Chapter 4
I fretted endlessly over whether to bring the Shroud to my vet appointment or not. On one hand, they were probably in league with Quercus. On the other hand, they were probably in league with Quercus.
Okay, positives first. For one, the Shroud was nice and warm and comfy and safe. I felt like me when I was wearing it. I felt more able to speak my mind and be the Dark Lady I knew I was.
Yes, I was indeed the Dark Lady, muahaha…
But there were also negatives. Speaking my mind was… risky. Maybe playing it safe was too, but… uh. There was also the matter of Other People. Maybe I didn’t have to worry about The Rich anymore but there was still the rest of them. Additionally, there…
Agh, I was going to be late!
There was another human in the waiting room. Well, two humans, in truth. One was acting as the… um… check-in person. But the other one was just there, a few chairs away. Were they stealing glances? My stolen glances told me they were stealing glances.
I held onto the Shroud tightly. Soon a plant would call my name and I’d see, uh, my vet. And what would she say, I wondered? I stole one further glance. The other terran had no collar; an independent. I think the check-in guy was also independent.
The only collar I wore was the Shroud’s collar, naturally. Evernight bowed to no one!
The other terran cleared their throat, I heard it. My gaze flitted their way. They opened their mouth to say something, and…
“Serenity?”
I jumped in my seat and made a short, “ah!”
It was not the terran sitting down who had spoken. It was an affini standing in a doorway, ready to lead me back.
“This way, cutie,” they said. I sheepishly stood up and hurried over.
Typha Aerenchyma, Seventh Bloom gave me an up-down look as I walked into her room.
“Hey there, petal!” she said. I knew she knew my name. “What brings you here today? According to my notes, you wanted an eye exam?”
It was an affini-sized room I was in. I felt tiny.
“That’s about it, yeah,” I said. “I wanted to make a pair of contacts to, um, enhance my vision, and it pointed me here.”
“That’s no problem at all!” Typha said. She sounded reedy. She looked reedy. “Would you like to discuss surgery options?”
“Um… no. Or at least, not today.”
“No problem, no problem! We’ll just check your vision so I can see what the best prescription strength for you is.”
“Wait, like, with glasses? But my eyesight is perfectly normal.”
“We’ll just see what the tests say about that, petal!”
My eyesight was not, in fact, perfectly normal.
“Have you always been nearsighted, petal?” Typha asked me, as she looked over complex looking diagrams of… my eyes, I suppose.
“Um… no?” I offered.
“While yours isn’t severe, it will require correction. You had a model of contact lens already picked out, if I recall?”
She knew, she knew. They all knew. Regardless, I pulled my tablet out of a tote bag I’d hidden under the Shroud. I showed her the model.
“My, petal. You’ll gain new perspectives with augments like that,” Typha observed.
“That’s, uh, the idea!” I allowed her to borrow my tablet for a moment, because if they were going to put a spy chip or something in it, they would’ve already. She tapped some buttons on her own office compiler, and a moment later, a small box had appeared.
Typha handed back the tablet. In another vine, she held the box. “May I?” I assumed she meant “may I put the eye things in your eyes.” I nodded. The vine split into much smaller ones, propping open the box and revealing two barely visible slivers of nanotech or whatever the hell it actually was. With practiced and delicate motions, the vine inched nearer to my face.
…
“Um, petal.”
“Yes?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to keep your eyes open for this.”
I opened my eyes. The vine came in once more.
…
“Petal?”
“Yeah?”
“If you like, I can help you to keep your eyes open.”
I assumed that to mean her vines would pry open my eyelids. It sounded unpleasant, but…
“I guess you better go ahead.”
I felt a pinprick. I opened my eyes, and I opened them wide. And then…
If my mind was an ocean, then right now it perfectly reflected the sky. I stood there, and… that was it. I think Typha was saying something. I didn’t really care.
“Just a touch of Class M to make your reflexes more… cooperative,” she explained. Reflexes? Class M? What were those?
Wait… I didn’t really care. They were… inconsequential. I could just remain here like this, like—
Another pinprick.
I blinked several times. “The hell did you do to me, plant?”
Typha made a small huffing noise. “Do calm down, petal. It was merely a tiny dose of Class M xenodrugs, to help—“
“You DRUGGED me?”
“Petal, you partake of xenodrugs regularly. Your hormonal supplements, and your antidepressants.”
“You…”
Breathe. Fuck. Couldn’t freak out in front of a plant. Couldn’t freak out, or they’d… yeah. Still, I stared at Typha.
Wait.
I stared at Typha. I blinked again.
Holy shit.
I stared at Typha. She was a construct of thousands of simultaneous, tiny movements. The bulk of her was made up of this tightly woven grass, with each blade… writhing, just a bit. Gaze turning upwards, she had just two eyes, and they were…
Oh, staaaaaaars….
Typha tapped me on the shoulder, and I jumped. “Enjoying your new vision, petal?” Her constructed face smiled.
“U-uh. Um. Is… is this normal vision?” I asked.
“I can’t know what setting you have it on, but I assume so!” Typha said. “Now, do listen, though. If your surroundings are too bright, the lowlight vision will not activate. This is so that your eyes will not be damaged. If you go quickly from a dark space to a bright one, your contacts will adapt and return to normal vision so that you are not harmed. And remember, don’t stay up too late! Some florets can adapt to more nocturnal lifestyles should their affini choose, but you lack a haustoric implant to prevent the long term health risks.”
Okay. “Okay.”
“Do you have any other questions while you’re here?” Typha asked.
“No, but I do wanna try something.” I squinted, and after about a second, the infrared activated. I nearly fell backwards. “Wow.”
Infrared was very… blue, actually. Except for Typha. She was a rainbow with a small bit of white in the very center. This could be even more reliable night vision than the lowlight mode, I thought. But I wouldn’t actually know until I tried it.
I came outside, and… wow.
So-called “normal” vision was something else entirely. Everything was so… sharp. Colors popped. But mostly, things were clearer. Crisper. I could see the tufty animal ears that should otherwise blend in with the hair of the floret that was stumbling after their owner. And the affini were something else. That many details almost hurt to look at… almost.
But… now what? It was gonna be a while before night fell, so I couldn’t really test that out yet. For the moment, I squinted the infrared back on. People sure were colorful. And the sky sure was… black?
At some point it occurred to me that to passerby I was a solitary terran girl wearing a star-patterned cloak, gawking stupidly at everything around her. I could almost imagine the heat in my face changing its color in real time.
It didn’t help that the doct… no, the veterinarian… was right smack dab in the middle of a crowded plaza. Stars, someone was bound to—
“Are you okay, flower?” a multicolored blob asked me. It… had… some sort of human-shaped impression… inside of it. The affini had a human inside of it.
Shit, I’d been asked a question! “U-uh…”
“It’s okay, flower. You’re safe now.” A vine drew near, capped with… something.
“D-don’t drug me!” I stuttered. I think I heard a small voice inside the affini giggle.
“But flower, you seem so upset,” the affini reasoned.
“I’m fine… now. I’m fine now.”
The vine slowly retracted. “Are you sure, flower?”
“Yes.” Somehow, I managed to convince the plant to move along. With that out of the way… it seemed like a really good idea to turn off the infrared. So I did. Goodbye, rainbow nightmare dimension. I looked around. Just people laughing and having fun. Good for them, I guess. I was still, uh, shrouded, but… nobody seemed to care?
Yup! Let’s just go with that. No one was secretly staring. Not a one.
Wait, so what was I actually doing out here? I was just… outside, voluntarily. Well, I mean, I’d had an appointment. And… yeah, I did make a point of going outside. Gotta act normal so I wouldn’t get domesticated. But, I, uh… couldn’t act too normal. Because Quercus didn’t like that. And I’d get domesticated.
Alright, so. Be Evernight or get domesticated. Why? Cereus wanted me to be happy, or something. And… yeah, I did like my Shroud. Being out here with it… felt kinda… powerful.
So why’d those stupid plants have to want me to do what I wanted? That made me not want to do what I wanted. But I had to do what I wanted. Or I’d get domesticated.
Aaargh!
The plan! I had to keep in mind the contingency plan. For when they got bored of me and decided to domesticate me anyway. I’d completed the first step; I had night vision now. But that was far from enough! Next, I needed to… find a bench, or something, stars. People were definitely staring at me just standing around.
I scampered over to a bench.
Now. Right. The next stage of the plan. I needed to be able to blind an affini. Definitely couldn’t trust the overnet with this one; looking up how to do something like that would come across as suspicious as hell. And then I’d get domesticated. So! I’d need my own wits. Everyone had their sensory limits. What about the affini? Could they see in complete darkness? Or through walls?
Shit. If they could see in complete darkness, then I was sunk. I needed to be able to blind them thematically. What kind of Dark Lady of Evernight would I be if I used flashbangs? Besides, if I tried to get my hands on something like that, I’d get domesticated.
Sigh.
Reasonable. I needed to be reasonable. Who or what could realistically see in complete darkness? Well, besides me with the whole infrared thing. Stars, it really was cool that I could just do that now.
Squint. Blobby rainbow land. Squint. Normal sight. I squinted a few more times. Rainbow. Normal. Rainbow. Normal. Hehehehe. Evernight Sight! Or, well, I guess Evernight Sight was the setting yet to be used. Stupid… sun.
I was getting off track. Hmm… were smoke bombs something I could make? I’d asked myself this question before. I don’t think I’d answered. The problem was, though. that they were done to death. But… then again… so was world domination. And Cereus was an affini. Maybe, then… if I dropped a smoke bomb and beat feet the other direction, would affini find themselves stunned by novelty?
Maybe… just maybe… that was their weakness. All this advanced tech had made them forget about the classics. Well then! It was settled. I’d go home and build my little arsenal. I stood up, and…
“Hey.”
“Whogoesthere?!” Jumping slightly, I turned to face… a human. Was she a girl? She looked like a girl. She was giggling. At me. Fuck. “Um.” Behind her was a small group of more humans. Uh oh.
“Look, I just wanted to say… I really like your cape,” the human-possibly-woman said.
Wait, she what? Cape? The Shroud? “Y-you do?” I asked stupidly. She just said she did.
“Yeah. It’s really cool.” Well this was strange. Was she lying? Was she… oh stars, I was blushing. Er.
“Oh, uh… thanks,” I said.
She smiled at me. Oh, hell, this was terrifying. “That’s all I wanted to say. Um…” She chuckled, mostly to herself. “Could I take a picture?”
No. Nonononononononono.
“Sure.” Oh stars. I just said that. I was mortified. Oh no, she was pulling a device out of her bag! “No! I mean no! Ah…” She frowned and put the thing away. “U-uh… sorry.”
She smiled at me again. I felt a little like I was being stabbed. “That’s okay,” she said. With another little chuckle, she left to rejoin her group. I think a little while after that I remembered how to breathe.
Focus, Serenity. Back to what you were doing. You were… going home to compile a bunch of smoke bombs.
I could wonder things like “why were other humans scarier than affini” later.
…Stars, had she really complimented me?
“Welcome back, o Lady of Darkness!”
I made it home without incident. Completely totally. I definitely wasn’t just replaying that scene endlessly in my head. Mumbling some nonsense under my breath, I performed the time honored tradition of falling onto the couch. But wait, that was right. I had something to do; I pulled out my tablet.
Smoke bombs were apparently a fun and completely innocent party feature. Not what I expected, but it worked out in my favor. They came in all sorts of colors, including… yes! There was black. I made twelve of them. Carrying that many on me probably wasn’t that feasible, though. Three at a time would probably do. The rest, I hid in my closet.
It dawned upon me that I should test them out, but where? Inside was probably a terrible idea. Even so, it was where I had the closest thing to privacy here.
Hah! Privacy.
In my front yard didn’t seem like a good idea either. What if someone thought I was doing something dangerous? That would get affini involved. I didn’t want affini involved.
I’d put that on hold for now. The Dark Lady was… weary. I needed repose. I needed… pizza and anime. That sounded like… a really nice way to kill an afternoon, actually.
The pizza was easy enough. Compile compile. Stars, I was… hungry, wasn’t I? First thing I’d eaten today. And like any food item I’d partaken of under the tyranny of our new plant overlords, it was basically the best thing I’d ever tasted. Now I just needed to find something to watch. So I browsed.
All the classics were there if I wanted them. A growing number of them had… “floret cuts?” Whatever fresh hell those were. I didn’t need to watch something dumbed down for some terran so high off of space drugs she didn’t know which way was up. Luckily, the originals seemed to be there as well. That was all well and good, but… there was a curiosity gnawing at me.
The browser loved to remind me that new shows were still being produced, post-Accord. Bigger. Better. Plantier. So… fine. Let’s just see what they were offering in that department.
More options than I could really comprehend, apparently. No, wait, my search was too broad. This was animation from the depths of the Compact, probably incomprehensible horrors from beyond my imagination.
I narrowed the field to stuff that was terran-made. A smaller list, but still more than I was expecting. And a whole lot of “coming soons”.
I ended up settling on something that was apparently an affini and terran coproduction. Some studio I’d never heard of, it must’ve been new. But the premise seemed promising enough.
There were some preliminary warnings blah blah content blah blah don’t let your floret watch it alone! Then the opening played, and… okay, yeah, catchy as hell. The animation was also extremely fluid. Must’ve been a very high budget… well, if money existed, anyway. I guess these people could just do whatever the hell they wanted. I was getting sorta these old-fashioned cyberpunk vibes. Lots of neon and rain, and, if the opening was any indicator, a mostly, if not all, human cast. And was I crazy, or did a bunch of the people in the credits have “floret” in their names? That lowered my expectations, admittedly, the prospect of drug-addled pets working on these shows.
But whatever. The show itself started. I munched on some pizza. It panned down over this towering cityscape at nighttime, and slowly zoomed into one of these towers. Real bigwig-looking guy was seated behind a big wooden desk, talking to a much younger character with colorful hair. Was the main character some kinda corporate scion? Not what I was expecting. But more importantly… I squinted, but not in the infrared-triggering way.
Was… was this all HAND-DRAWN? I couldn’t figure out how else it could look so simultaneously fluid and… right out of a history book. And… stars, my new eyes. The detail.
Uh. Shit, characters were talking. Focus on the plot, Serenity. Bigwig guy was discussing a plan of some sort, with all these graphs and diagrams. Said something about the other character missing a meeting. Right, so he was catching this guy up because he missed something.
Right, the plan. Something about cementing control over what I assumed was the name of the city and this being the Final Step.
Sigh. World domination on a smaller scale was still world domination. But the show was just so damn pretty I almost wanted to give it a pass. Anyway. The colorful hair guy had some kind of disagreement with the bigwig, who was pointing out all these things they were going to do. “That’ll put lives in danger!” Hair Guy said. Bigwig just said something menacing in response.
It cut to a… full on battle in the streets? Some kind of militarized police force fighting more characters with colorful hair. Alright, so an evil corporation and the plucky band of rebels fighting them. A common theme of more underground works; hell, I’d dabbled in it. And— oh! Okay, so there was gore. I don’t know why I hadn’t been expecting that in a show made with plants’ involvement.
Another pizza slice. The corporate police were seemingly better equipped than the resistance group, but I had to assume the latter had the advantage of being protagonists. And sure enough, they emerged as the victors… but it was a Pyrrhic victory. Lots of dead on both sides. The rebels retreated to some sort of hideout to lick their wounds.
I ended up watching a good few episodes. It was very daring by Accord standards, but by Compact standards I couldn’t really know. The first colorful hair guy got fired for disagreeing with the boss and became so disillusioned he joined the underground resistance. For the first few episodes they played up the corporate guy being a horse out of water.
And then an affini showed up. To start with… holy shit, the animation. Affini rendered in 2D were a different beast entirely. There were things happening on screen that would drain an old terran studio’s budget immediately. It even put the big name autogen stuff to shame. Anyway, the affini showed up and, naturally, found the whole condition of the city and everyone in it to be intolerable, and decided they’d be the one to fix it. How they got there in the first place… they crash landed, or something.
As the show went on, it was becoming depressingly obvious to me that the characters and plot were just bending over to make space for the affini and their heroics; they were some kinda… um… there was a word for it, but I’d forgotten what it was. The plant would resolve every issue without fail, and always, always without killing anyone. “Because every sophont was deserving of joy,” the affini would say regularly, “and even the ones acting in the wrong will be rehabilitated.”
Okay, so it was blatantly obvious Compact propaganda at this point. But… damn. The production values were just off the charts, and the music… stars! The show went continuously out of its way to give even the evilest bastards redeeming qualities. Gave this vibe of how everything would be okay, if only the Compact would show up. I guess I had to give the show credit for not simply having a single plant single-handedly solve every problem for good. Characters would shower them with praise and they’d brush it off. Because there were “still other sophonts out there that needed help.”
I guess I ended up watching until I ran out of episodes. It turned out the season wasn’t finished yet. I decided to keep it bookmarked, well, just in case. Like. If I was bored enough to watch more obvious Compact propaganda.
Anyway, now I would… hold on, had night fallen already? Ohshit I was gonna test out my eyes!
I went outside, still wearing the Shroud. I’d never taken it off. The neighborhood was so quiet around this time, tranquil under a starry sky…
I squinted, and… wow.
The change was subtle, at first. But my surroundings kept brightening until they resembled… well, I could see. It was like when a night setting in a video game wasn’t really willing to commit to darkness; the sky was still dark and starry, but an artificial illumination settled over everything else. Colors were very slightly muted.
A walk would do, I figured. Or, rather, the Dark Lady would survey her domain of night. But where to go? The bridge was always an option. Cereus might be there, though. She’d probably tell me I needed to go to bed or something, after I’d gone through all the trouble to walk there. Damn plant.
Okay, so I’d go somewhere else. I wandered off in the other direction. Nearby was that restaurant I’d gone to a couple of days ago, and if I took a right turn at the end of that block, I’d reach the vet’s office. I’d already gone there today, though. Why go again? So instead of taking that turn, I went straight. Down this direction was a cluster of affini-constructed highrises that contained more hab units, if I recalled correctly. They weren’t taller than the office towers at the city center, but they were still pretty damn tall.
The affini constructed buildings were easy to differentiate from the terran ones. In a word, they were… livelier. Foliage was everywhere, but it somehow didn’t seem overgrown. My own home had greenery on top of it, and I’d assume the highrises did as well. Despite this, these structures were clean, and while they were not entirely uniform, repeated shapes were easily identifiable. Which kinda made sense, as these buildings had seemed to crop up more or less overnight.
Now I was… um.
Now I was somewhere. There were still these towers all around. Each one as wide as a city block, with cute little shops dominating the ground floors. My feet had kept wandering while my mind was. Um… shit. Was I lost? Sure, this wasn’t my usual route, but…
I looked around. There were affini about. Couldn’t let them think I was lost, or… well, something bad would happen, certainly. Okay. Just turn around, stupid. You went…a direction, just go the opposite direction.
Wait. Did my brain get fried when my vet drugged me today? I had my damn tablet with me. (It didn’t get fried, did it? DID IT?)
Calm down, Serenity. First things first. I brought out my tablet. O Mirror of Sky, lead me to my throne! I brought up a map module on my tablet… I mean, on my Mirror of Sky. Was that a good name for it? If I held it flat while it was off, it reflected the stars. So… sure, it worked.
“Are you lost, cutie?”
I had my tablet out, you dumb plant! It was literally opened to a map. Agh. Evernight, take over!
“I am never lost within my own realm,” I declared, blushing.
“Oh?” The affini cocked their head.
“Behold, for the Mirror of Sky shall lead me true!” I tapped a button on the Mirror, and it finished plotting my course home. “Um. See?”
“Oh, what a clever little cutie you are!” the affini said. I deftly sidestepped the vine trying to pat my head, but another vine patted it anyway.
“So, uh, yeah, I’ll just be going…”
“Oh, but it’s so late, cutie! I’ll carry you so you don’t run into any trouble.”
No, no you wouldn’t. “What kind of trouble could I possibly run into?” I took several steps back. That question gave the plant pause. I kept backing away. “I mean, the streets have never been safer with the affini here, right?”
“Oh, but you might tire yourself out,” the affini said, matching my pace. Stars, this one was pushy.
“I’ve been exercising more,” I said hurriedly.
“Well, good for you, cutie. But don’t you deserve a break?”
“I do not want to be carried!” The affini stopped. I stopped. Another leafy head might’ve turned. I might’ve yelled. I put my hands over my mouth. But… they backed off.
“I’m sorry, petal.” A vine brushed over my head; I could feel it, but I couldn’t see it. I think my lenses had clouded up from the crying I was apparently doing, while hunched over, Shroud held tightly. I think I was murmuring something too.
“I-I’m sorry… d-don’t… don’t…”
“Do you want something to feel better, petal?”
My response to that was to cry louder, but I think I had the clarity of mind to shake my head vigorously. There were shapes moving in the periphery of my vision, casting shadows over me. More affini. Maybe if I’d just said no in the first place, b-but now…
Some words were exchanged in alienspeak. Then one of them spoke words I could understand.
“Shhh. You’re safe, flower. No harm will come upon you.” Others joined in with their own variations on the planty mantra. I was too busy pondering the end of my existence. I was crying in front of affini. I WAS CRYING IN FRONT OF AFFINI.
Interestingly enough, that thought did not, in fact, stop the tears.
I heard big stomping footsteps. I felt big stomping footsteps. “Serenity?”
Ah, Quercus was here…
“Come here, flower.” Despite what was said, Quercus came to me. Before I knew it I was taken in a big bushy hug that I wasn’t really in a state to refuse. For a while I continued to sob into his mossy beard. He just sort of let me. Once my tears had slowed enough, he said, “Tell me what’s wrong, Serenity.”
I felt a pinprick.
“I’m trying so hard not to but I’m s-so afraid of being d-domesticated because I know I’ll lose her and lose me and I won’t be the same and I-I just found her again and and I don’t know what’s making me tell you this now and and…”
“Just a little Class D to help you speak your mind, Serenity.”
“S-stars dammit stop DRUGGING me I’m so scared of the drugs you just give me w-without asking and oh stars now I’m gonna be domesticated and…”
“I’m sorry, Serenity, but I need honesty between the two of us. Now let’s get you home.” He paused. Someone said something in affini. He said something in affini. “And I’ve got your tablet here. You apparently dropped it, but we didn’t let it hit the ground, don’t you worry. Now, will you let me take you home?”
“Y-you’re just going to anyway.”
“Not without your permission, Serenity.”
G-good, I could tell him to fuck off. “P-please do.” Dammit.