crocamaws?  Other Sewer life?  Stuff animals?  They’re all so very much like us, just at different stages of development.”

”Chanters?”  Lua asked, noticing the absence.

”I haven’t worked with them much but Alice Lidel and Indira Mahasahra have an excellent and extensively researched study on the communication challenges faced by chanters, and quite a lot of it touches on the primary difference in us.  Their innate ability to express raw emotions naturally leads to a reliance on having access to that information, and it isn’t just cultural either.  Even without a formal language during their… captivity…” Connie shuddered.  “They still have to deal with an instinctive fear that comes from being ‘blind’ to emotional cues.  And also this isn’t what I wanted to talk about!”

Lua was already looking up the study.  “Well yes, but I’m interested now!  You know me, I do love helping people, and I love people in the abstract, but I got into this field for a reason after all.”

”If I recall, your reason was that it was the farthest thing from ‘doctor’ that your dad would still pay for.”  Connie pointed out.

”And if you ever tell anyone my secret, I’ll be very upset.”  Lua promised with a smiling nod.  It was a testament to their friendship that, while Connie did roll her eyes, she didn’t once think about selling Lua out.  “But also I really do like psychology, and you know it.  Don’t make me look like the most mercenary therapist on the planet.”

Connie gave a sudden snort of laughter.  “Sorry, I just thought… I had the image of trying to give therapy to one of the Wolfpack.”

”Ah.”  Lua’s eyes turned sad.  “I do worry about them, too.”  She said softly.  “But that’s neither here nor there.  You were talking about our mimics.”  She paused, and added with a folding of her hands, “Well, some of our mimics.  A bit of a loaded word, isn’t that one?”

”I’m sure it won’t be a problem in the long term.”  Connie lied quickly.  “But yes.  It’s a challenge with a sample size of two, but… well, but I think I’ve stumbled onto a problem that we might need a name for coming up.”

”Connie, stop dancing around it, and tell me what’s bothering you.”  Lua pressed.

Her friend shook her head, but kept talking anyway.  “I think their species are… are role mimics.”  Connie said.  “Shapeshifters, sure, but… Prince has started to open up a little more to me, and he’s talked about what he and his siblings were like before they were put in charge of the kids.  Or rather, what they weren’t like.”

”They weren’t… actually I suppose I’m curious.  How did they end up as the guardians for a bunch of second generation delvers after all?”  Lua asked.

”They were bullied into it by the first generation of delvers.”  Connie said bluntly.  “Because before that, they weren’t people.”

Lua froze, before pushing what was left of her meal into the middle of the desk they were using as a table.  “You mean they were made to be tools?”  She asked with the quiet sorrow of someone who saw that too much among human children where it was figurative and not literal.

”No, Lu, I mean they were dungeon monsters with no personalities, and then they were somehow shoehorned into the role they got, and it’s… self-reinforcing.”  Connie took a deep breath.  “As long as they’re keeping those kids safe, they’re the people they need to be to keep those kids safe.”

”…And now Faye and Oliver want nothing to do with them.”  Lua said slowly.  “And they’re… is it a form of cognitive decline?”

”Far too soon to say.  I can’t even tell you if it’s an external magic or not, or if it’s more like a psychological imprinting.”  Connie threw her hands up.  “I can’t tell you why Ruby seems less affected either!  But what I can say is that they’re both… spiraling.  Slowly, but I once I thought it, I couldn’t stop seeing it.  Their whole worldview centers around those two children.”

Lua pursed her lips.  That was a problem.  “Have they noticed?”  She asked quietly.

”I think Ruby has.  That might be why she’s… resisting it?  Less affected?  But Lu, if they really are reliant on… on their orders to be people…”

Connie didn’t finish the sentence.  There were a hundred different implications there, most of them were bad, and silence was a lot easier to stomach than saying any of them out loud, even if it let all of them speak at once in the background.

There wasn’t a good answer that Lua could think of, but she did have a question that could maybe serve as a starting point.  “Is it that they need to be… is it parental?  Or something else?”

”They say ‘guardians’, but I don’t think they mean that as ‘parent-or-‘ if you know what I mean.”

”Then… I’d ask, is it the specific people, or the specific job?”  Lua asked.  “Transparency.”  She said with a long exhale.  “You should tell them.  We could tell them, if you’d like help, but if it’s a pattern that you can see, then we should try to find a solution for them before it’s too late.  If this is a degenerative condition…”

”I’d want to know.”  Connie said distantly.  She gazed at the far wall for a minute before shaking out of the thick silence.  “I see where you’re going though.  If they just need to be doing the task, there’s always room on the youth group staff roster.”

Lua nodded back.  “In a worst case, we could perhaps set them up as foster parents?  Goodness knows we need more people for that job as well.”

”You could always say yes!”  Connie ribbed her friend.

”I love my job.”  Lua said pleasantly.  “I love working with the children that come through my office.  I love being a positive influence on their lives.”

”…And…?”

”And I also love sleeping, so no, I will not be signing up for that particular program.”  Lua laughed, and after a moment to process the joke, her friend joined her.  “Now, while it’s always a delight to see you, I do have to get back to my day job.  And I suspect you do too!”

Connie sighed with all the force of a theater kid who missed the stage.  “It turns out, the Order is great job security for therapists.”  She said, earning a rich laugh from the other woman before Lua left her private office.

_____

Caller-Of-Midnight poked his head through into the Townton alchemy laboratory.  Carefully.  Just in case something was going to explode again.

There was no sign of disruption.  So the camraconda used his armature - one of the new style, with the arms in front, which he didn’t like and had notes for the designers of - to pull the door more fully open as he slithered in with his cargo in tow.

”Delivery!”  He announced to the front room, digital voice echoing.  Caller-Of-Midnight was considering shaper surgery to get his own voice - not his own arms - but for now, he liked the way he could raise the volume without any real effort.

The front room had once been a waiting area, and was now sort of like a vestibule for visitors that wanted to observe alchemists in their natural habitat.  Or at least, that was how he thought of it.  The people that worked with the alchemy magic were their own particular strain of strangeness within the Order, and Midnight was pretty sure it was because the alchemy process was intentionally lying to everyone.

As a retaliatory action, all the alchemist specialists were insane.  So that the magical potion cacti had to suffer along with them.  Which was why the front area had crates of glass bottles stacked up next to busy whiteboards and walls with lots of warning posters tacked up on them.  And also no good seating.  Apparently alchemy required you to not sit down.  Caller-Of-Midnight wasn’t going to ask.

”Good!”  A voice from somewhere in the room sounded in reply to him.  “Yes, good!”

Caller-Of-Midnight tried to track the origin of the sound, assuming it was coming from behind the intake counter of what had once been some kind of human medical office.  He was validated when a short furred form wrapped in a custom fitted clean suit dashed around the edge of the counter, the ratling going right past Midnight to the cargo he’d brought in.

”Someone does need to sign for that.”  He told them.

The ratling’s flat face looked over at him, one of the cardboard boxes held over its head in triumph, before they squeaked awkwardly and raced back around the counter.

Caller-Of-Midnight waited patiently.  It took three minutes for someone else to come out, and this time it was a necroad, which had been strange to see at first.  Normally necroads didn’t go into buildings, or away from a patch of asphalt at all.  But he was used to this one in particular, as he made weekly deliveries to this building, and the same one was always around.

Its grounded claws were padded, since it wasn’t hovering and didn’t want to rip holes in the floor, but the floating form of its upper claws moved in eerily smooth flexing motions as it stomped its way over into Caller-Of-Midnight’s line of sight.

”Hello.  Thank you for the delivery.  I can sign.”  It used, amusingly, the sign for sign as in the manual language it was using as it didn’t know the word for writing its name.

Caller-Of-Midnight caught about half of the words, not actually being very good at sign language himself and being incompetent at ‘speaking’ it, even with the new more dexterous prosthetic arms.  But he got the gist.  “Thank you.  Here is the manifest.”  He handed over a clipboard.  “Do you require-“ there was a glint of light from a small metal bauble that was attached to the necroad’s central body, and then it was handing back the clipboard with the proper lines filled out.  “-a pen.  Nevermind.  Of course.”  It was nice to see that particular leveler item finding use.

It was also nice to finally know the necroad’s name, though Caller-Of-Midnight was reasonably sure that it hadn’t named itself Distance.  That seemed like a human thing.  And now he had Cake lyrics running through his head.  Sometimes the powerful ability to make connections between words was a true burden.

As the necroad helped him unload the cart he was towing around, another voice joined them.  “Is that all our pots?!”  Someone shouted from the back.  “Finally!”

”There are no pots!”  Caller-Of-Midnight yelled back, getting a pause from the necroad that really felt like annoyance, despite the lack of a lot of common emote signifiers.  “There was an incident!”

”What kind of incident?”  The woman shouted back.

”Imbued blue objects treat the effect of the Pylon truck that shrinks things as damage, so a number of pots were lost!”  He turned his volume down slightly so the necroad didn’t get upset at him.  “There is a form you can submit to Research to express your displeasure!”

He heard an amount of swearing from the back, before the woman yelled out again, “Fine, I will!”

”It is a very convenient form.”  Caller-Of-Midnight told Distance as the necroad lifted a forty pound box full of glass vials and began carrying it away.  

The necroad paused, one claw lifting off the box as it held the crate braced against its central body.  “Yes.”  It signed.  “I have heard.”

”My condolences.”  Caller-Of-Midnight sympathized.  “I, too, work with Researchers.”

The necroad didn’t really sigh, but Caller-Of-Midnight felt like the two of them made the kind of connection that felt like a good sigh anyway.

_____

The ratroach woke up, and then… waited.

She wasn’t sure what else to do.

The nest wasn’t uncomfortable anymore.  The needles and tubes were mostly gone, waiting but not stabbed into her unless something went wrong with her body again.  Or for when she needed to be milked so that her body didn’t rebel painfully against itself.  Her flesh and bones had been given the time to heal ‘properly’, which meant it was slow and arduous and often very very itchy.  Her fur had even had time to start growing back, scratchy white patches that would, eventually, overlap the opalescent chitin plates that armored her and made her…

Made her strong.  Had made her strong.  Had used to mark her as powerful and so far above the others that she had owned them like toys.

She didn’t like it anymore.  It hurt, somehow.  Not physically, it didn’t even really itch.  It was just painful to look at.

Thinking about that was also worse than waiting, so she tried to focus on waiting, but quickly ended up with the new emotion she liked least of all.  Boredom.

It had been several sleeps since she had seen… anyone new.  Anyone old, too.  She wasn’t stupid.  She knew exactly how long the doctor, the thing called Holly, was present for each day.  She knew when the guards that were here to hurt her if she disobeyed switched off.  She knew the scents of the people who brought her food and checked her body for failure.  And so, she also knew when there was an unexplained absence of those people.

The room she was in was quiet except for a whirring hum, and it was… safe.  Despite the sharp things and the guards and the implicit threat, it was safer than anything she had ever known.  The nest wasn’t even uncomfortable anymore.  She had told them - she had promised - that she wouldn’t use her claws, and so her arms weren’t even tethered anymore.

But safe had, at some point, stopped being enough.  She didn’t want to sit and wait.  She didn’t want to do nothing.  She wanted…

She didn’t know what she wanted.

And waiting wasn’t working either.  Texture-Of-Barkdust hadn’t been here the last time she’d woken up, or the time before, or this time either.  She had left her here.  Alone.  She didn’t like it.  It was a betrayal.  And just because she was used to being betrayed didn’t mean she liked it.

The problem was, she didn’t know what to do instead of simply laying in the nest and feeling things she didn’t want to feel.  For a while, she tried pretending that Texture-Of-Barkdust had arrived, holding her side of the conversation that she had started to learn the patterns of.  Using her unfamiliar and terrifying voice to say that she had slept enough, that she felt scared by how safe she felt, that she wanted something but didn’t know what it was.  The imaginary Texture-Of-Barkdust bobbed politely, and then asked her why she had killed all the people she had, and that was when she forced herself to stop imagining that conversation.  The soft things in the nest soaked up the faintly glowing liquid that leaked out of her eyes, and she hoped no one would be mad at her for the damage.

And by the time she was bored again, there still wasn’t anyone in the space.  She didn’t quite know how long it had been, 

Was she… alone?  Actually alone?  Had they forgotten her?  Left her?  She couldn’t smell anyone, and she couldn’t twist around to see where her guards always sat out of her sight unless they were helping Holly move things.

There was, unfortunately, only one way to find out.  Well, one way that didn’t involve ripping herself out of her nest, and… she wouldn’t do that.  She didn’t want to.  And that was the only reason.

So she went with the bad idea.  Slowly.  Struggling not with her body but with the feeling of cold fear that choked her throat as she tried to enact her plan.  And only eventually, after what felt like forever, did she manage to make any progress.

”Helllloo?”  Her voice sounded thick and fumbling in the empty space her nest was in.  “H-hello?”  She added pitifully.

Only the whir replied to her.  But then, after a moment, something else.  A shuffling, something moving.  But it didn’t step like the things that guarded or stabbed at her.  It didn’t slither like Texture-Of-Barkdust or the other things like her.  It was moving closer, from where the guards were supposed to be, and it didn’t have a smell she recognized.

Had she killed herself?  Was this space invaded?  Maybe there was no one because they were all dead already, and she had never been safe.  Maybe she should be preparing to fight for her life, like she was made to.  It wouldn’t be hard.  Rip away the remaining tethers, leave the nest, throw herself at whatever was creeping up toward her…

But…

No.

She didn’t want to.  She didn’t want to fight back.  If it was going to kill her… then she was going to close her eyes, and pretend the nest was safe, and warm, and just for her.  And her last moments could be… quiet.

That almost sounded nice.

”Are you alright?”  The voice that interrupted her from the end of her nest sounded like it crackled as it spoke.  And she didn’t know what that meant, but it probably wasn’t going to kill her if it was asking.  Maybe.  Betrayal was still an option.

She opened her eyes, and looked at the guard that had circled around to stand in her line of sight.  And it was… a new thing.  Something different.  It didn’t smell, though the small pieces of clothing it had did, lightly.  Most of it was like a twisted shadow had stood up and started walking; lots of legs and all its paws on its head, and the shadow itself much too bright to be real.  There were colorful circles on it, maybe eyes, and they were looking at her.

”Nnno.”  She said, not saying she wasn’t alright, just a denial of… anything.  To whatever this new thing was.

”Oh.  Okay.  Well, if you need anything, just call!  I’m just filling in, Maria will be back later, just not for the whole day.”

Maria.  That was one of the poking things.  The ones that fed her sometimes, and said words that didn’t make sense.  She didn’t know what they wanted from her, but… if Maria would be back, that meant that she wasn’t dead, and that was… good?  Was it okay for that to be good?

She wished Texture-Of-Barkdust were here.  She could have asked.  Or maybe been told eventually.  It was so much easier when she was told what was okay.

“Are you sure you’re alright?  If something feels wrong I can call someone, and…” The shadow thing offered her.

”No.” She repeated, sagging back into her nest.  “I… it… I am… waiting.”  She settled on saying, not wanting to expose her actual dangerous feeling.

The shadow thing unfurled in front of her eyes, and she tensed up in case it was about to attack, but instead it just moved like it had been hiding limbs and paws inside itself.  One of them extending out with the gesture that the other guard things sometimes made, just… much larger.  A fake fist, with one digit extended upward.  It was supposed to mean something positive, she was certain.  “Gotchya.  I’m kinda bored too.”  It told her that so easily, it almost burned, a kind of pitiful shame filling her gut.

But at least it wasn’t boring.  So she tried to… keep the guard there.  “Where?”  Her voice came out too easily.  So easy that, much like with her other conversations lately, she felt almost compelled to use it more.  “Where is… anyone?”

”Oh yeah, I guess you were asleep, huh?”  The shadow said, settling down on its folding set of legs in front of her nest.  “There was a big fight with a place called the Underburbs.  It’s… uh… it’s like where we come from, except worse.  Or so they tell me!”  They sounded too cheerful about that.  Also she knew they weren’t from where she was from, which meant… what?  It meant something.  The shadow was still talking though, too fast for her to fully keep up.  “So a lot of the docs are in quarantine right now, so they don’t spread around any kind of contagious diseases.  Especially to you!  Getting patients sick is a big no no, I think!  Anyway that’s where a lot of people are.  I hear most of them will be back within a week or so.  I’m just filling in until then.  Oh!  I’m Aurora by the way!  Nice to meet you.  Usually I’ve been here while you’ve been asleep.”

”…okay…” she felt exhausted listening to this thing.  The others never talked this fast.  Or this… this happily?

It was a lot.  It was too much.  Sometimes the slow pace of her body painfully repairing itself filled her with anger she didn’t know what to do with, but at least the way the others talked to her was always within her reach, and they would pause to explain or ensure she wasn’t drowning in the words.

And then Aurora kept talking, adding more on top of that.  “If you need anything simple like food, you can just call for me, I’ll be right over there.  Or if you just wanna talk!  I kinda sorta volunteered, but I’m also a little bored, and I think Su Li left a pack of cards here so if you want to do… uh… actually can your paws handle playing cards?  Maybe that’s a bad idea, I don’t know.  Talking I can do though!”

”…I know.”  She told Aurora, eyes fluttering shut, the fog that had been getting thinner but still held bits of her mind captive making it very difficult to struggle through understanding him.  But she was absolutely certain that he knew how to talk.

“Heh.  Okay, yeah, I know I talk a lot.  You must be tired, I’ll shut up.  Oh, what’s your name, by the way?  Holly said you don’t like being called…” he stopped talking abruptly.  Aurora was relatively new, but you didn’t need to be more two months old to know that it was stupid to say the name that someone hated out loud.  “…what you used to be.”  He finished.

She didn’t.  She shivered anyway, even if he hadn’t spoken it.  “Nnnno name.”  She said, throat vibrating in a way that still felt wrong as it produced the melodious words.

“Oh, okay!  Let me know if you pick one!”  Aurora gave her another thumbs up, and she… didn’t know what to do with that.

She was supposed to pick a name?  She could pick a name?  No.  No, she couldn’t.  She had been bestowed with the right to choose a name before, and it had… it had been… it was everything she had craved and more.  And she had been free, and powerful, and devoted, and her name had marked her as valuable, and it had all ended.  It had twisted around on her, betrayal by betrayal, until there was nothing left except the things poking at her and her nest that slowly became the last safe place in the universe.

No, she didn’t get to pick a name.  It was bad.  She wasn’t… couldn’t.

”Okay…” Aurora’s voice sounded twisted, like some of the ways Holly’s would be when she looked at the papers and screens surrounding the nest.  It was why she liked Texture-Of-Barkdust.  Talking to her, the camraconda’s voice never slipped like that.  It felt safer, somehow.  “Well, like I said, if you wanna play a game or eat or something, just call!  Oh, or if you want to walk around?  Holly left a note about that.  Your legs might be itchy, right?  So if you think you want to walk, just tell me!  Gotta be careful, but we can do that!”

”I can… walk?”  Her eyes widened, smoky glowing blue drops coalescing at their edges.  The information, even delivered by the overly talkative shadow thing, struck deep into her chest.  She could walk?  They were going to let her?  They were letting her?  She had thought…

That the nest was where she would be.  Forever.

But she was wrong.  Of course she was.  She was wrong, that was what she was.  And she didn’t follow that loop of self-inflicted hateful logic to the conclusion that she might be wrong about being wrong.

”Sure!”  Aurora said with a cheerful lack of concern for her inner voice.  “I guess… there’s no note about this, but do you want to step outside for a second?  Get some fresh air?”

Outside was a word that she’d heard repeatedly.  Everyone said it and things like it, and she’d started to realize it was for exiting the space.  In the same way, presumably, that the ones that had always fought her, had exited that space.  Or maybe smaller, like going from one cavern to another.

Outside meant being less safe.  But she wanted to move.  She wanted to feel like her body was at least still useful.  So, she pulled the weight of her head off of the soft things of the nest, and wetly told the shadow thing “Yes.”

“Okay!  Let me help you with the leg things.”  Aurora moved in and she flinched back so painfully that something in her felt like it tugged against the inside of her flesh.  The shadow moved like he wasn’t even paying attention to her as her breathing escalated to a frantic pant, still talking.  “I think they’re supposed to stay on?  But they don’t reach the doors, and also I know you could just take them off whenever you want, so it’s not like they’re doing anything, right?”

That sounded like a question. Was she supposed to answer?  Was it a trap, to admit that he was right?  Maybe if she talked fast enough he’d stop getting so close.  “No!”  She stammered out with her too-smooth voice.  “I can… don’t tell!”  She instantly lost her carefully constructed lie to panic as the thick shadowy fingers brushed against her chitin while unclasping the restraints around her legs.

And then suddenly she wasn’t bound anymore.  Aurora didn’t seem to understand or even really care that it was a change to her world larger than anything as pitiful as what had been done to her body or voice or even mind.  He kept talking with his strange voice that bristled against her hearing, and she just… wasn’t listening.

She could run.  Flee.  Escape.  She didn’t have to be here anymore, because the shadow thing had… had… just let her go.  Unclipped the tethers.  Which meant this must be a trap.  But she wouldn’t be stupid, she would wait for the right moment.  Maybe he was stupid, and there wasn’t anyone lurking to punish her for making the wrong choice.  So she would observe, and be cunning, and…

And figure out what she was doing later.

“Okay!”  Aurora said, stepping back on the scuttling legs that held up his body like it was far heavier than just a simple shadow.  “Wanna try a few steps?”

She didn’t know if she could.  But she did want to try.  That part wasn’t dishonest.  She wanted this, and… it felt so twisted that she thought that Texture-Of-Barkdust wouldn’t be upset with her for wanting to move.

Dragging herself off the nest was difficult.  Her body was too large, too heavy. One of her rear legs kicked something that rolled away with a metallic rattle.  Her tail, still wrapped in soft cloth so that her barbs weren’t a threat to her captors, nearly added a second object to the list of unintended casualties.

And then she was suddenly out of the warmth and the softness.  The cool smoothness of the floor under her paws wasn’t entirely alien, she’d been forced to stand before for them to prod and measure and test her.  But… but there was no one here.  She could see the whole space around her nest, the stiffness and lethargy in her muscles making it difficult but not impossible to crane her neck around and see the strange walls and stranger machinery.

Aurora stepped closer to her and she flinched back, knocking over an IV stand in the process.  “Oh!  Sorry, I’m not trying to scare you!”  He sounded… something.  He sounded strange, she settled on.  “You looked like you were going to fall over.  Are you sure you’re-?

”Can walk!”  She said far too quickly, far too easily.  “I can walk!  Look!”  She wasn’t going to fail her test and be shackled again so soon.  So she forced her body to move, her legs straining to push her forward, two her smaller forearms bracing against the ground and balancing as she took halting steps across the smoothed sterile tile.  Not upright, no, it had been a long, long time since she could manage to move elegantly while standing.  She had changed herself too much.  But she wasn’t helpless, and she could prove that.

The shadow stepped back, giving her space, but still staring at her.  Like a predator evaluating something.  “Are you sure you’re…” he raised the extended parts of his body in a surrendering gesture as she hissed angrily at him.  “Okay!”  Aurora made a noise like whistling wind, and she was pretty sure he was laughing at her.  “I’m not judging!  I’m just here to help if you need me!”

What a strange thing to say.  And a thing she kept hearing from her captors that… that weren’t really captors at all.

She sighed, a gale of breath pushing out of powerful lungs, and she let the breath take the scared fog with it.  Texture-Of-Barkdust had taught her how breathing could fix her mind, and while it was a struggle to remember to do it when her mind needed fixing, she latched onto the growing habit, and applied it now.  Breath in, hold it, count, use the numbers she was learning to mark time as she started to feel her chest burn and her muscles strain, and then, let it out.  Exhaling onto the too-clean tile flooring as her bare form sagged down with it, all her forearms now bracing her on the surface but with much less of a struggle than before.  She repeated the process several times, and almost forgot Aurora was standing there watching her.

She was outside the nest.  On purpose.  On her own.

“Noooo.  No help.  P-please.”  She didn’t like the feeling of begging.  But she didn’t want the shadow thing to touch her again.

It hurt so much to take a step forward.  But it wasn’t the pain she was used to.  Instead, it was like her limbs simply hadn’t been used for so long they didn’t remember what to do.  She tried again, and got more progress, making it almost to the edge of the sterile area around her nest before she felt herself start to exhaust.  Then she kept pushing, turning around and pacing back.  Moving.  It dispelled any notion of escape from her mind, but she was having a hard time caring at all because it was… was…

She didn’t have a word for what healing felt like.

“You think you wanna step outside?”  Aurora asked her, shuffling closer but still holding his hand things up like he was promising not to get too close.

”W-why?”  She asked.

”Why… would you want to?”  The grabbing things that waved over his body flowed backward, drifting in invisible wind.  “It smells different?”  He offered.  “Oh, also the sunlight is nice!  Or at least, I think so.”

That was not an endorsement she actually trusted.  But the ratroach didn’t really want to be made to return to the nest already, even if it did sound… so nice.  Soft.  Warm.  She could just stop moving and rest again…

No, not yet.

”Okay.”  She hated how it sounded to agree with the shadow thing.  But Aurora seemed almost enthusiastic as he moved over around the walls of the cage made to contain her, specifically.  And then Aurora started pulling at levers and latches, heavy mechanical sounds grating on her ears as the shadow did something to the clear wall around the guard post.

Then he pulled on something, and opened up a gap that wasn’t the normal door she heard guards and doctors moving through behind her nest on a daily basis, but instead, looked like it was… made for her.

Of course it was.  They must have brought her in here somehow.  She just hadn’t considered that they would have left it afterward.  But now Aurora swung open the door to her cage, her door to her cage, and stepped aside like he expected her to simply walk through.  “Come on, nothing to be worried about!”  He said brightly.  “Probably!”

The word sounded friendly, but she experienced it as a terrifying barb instead.  Still, the worst they could do was kill her, and she had already spent so many dreams wondering if she was already dead, it wasn’t like it could hurt any more.  So she stumbled forward, eventually finding a kind of bulky waddle that let her move without the excess pressure on her joints that screamed while she stood upright.

”W-wait…” she tried to gasp out as she followed the fast moving shadow.  Aurora didn’t seem like he even noticed how quickly he was going, so maybe… maybe she was just slow.  Maybe she was degrading.  Falling apart.  Her body no longer useful.  The thought stung, and she pushed herself to speed up, bits of smooth chitin rasping as they scraped against each other in her hurry.  By the time she ended up next to the umbral, panting heavily with her arms shaking and eyes drooping, Aurora was standing next to the outer wall of the cavernous space they were in.  “I am…” she started to say, and then stopped as she had no idea why she was talking about her own weakness.

”Oh!  Okay, probably ought to get you back to bed!”  Aurora told her.  “But hey, it’d be weird to come all this way and not peek outside, right?  Here, let’s juuuuuust…” the umbral pulled on a lever, and heavy barn door started to roll sideways on mechanical wheels.

She didn’t know what she had expected ‘outside’ to be.

A tunnel.  Another room.  The next cave, maybe one that her captors hadn’t used their powers to develop.  Something… something.  Something she could understand.

No one, and nothing, had actually prepared her.

There was dirt.  She understood dirt.  She did not understand the richness of the color that she could see in it under the blazing colored light of the entire world’s illumination.  Something overhead burned with such brightness that it stung her eyes to even glimpse at it, but overhead was also… wrong.  Wrong.  There was nothing.  There was no overhead.  It was just color and emptiness.  And the dirt didn’t stop either!  It went on forever, for so long that instead of the next wall, there was just more empty color and her eyes screaming at her that she wasn’t seeing the end of anything at all.

Oh, there was some kind of plant thing out in the dirt.  That was nice.  A thick green vine that was almost normal.  She took a step forward, the only functioning part of her brain wondering if she could get closer to it, and then suddenly she was underneath the empty nightmare and her entire body felt like it was twisted upside down.

Nausea and dizziness overwhelmed her, and it was a stroke of luck that the dizziness won that conflict.  Her first thought about the experience of stepping out of her prison was that the dirt was not as soft as her nest as her body collapsed into the ground.  That was also the last thought she had for her first trip too, as she promptly passed out from the vertigo.

Aurora stood frozen behind the multi-ton form of the ratroach patient, one arm extended toward her, a wincing hiss coming from him as he watched her topple over.  “You can just…!” He tried to say.  But she was already unconscious.  And outside.  And he was definitely going to get in trouble for this, he knew it.  “Okay.  Okay!  I can… I can fix this!”  He spoke to himself, twisting and flailing his upper tendrils.  “Yeah!  I can just… I can absolutely move her back, and it’ll be fiiiiine.”  He scuttled forward and tried to pick the Beautiful One up, and mostly accomplished a lot of scrambling on the hard dirt with his feet.  “Okay I can’t do that!”  He announced to the surviving chunk of pumpkin patch outside the barn.  “Ooooooh no, Holly is gonna kill meeeee.  Okay, wait!  The pallet jack!  I can… I can solve this problem!  Yes!”

The umbral scrambled back inside, having made at least one severe miscalculation about the capacity for new experiences that someone in the building had.

It was not going to be the last miscalculation he made today.

_____

Three Oh Six sat at a table in a deli, watching the rain come down outside like the concept of weather was pissed at the ground for something.

She’d been coming here a lot lately, because she didn’t want to get food outside while it was raining, because the people here knew her order already, because she was in Townton anyway, and, importantly, because she was bored.

”I think everyone forgot about me.”  She said with morose resignation to the table that she had draped herself across.

She really needed to figure out who operated the teleporter network here.  Her message was delivered, her fact finding mission was mostly complete, she just needed to actually take everything she’d learned back to homeworld.

Which was a problem.  Because she was pretty sure North Smiths was kind of a long walk.  And she didn’t know how drive.

And telling anyone that would be embarrassing.

”Oh, shit.  A navigator!”  She realized out loud, the oilslick pulling herself off the table with a wet pop.  “I bet one of them would be up for a road trip!  Yeah!  God I have such good ideas.  No wonder I’m home’s favorite!”  She rolled to her feet, and sauntered over to the door, before looking out at the deluge coming down just past the threshold.

That looked… unpleasant.

Three Oh Six sat back down, pretended she didn’t see the umbral behind the counter watching her with amusement, and went back to munching on chips, being bored, and reading Townton’s ‘newspaper’ for the eight time in a row.

She’d figure something out eventually.