Chapter 8
I wasn’t sure what time it was when I rolled out of bed. I think it was still morning. I hoped it was still morning. I swung my legs around to dismount, but my feet just hit more mattress; I’d forgotten how big this thing was. Instead I had to awkwardly worm my way over to the edge, and then hop off.
It was Day Two of my imprisonment at the vines of the evil Queen. I wondered if she had fixed the hab AI yet. She’d tried to tell me that it was just on its default setting, but why the hell was its default setting to assume that any terran asking for something was a floret?
Because affini, that’s why. It was just the existence I had to endure, I guess. My room didn’t have a compiler in it, and I didn’t want to wander outside in my underthings, so I had to figure something out with the meager amount of clothing I had. The skirt was a little tight, and the shirt was a little loose, which I guess meant that the magic plant hormones were doing what they were supposed to. Once I dressed myself I shrouded myself, and then I could sally forth into the main room.
My dastardly nemesis was already in the kitchen, making breakfast. “The Dark Lady finally rejoins the world of the living,” she said, looking my way. “I was wondering if I would be forced to bring her breakfast in bed.” She grinned her planty grin before going back to what she was doing.
Watching anime with Cereus had been… interesting, to say the least. I was admittedly worried by how she reacted to my explanation on who actually made these things.
“Oh, they made an algorithm that could make art faster and cheaper than humans could long ago,” I’d told her. She’d just looked at me in abject horror.
“Terrans delegated the task of creating art to an algorithm?”
I’d shaken my head. “Well, I guess it’s not really art. It’s content. Art’s what some people do for fun in their spare time, even though it won’t make them any money. Like my writing, y’know?”
“How many others read your works?” she had asked.
“At least hundreds!” I’d said with pride. She’d made some aside about capitalism and culture, but I didn’t hear what exactly. For whatever reason, however, after that she’d paused the show and turned to face me. Her eyes were wide.
“Serenity, listen to me. You understand that your stories are much better than this, right?”
I’d just stared at her. “What? No it isn’t. My stuff’s amateur. These shows had the big name studios to program them.”
“Your stories were the product of your passion, Serenity. Your vision shows, and it shows that you cared about what you were making. That’s why your work is superior.”
I laughed. “Okay, okay, I think I get what you’re trying to say, but think about it! The studios for sure cared about what they were making. It was their livelihood, back before, y’know, the affini.” I’d then gestured vaguely at the TV. “And besides, what do you think inspired my own stuff?”
Cereus had been very quiet for a while after that, and I had to wonder if I’d said something wrong. An episode or two later, however, she seemed to have found her voice again, murmuring about how “a good owner would see them right,” whenever the villain did anything particularly heinous. It kinda made me wonder which characters from my own works she’d domesticate, but I eventually decided I’d rather not know. Through it all, Cereus was taking notes on her data pad, sometimes murmuring things to herself when she did so.
Shit, was she going to domesticate me if she thought I had trash taste? No, that was just silly. Right? Right.
Cereus’ call brought me back to the present. “Come to the table, your darkness. Your breakfast is served.”
The affini had really taken a deep dive into stereotypical breakfast foods for this one, but I didn’t especially mind. Between a few strips of bacon, two eggs, and a slice of toast, I really didn’t have much to complain about. They were all things I’d compiled in the past, just not usually at the same time.
The taste was, of course, out of this world.
“I will now brief you on your second trial,” Cereus said, as I finished up.
“Bring it on,” I challenged. Cereus grinned, resting her chin on clasped hands.
“If she wishes to have any hope of defeating me, the Dark Lady of Evernight must gather allies,” she said.
That didn’t sound good. “And how will I be doing that?”
“The Dark Lady shall attend a social function and establish connections with other sophonts. This engagement will occur under the guise of…” Cereus checked something on her tablet. “…An anime club.”
Do not show fear, Serenity. “And this bout of merrymaking shall happen where?”
“Within this very building,” Cereus said. “Your contacts will be neighbors. Terrans. This is, furthermore, an event that happens weekly. Future attendance is an option.”
Don’t panic. Don’t panic! All I had to do was act normal for what, a couple of hours?
Oh stars, a couple of hours…
“Is the Dark Lady up to the task?”
Shit, was I? I… had to be. The stakes, I had to remember the stakes. They’d ask questions, of course. About the Shroud. About… me. What would I tell them? What if they thought I was a floret? I didn’t have the collar, but…
Stars, the bracelets! Were they a floret thing? They could drug me like one. I…
“I want the bracelets off,” I said.
“The power limiters stay on, for yours and everyone else’s safety,” Cereus said evenly.
“I-I don’t want to be DRUGGED while I’m with other people!”
Cereus said nothing, until she did. “Then I will give you a choice. I can, if you will it, disable the safeguards that release Class Es into your system if your anxiety is too elevated. But in their place I will come to get you if the limiters show it to be too much. Is that agreeable to you?”
No, it wasn’t. Not at all. That was the one thing worse than being sedated; having an affini come get me because I couldn’t handle it.
“No. Just… keep the safeguards on, then. But I’m going to make something I can hide them under.”
Cereus just continued to look awfully pleased with herself. “As you wish.”
I went to grab my tablet, and opened the compiler page. My first thought had been bandages, but I realized that could backfire quite spectacularly if people thought I was… I dunno, self harming or something. Especially if it was an affini that made the assumption. It could probably get Cereus in trouble… and, uh, it could get me into trouble as well.
If bandages were out, then I’d have to think of something else. Gloves, maybe? I got to work designing a pair. Thick enough to obscure the bracelets, but not so thick as to be annoying. They’d be colored black, of course. And, just since I could, I put a little yellow crescent on the back of each one, to match the Shroud’s clasp.
I compiled them, put them on, and… oh, wow, they were soft. I was afraid they’d bother my skin, or something, but it was just the opposite. It was a slightly stiffer material than that which made up the Shroud, but it still had plenty of give to not interfere with, uh, normal usage of my hands. I especially liked how the cuffs flared out a bit, though that would make the bracelets visible if you saw them at the exact right angle. All in all, I was happy with them. They were definitely something that could contribute to Evernight’s overall look.
I turned to face my captor once again after I was finished flexing my begloved hands to find her staring at me. I… couldn’t really tell what the expression on her face was. Sort of like a grin, but there was something more there.
“Hello? I offered.
Cereus blinked. “Ah, yes. Is there anything else you need to do to ready yourself? Your trial begins soon.”
“What are you going to do? While I’m, uh, trialing.”
“I shall be nearby,” Cereus said. She was still at the table, her hands clasped. “Contact me via your data pad should you need anything. Unless, of course, you’d prefer my accompaniment?” Her eyes shimmered.
“Should be fine, I think. I’ll, uh, contact you. If I need to. Not that I will!”
Cereus chuckled. “Of course, of course. Now, are you ready?”
Anime club ended up being all of three other terrans. We met in the hab belonging to one of them, or rather…
A very blue-dominated affini flitted about in the background, humming to themselves. Right, it wasn’t the, uh, terran’s hab, but that of their owner. I rocked back and forth uneasily on an oversized, L-shaped couch.
“Let’s introduce ourselves, since we’ve got a new person this week!” the apparent leader of our little gathering said. She had short bobbed hair, a colorful dress that didn’t cover much, and a collar. “I’m Evelyn Celes, Fourth Floret!” Evelyn said. “She/her pronouns.”
The next in the line seemed to be the only man of the group. “I’m, uh, Luka,” he offered. His short wavy hair couldn’t completely cover his ears, but I was mostly distracted by the bright orange and cyan of his skintight outfit. Why did it expose his midriff? “He… he/him pronouns.”
Before introductions could move along, Evelyn gave him a wicked grin. “How about your full name?”
Luka’s face flushed with red. “Luka… um, Luka Velvera. First Floret.” A nervous hand fiddled with the ring of his own collar.
We were two for two with florets, so far, which wasn’t ideal… but I thankfully wasn’t the only independent.
The third of our group was Alayah. “I’m Alayah Flores! Pronouns are she/her. Not a floret, despite what my name sounds like.” She was dressed quite modestly compared to the pets among us, opting for a colorful top and long dark pants.
All eyes fell on me, and I reflexively pulled the Shroud closer. “Um,” I began. “I’m… Serenity Halleck, uh, she/her.” Now came the hard part. “A-and my, um, warden requested that I also introduce myself b-by my title…” I trailed off. My hands were clutched to my chest in a futile attempt to still my beating heart. All eyes were on me. Alayah leaned in. “A-and that title is…” I was going to set that damn plant on fire when I got home. “The Dark… The Dark Lady of Evernight.” I managed to utter it all out in one breath, but it felt like life was leaving my body as I said it. I think I got progressively paler as the moments passed without anyone saying anything.
“Man, that sounds way cooler than ‘First Floret,’” Luka eventually said, mercifully breaking the silence.
“Glad to have someone so… dignified with us,” Alayah said, smiling.
“I was wondering if that was, like, a cosplay or something,” Evelyn added. “Is she your OC or something like that?”
“U-uh,” I confirmed. They… they weren’t laughing, or berating, or… anything like that? They were just… cool with it?
“I should totally come up with a name like that,” Luka murmured.
“Stars, I’ve gotta know!” Evelyn said, looking at me excitedly. “Um, if you’re, like, okay with saying?”
“Give the Dark Lady a moment to compose herself, Ev,” Alayah chuckled.
“Hey, all I’m saying is, like, if she’s from a show, we’ve gotta watch it!” Evelyn said.
“Stars,” I finally managed to utter, “seeing her animated would be really cool.” It really would be cool, just to see the Shroud billowing, especially in 2D. Maybe someday I’d have to pick up animation. “But really, she’s kinda just a self-insert,” I admitted, looking very intently at the part of the couch that was directly in front of me.
“See, that’s using a compiler to its fullest potential,” Alayah said. “I mean, what are we doing, y’know? Well, okay, you two are dressed in what your owners put you in.” Evelyn giggled, while Luka just blushed. “All this time we’ve had the means to wear literally whatever we wanted, and Serenity here’s the only one taking advantage of that. Can you imagine?”
Evelyn opened her mouth wide as she apparently pondered the possibilities. “I gotta ask Master if I can wear, like, a big floppy witch hat!” A vine maneuvered over to her to rub her on the chin, something she happily leaned into.
“That can be arranged!” the affini who must’ve been Evelyn’s master said. He had a deep, multilayered voice, not at all rough and raspy like Quercus. “But later, petal. Have fun with your friends for now.”
“Okay!” Evelyn chirped. “Let’s get this started! So obviously, we’ve got someone new since last time..”
“And Luka’s a floret now,” Alayah giggled.
“And Luka’s a floret now!” Evelyn echoed. “Got the implant, yet?”
Luka rocked to and fro on crossed legs. “N-not yet,” he said.
“Duuuude, you’re gonna LOVE it,” Evelyn said. “Master always knows what I’m thinking, so he always knows when to get me nice and high…” She waited for a moment, as if expecting something; she pouted, apparently left wanting. I for my part was trying to wrap my head around how she’d said something so horrifying so casually.
“But… what if something goes wrong?” Luka meekly suggested.
“Your affini’s not gonna let that happen, silly!” Evelyn said back. Alayah just gave me a knowing look and a smirk. I chuckled nervously back at her.
“We gonna watch some anime?” Alayah asked.
“We’re gonna WATCH some anime!” Evelyn repeated. “Now, we got a new person, so I think we should start over this week.”
“What’s the show?” I asked.
“Death Capital: Electric City!” she said. “Biggest show of the season.”
“Oh, uh, you don’t need to start over,” I said. “I’m all up to date with it.” Figured that florets would gravitate to the obvious propaganda, but… at least it was well-produced propaganda.
“Alright, Serenity!” Alayah said, and I think I immediately started blushing. “Been doing your homework!”
“Is, uh, she okay with watching something she’s already seen?” Luka asked.
“I dunno, lemme ask her,” I responded dryly. Evelyn giggled. “She says it’s fine.”
Vines set a stack of pizza boxes on the table in front of us, along with plates and drinks to go with them. It was good to see that traditions were being adhered to.
Luka scooted forward to grab a plate. “We’re starting on, what, the fourth episode?”
“Yeah!” Evelyn confirmed. “We should be able to get caught up with it today.” With a data pad in hand, she brought the TV to life and began sifting through the enormous selection that was available. Episode four was, if I recalled correctly, the one that introduced the affini character. Basically a tone shift for the rest of the series, unless they ended up pulling a fast one in episodes to come. “Um, do we want to skip the intro?”
“You know that’s sacrilege,” Alayah said. The lights of the hab dimmed.
“The intro is designated overnet scrolling time,” I said.
Alayah gave me a look of mock hurt. “How dare you?” I winked at her and pulled out my tablet as the stream got running.
“Oh, ‘fore I forget!” Evelyn piped up, “no spoilers, Serenity!”
“There will be no spoilers,” I said breezily, “long as no one pisses me off.”
“The Dark Lady has spoken!” Alayah declared, my previous infraction over the intro apparently forgiven. I put my tablet back away as the episode properly started. It was as I remembered it; the opening scene showed some kind of meteor crossing the sky, the next shot revealing the thing to actually be an affini pod of some kind. It crashes outside the city, which proves to be near-fatal, but it turns out the passenger can undergo a process of “reblooming” to recover. I grabbed a slice of pizza while I watched, definitely getting a sense of deja vu.
Right, it had ended up being my last full day in that hab. Watching the show, still getting used to my new prescription… and then I’d gone outside to test out my Evernight Sight.
The affini onscreen finished their recovery, having adapted some of the local flora, and turned to face a distant skyline. I took a moment to give my slice of pizza the attention it deserved. Had my breakdown been inevitable? Had I simply been on a trajectory towards it from the start? I couldn’t shake the feeling, even now, that it was a moment that would shape the rest of my life. Sent into a wardship and then…
In the show, the affini reached the city, but all was not well — people reacted in terror, even as the alien carefully assumed a humanoid shape. I just had to let myself believe I’d make it through this. Cereus, for their part, seemed rather keen to make sure I had a fair shot — or was at the very least trying to maintain the appearance of there being one. We’d spent a lot of time last night watching shows and talking shop; she’d taken very enthusiastically to fleshing out her Queen persona.
“Do they even speak the local language?” Luka asked of the affini onscreen.
“What would they be doing so close to the planet if they didn’t?” Evelyn countered.
“Maybe it was a jump drive error,” was Luka’s response. And to the show’s credit, they did not, in fact, know the language to start with. They had this whole sequence where an older couple with unexplained wealth discovered the affini and agreed to hide them away from the world for the time being; pretty luckily for everyone involved, the eldritch space monster picked up on their good intentions pretty quickly.
“I like these two,” Alayah said, hugging a pillow. “I hope they don’t die.”
“They’re not going to die while there’s an affini with them!” Evelyn posited. (For the record, she was right.) Gradually the couple teaches their new friend language, first spoken and then written. The scene transitions to the affini telling them fantastical stories of a society without want, where everyone is cared for.
Eventually, however, conflict strikes! It turns out that the couple owe some sort of debt to the local We-Own-Everything Corp. The big bad sends along their people for negotiations, but imagine everyone’s surprise when the affini reveals themselves!
“I don’t have a good feeling about any of this,” Alayah said.
“No spoilers,” I started, “but, uh, just you watch.”
The first thing the affini manages to do is disarm the lot of them. From there they begin to make grand overtures about how debt is a barbaric concept and that any self-respecting person who thinks and feels should be above such notions. I guess the corp squad is just so confused by this that they all decide to leave. The couple, however, are terrified.
“Are they scared the corpos will come back?” Evelyn wondered aloud.
“You’re talking over them explaining,” Luka said, chuckling a little. Back to the show, the old couple start packing the most important of their belongings. The affini asks if they are still in danger and, if so, how they can help. One of the couple says, however, that they know where they can go, and with that, the episode ends.
“So!” Evelyn clasped her hands together. “Let’s discuss.”
“All I can say is… stars, the animation whenever Thuja was onscreen,” Luka said.
“I kinda get what you mean,” I said, “or rather, I definitely get what you mean.”
Alayah giggled. “I never thought we’d owe the rebirth of hand drawn animation to an alien civilization, but here we are!”
“You’re sayin’ someone drew that?” Evelyn asked, incredulous.
“Maybe they drew individual stills and used ProceGen to fill in the gaps?” Luka suggested.
Alayah shook her head. “Nah. It didn’t have that sort of ‘oozy’ quality, y’know?”
“Oozy?” I repeated. I had no idea what she meant by that. Old Accord shows always… wait a minute. I did know what she meant. It was some sort of… oh, stars, I was never going to be able to see that stuff the same way ever again.
“Oh nooo, it’s just hitting her,” Alayah giggled, as I opened and closed my mouth several times. “I’m sorry, Serenity, but everything made before this year is just going to look fake to you now.”
“I don’t… ohhhhhh,” Evelyn said. Alayah just cackled as Evelyn glared at her. What followed was a few moments of silence as we all pondered the loss of our innocence. “All in favor of kicking Allie out of anime club, say ‘aye.’”
“That seems kinda excessive?” Luka said.
“It was a jooooooke,” Evelyn whined. I silently worked my way through another pizza slice, watching them as they squabbled. This was it, huh. The second trial. I guess it really wasn’t that bad?
A cakewalk for the Dark Lady of Evernight! So far…
I could fade into the background for the rest of the meeting if I was careful. Or maybe not. The Shroud made it admittedly difficult, which was a little ironic. One would expect the Dark Lady to be able to fade into the shadows quite easily, no? In the world of fiction she could, but this wasn’t that. It was something much stranger. Here I was, a strange girl in a stranger land.
Right, there was a conversation ongoing, wasn’t there? I should probably rejoin it, just… because. But I was safe until I said the wrong thing.
Say, what was I gonna name my owl?
“Heeeey, Terra to Serenity!” Evelyn said.
Right, there was a conversation…
“Huh?” I asked, looking vaguely in her direction. If she turned around, would I be able to see her, uh, implant?
“We’re asking if you’re ready to go to the next episode,” she said.
“Oh, shit, sorry. Yeah, that’s fine…”
We went on to the next episode, and, just as before, discussed it once it was over. It wasn’t exactly my first contact with florets in the wild, but it was my first extended exposure to them. So what could I learn?
“Albright’s gonna be domesticated by the end, calling it now!” Evelyn said, regarding the show’s big bad evil guy.
“Makes sense to me,” Alayah chuckled.
“C’mon, girls, how many florets can Thuja really have by the end? The resistance has already got a bunch of total seeds in it,” Luka pointed out. Whatever he actually meant by that.
Hell, I’d bite. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
Evelyn cackled. “A seed’s a person who doesn’t know they want to be a floret yet!” So they’d come up with their own ‘egg’ equivalent, got it.
“Seems like a pretty big assumption to make, but okay,” I muttered.
“I mean, Luka was just the BIGGEST seed, wasn’t he?” Evelyn asked, apparently finding the idea to be hilarious.
“Yeah, I guess I k-kinda was,” Luka said, blushing.
“I’ve still got my suspicions when it comes to Allie!”
Alayah did not appear to be amused. “Give it a rest, Ev.”
I really hoped she would. Evelyn didn’t say anymore on the matter, but did flash me the briefest of looks. Was she trying to imply something? I opened my mouth to speak out, only to force it shut again. Couldn’t go around starting fights. Couldn’t give them any excuses at all. Toe the line. Toe the line…
“I’ve got a question,” Alayah said eventually. “One for Serenity!”
“Um… yeah?”
“The Dark Lady of Evernight wakes up one day in the world of Death Capital. What does she do?”
“Oooh, I’ve gotta know that,” Evelyn said, rubbing her hands together.
“Dude, I dunno,” I said. Everyone looked a bit disappointed. “Well, okay, give me a sec.” Evernight wakes up in what is essentially a cyberpunk dystopia. What could possibly go wrong? “She’d get her bearings, first of all. Fade into the shadows and learn whatever she can.” I considered her next moves. “It’d become clear to her before long that people are suffering under a corporate jackboot, I’d imagine. Evernight would go for the head.”
“Sounds violent,” Luka mused.
I shook my head. “She’d infiltrate Albright’s big tower. The bigger the shadow, the easier for Evernight to slip inside; and the tower casts a big shadow. Then she’d just have to make it up. If she can get into an elevator shaft, she’s golden… though… oh, she’d be even better off if she could knock out the power…”
“Can she fly?” Alayah asked. I nodded. At night, anyway. “Why not fly up to where Albright is from outside? Break the window, confront him.”
“She doesn’t want to confront him,” I said, “not at first. She’d haunt him. Always in his shadow, his blind spot. Making him just aware enough to fear, but not so much he finds out what’s actually going on. She’d do this as long as she needed to; make him lose sleep over it, make his waking hours torment. And finally, when he can’t take it anymore? When he’s sure someone has it out for him? She speaks to him from the shadows! She demands that he shutter his company, and leave the city for good.”
“Um… I don’t think companies work that way,” Evelyn said. “Wait, actually… is Albright privately held?”
The crowd consensus wasn’t sure.
“What do you mean?” Luka said.
“So, like, what I want to figure out is whether they’re owned by their founders or whether… um, so do you know how the stock market worked?” Evelyn asked.
“Vaguely,” Luka said.
“Um… so basically every company was worth something, and if they were held publicly, people could invest in them, which is to say they’d buy a piece of that company and own it? I think?” Evelyn said. Her master had come back into the room and was watching her with amusement. “So, anyway. The company wants to make money, and the people who own parts of it want it to make money because that makes the parts they own more valuable.” She paused, briefly tensing, eyes wide. Soon after that, she relaxed again. “A cobbobo wab geffa lae, woo… oh, dabber.”
Alayah cracked up before anyone else could say anything. Luka just looked anxious.
“What happened?” he asked. “What happened to Evelyn?” I was, admittedly, wondering the same thing.
“She got W’d!” Alayah exclaimed, still laughing.
That didn’t do anything to allay my confusion. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning we’re never gonna learn how the stock market works, evidently!” Alayah said breezily. “It’s a drug. Removes your ability to speak coherently for a while.” I decided I was just going to add that to my mental list of ‘of course that’s a thing.’
“So they’ve got truth serums, and then they’ve got… that,” I deadpanned. Alayah nodded. So did Evelyn. “What if they gave you both at the same time?”
“Oo wo na bie ow?” Evelyn asked. Her owner looked at me and grinned.
“I was not saying I wanted to find out,” I said.
“What were we even talking about?” Luka wondered aloud.
“I think it was whether Serenity’s plan would work,” Alayah said.
Evelyn tensed up again just briefly. “Ohmystars I can talk again!”
“Getting the guy in charge has got to mean something, right?” I asked. “And besides, the Dark Lady would be as thorough as she needed to be.”
“Would she buy off the shareholders?” Alayah said, giggling.
“I mean, you made it sound like she’s waking up in the city with only the Shroud on her back, so… no?”
“Oh!” Luka exclaimed, “I’ve got a question. If the Dark Lady topples Albright, how would she handle the resultant power vacuum?”
“Maybe she can run for mayor!” Evelyn suggested.
“Maybe we should go to the next episode,” I countered.
We watched three more episodes at this pace, effectively catching us up to date. After each one there was discussion (and a fair amount of questioning as to what Evernight would do in the situation). Now that we were all caught up, the TV went off and the lights came back on, leading me to realize that I’d… almost made it through this.
“Is there a manga out?” Luka asked. “I’m gonna read ahead so I know everything that happens.”
“Well first off, how dare you,” Alayah chuckled, “and secondly… no, I don’t think there is.”
“It’s an original project,” Evelyn confirmed.
I had, admittedly, tuned out a while back; the couch was soft and the Shroud was soft and I was full of pizza… I hadn’t fallen asleep, had I? Even though they’d turned the lights back on, I was still really cozy…
…
“Time to wake up, Serenityyyyyyy….”
Ah fuckshit where was… I blinked several times, yelped, and backed away into couch cushions. Evelyn cackled, apparently having crawled over to where I was so she could get right up in my face…
“The hell…?” I got my bearings. Evelyn was right there, of course, with Luka behind her, wrapped up in the arms of a… somewhat familiar affini.
“So good to see you again, Serenity!” that particular affini said, smiling down at me. “I’m Philodendron, do you remember?” Tucked up against her, Luka seemed to be just as unconscious as I had apparently just been, not that anyone was… giving him any crap about it.
“The one from the restaurant,” I muttered. Philodendron beamed back at me, apparently just happy to be remembered.
“That’s correct!” Philodendron said. “The day after I met you, I visited that restaurant again and met a different adorable little terran~” She gazed indulgently at her sleeping floret, lightly stroking his scalp with a trio of vines. “If you couldn’t tell, we rather became quite enamored with one another!”
Another snare of vines lifted Evelyn off the couch; for her part, she just giggled and happily went with it. But where was Alayah? Had I been left alone with these affini and their pets?
Don’t show fear, Serenity. They already have pets, why would they need more?
Anyway, Alayah answered my question by emerging from the hallway with a tote bag in hand. “Alright, Ev, I’ve got everything. Thank you for letting me stay, Mr. Celes,” she said, to Evelyn’s big blue owner. Evelyn wasn’t asleep, but seemed to be out of it in quite a different way, softly giggling and murmuring to herself.
“Anytime,” he returned. “And of course, if you’d like to stay tonight as well…”
Alayah laughed it off. “I’m good! But thanks, though.”
“Then we’ll see you next week?” the blue affini said. Alayah nodded. “Wonderful.”
Philodendron said her goodbyes, both in a language I could understand and in one I couldn’t, before gliding out of the hab, Luka soundly asleep through all of it.
“Hey, Serenity!” It was Alayah, who looked at me beside the doorway. “You coming? Or are you planning on staying?”
“There’s plenty of room,” Mr. Celes suggested.
“A-ah, I was just…” I hopped off the couch and moved towards the door. “Um, thank you for having me…”
“Anytime.”
Alayah stopped me outside the hab, which was one floor above the second atrium. “Hey, uh, thanks for showing up,” she told me. “It was a nice surprise.”
“E-Evelyn was the friend you’d come to visit?” I asked, only blushing and stuttering a little. I hoped.
“Yeah, she is. I’ve been making a habit of doing this every week. It’s fun, y’know?”
Don’t tell her that talking to other humans was scary. “Being in another affini’s hab was kinda scary,” I admitted. It was what it was, I supposed.
Alayah nodded, leaning against the railing. “Yeah, I think I get that. Your… best friend gets taken and you have to wonder if you’re next…”
I shivered. “S-stars…”
“I think it’s gonna be okay, though. Ev’s owner is pretty cool, seems to have some idea of what boundaries are. He always asks if I want to stay another night.” She frowned. “Luka, though… I guess I wasn’t expecting him to get picked up. Not as surprising as it could’ve been, though.”
“It was my first time meeting him, so… well, I’m just glad I wasn’t the only independent,” I said.
Alayah sighed. “You said it. I know that statistically, like, most humans stay independent, or at least that’s what I’ve heard. But even then it feels like the affini just got here.”
“It’s only been a few months,” I said.
“Feels like longer,” she said, chuckling somewhat. “A world away. Where were you? Y’know, when they showed up.”
“Me?” I asked. “At work, I guess. No… yeah, I was at work.” Standing in my little box, grill in front of me, freezer behind me. That Serenity, so forgettable she’d never even been drafted.
“Where was work?” Alayah asked.
“I was getting there,” I chuckled. “Work was the Molly’s down on Nettle Street. Burger flipper extraordinaire, at your service.” I bowed.
She giggled. “Not all heroes wear capes. Or, well…” she looked at my outfit and smirked.
“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, that day only about half of us showed up. The rest of us bitched and moaned, but, well, you know how it is. ‘Shut up and get to your stations.’ Anyway. Real slow day that day, but I wasn’t complaining. I had no idea what time it was, because the clock had broken like, a month ago and no one had bothered to fix it. The weird thing is how quiet it was.”
“There was a literal alien invasion, and they just left you alone?” Alayah asked. “Stars…”
I’d figured out something was wrong eventually. First thing I did was take a seat on the freezer case, because whenever I did that, someone was bound to come in and yell at me. No one came, not even when I started to try and fail to juggle frozen patties.
“Eventually I did wander outside of my little box,” I said. “The building was completely empty, and my shift was supposed to end an hour ago, which meant it was literally midnight. And I thought I was completely screwed, y’know? I’d been clocked in an hour longer than I was supposed to be. They were totally gonna fire me for stolen labor or something.”
“So what’d you do?” Alayah asked.
“So, I was pretty pissed off. No one had gotten me when my shift was supposed to end, and now I was bound to lose my job because of it.” But I paused. What the hell was I doing? I’d made myself dinner before I left — a double burger, fries to go with it, even a milkshake. Serenity’s last supper, all the stuff I could never afford. But Alayah didn’t care about that, she wanted to know when I’d seen aliens! “Um, anyway. I went outside and saw, like, lights in the sky. Two main clusters, with beams occasionally appearing between them. Like, two spaceships? But I had to wonder, why were there spaceships? And then I realized it must’ve been those things we’d been at war with.”
“I think it might’ve just been one ship,” Alayah mused. “Did you see it only at night?”
“I took one look, ran home to my apartment, and stayed there.” Could it have just been one ship? No way. Nothing was that big, except… I remembered the little info cards the ships at the toy store had. “Maybe… maybe it was just one ship. Must’ve been like, the size of the city…”
“I saw it during the day,” Alayah said. “It was kind of shaped like a vase you’d put flowers in, which was kinda funny. I’d been walking to the store. It was… spellbinding. It had these petals opening and closing… I just gawked at the thing, until someone ran up to me and told me I needed to get inside. A real panicky salaryman looking kinda guy.”
“Did you?” I asked.
She chuckled. “I did eventually remember that there was a war on. I ducked into a nearby cafe that had a bunch of suits hiding behind the counter, and a whole lot more people hunkered down in the kitchen. They couldn’t seem to agree whether they should actually take me or not. Everyone had their handhelds out, scrounging for any information they could. One of them asked me if there were ships out there. I said there was one, and that it didn’t look navy.”
“Weird how we had, like… um, our experiences were complete opposites,” I said, momentarily forgetting how spoken language worked. “Did they kick you out?”
“No, they didn’t. I don’t think anyone wanted to be the one to send me back out there. Everyone had their own idea of what was happening, of course. One guy couldn’t shut up about how he’d thought that we’d been winning… and I guess a lot of people had been under the same impression. Someone said the ship outside was a secret weapon that’d send the xenos to hell. But I think more people thought they were going to start glassing us at any moment, like, some were crying, or praying, I dunno whether to gods or the military or quadrillionaires or what.”
“Well, I guess I know where all the people were,” I muttered. Alayah laughed.
“Sounds like you were uptown, yeah? I’ll bet everyone over there was shut up in their homes. Or they skipped town altogether if they were rich enough. Do you remember when the streaming blackout was lifted?”
I nodded. “Yeah. By them! Did you get that same sorta kitschy ‘Welcome to the Compact’ video?”
“Only about a dozen times!” she cackled. “Did you see the meme edits?”
“It was hard not to, they were everywhere for a little while.” The original video had contained a blissed out floret telling everyone how okay everything was going to be, and really, the edits had been inevitable. They ranged from things our planty overlords would definitely consider “feralist,” to more innocuous stuff like having the floret sing anime openings and pop hits. “I wonder if that edit of the floret reciting the numbers of pi is still ongoing.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s gonna be going until the sun goes out,” Alayah mused. “Did you ever tune into the stream of the floret reading banned books?”
“That’s a thing? Wait, Accord banned, or Compact banned?”
“Accord. I have no idea if the affini ban books,” Alayah said.
“They’ll just domesticate you for reading the wrong ones,” I said. I meant it as a joke, but… what if?
Either way, Alayah giggled. “‘Oh, petal, were you reading Milton Friedman again? Then I’m afraid I have no choice.’”
“Is that your ‘affini voice?’” I asked, chuckling. That name sounded familiar, like I’d heard it in school, maybe, but I couldn’t put my finger on who they actually were.
“Is it a good impression?” She cocked her head and pouted at me.
“You kinda sounded like you were underwater,” I replied. She laughed, and I did too.
“Did not!” she protested. “I sounded just like an affini.”
“A drowning one, maybe.”
She snorted. “You just don’t appreciate my talents.”
“—,” I began, but stopped when I heard the beep and hiss of the elevator opening. Turning to face it, I watched Cereus saunter out of it, look directly at me, and then quietly sidle around the corner out of sight. “Oh, stars, what is she doing now?”
“Uh, someone you know?” Alayah asked. “Are they trying to hide from us?”
“That’s, uh, my warden,” I said. Cereus leaned out around the corner to take a look, saw me looking right at her, and leaned back in.
“Oh, stars, they’re probably wondering where you are,” Alayah mused. “Um. Sorry.”
“It’s… probably fine,” I said. “Not sure why she’s hoping to ambush me at the elevator, though.”
“Need to go now, d’you think?” Alayah asked.
I just looked at her and smirked. “Well, I could. But I’m kinda wondering how long it’ll take her to make the first move.” I snuck a glance at the space down below; it was more sparsely populated at this time of day, but a few people were around. I knew what the Dark Lady would want to do, but Alayah was here, and so were a bunch of strangers besides. Alas, this physical plane was so limiting!
“She’ll definitely see us if we try to sneak over to the stairs, though.” Alayah grinned. “What’s our move, Dark Lady?”
“Uh,” I said.
“There’s gotta be something you can do!” she teased.
“Well…” I trailed off. Alayah looked at me expectantly. Agh, fine! “The pretender queen seeks to usurp my power. I cannot say what she has already taken from me. Even if I were to melt into the shadows, she might be able to pick me out.” I looked around. “It’s, uh, also really well lit in here.”
“Well I’m sure you can do something about that.”
I just gave her a look. “Dude, I wish.”
Alayah giggled. “Well, it was worth a shot.”
I sighed. “I probably oughta go now.”
“See you next week, maybe?” It was an invitation, if anything. She wanted to know if I’d be at any more club meetups.
“W-well, I mean.” I scratched at my suddenly itchy scalp. “Can’t, uh, leave you to be trapped among the florets.” The Dark Lady was not one to abandon one in need…
She smiled at me. “I’ll see you, then.”