Two days ago, during a bit of downtime where I needed to shoot something on the surface but the station hadn’t gotten into the right orbital position yet, I ended up lounging in the gunnery crèche and talking to Ennos while I waited. Which led to a conversation that I mostly forgot.

“There, see?” Ennos highlights a file pointer on my AR. “It moved!”

“Huh.” I reach a paw out and swipe awkwardly at the rewind command I once took a painstakingly long time to make standard on all my displays. Then I watch very closely as the tiny bit of data goes through a flicker of self-alteration. “Weird.” I say.

“Weird?” Ennos sounds a little enthusiastic. “Weird?!” Okay, no, Ennos sounds a little overdramatic. “Do you know what this means?!”

“I provably do not.” I tell them. It’s not that I don’t want to encourage Ennos’ hobbies, it’s just that my organic brain cannot keep up with the thousands or millions of interactions per second that this kind of backwards understanding of code ends up being.

It’s different when I’m making a program to do something specific. There, even if I’m using that bizarre digital incubator to half-code-half-evolve a program, I *know what the output should be*. I may miss a lot of intricacies, and if I’m doing it by paw and voice input I’m probably gonna leave a trail of bugs an orbit wide, but I already have the answer of ‘what does this do’.

Ennos is asking me to focus on deriving the purpose of a thing just by looking at tiny changes that may as well be random noise to me.

Not for the first time, I wish that I could make use of the stockpile of cybernetics I have on hand.

It’s a little grim, I admit, that every one of them is secondhand. But I’ve built up a hell of a collection with all the salvaging I’ve done, and it’s not like anyone needed them. Letting them just sit and try their best to rust seems mean to the spirit of the interface.

But alas. I reject pretty much every foreign object, whether I want to or not. Sometimes that’s great. But when all I want is to spin up my brain to speeds that can interact with the grid on something at least close to one-to-one, it’s a headache.

Ennos shows me more code bits. I really do try to pay attention, because my friend is obviously having fun with this. But after they start talking about tracking pseudo-random storage states, and forming a foundational vocabulary for sharing information, I’m out.

I’m an uplift, I’ve had four hundred years of taking in a lot of math lessons, I can plot an orbital intercept course in my head and I can do it faster with a screen that won’t reject my physical limitations. But when Ennos starts getting into the weeds of this, I feel like I’m back to being stuck with a baseline brain, screaming pointless meows at doors without knowing what doors even are.

Thank Sol we’re coming into range of the target. “Sorry, I have to take out this flesh hive before it converts anyone else” is, as far as excuses to end a conversation go, *pretty good*.

And then, I did a really impressive trick with bouncing a low speed class one groundstriker off of a burst of surface-to-atmosphere intercept fire, so I could make a weird angle shot. Which is basically impossible with hands, much less with paws, so you can all be suitably impressed.

And then I put Ennos’ project out of my mind, and we got sidetracked by some other stuff.

Two days later, though, it came back to mind under weird circumstances.

“Hey, Ennos, can you check your map against my AR readout?” I asked into the open air, standing in an upper deck corridor with my trademark aura of utter confusion and a lack of time to cover it up.

The AI replies almost instantly. “Of course. Where are you going?”

“Well I’m *going* to the vacuum-state processor core, because I need to check what the connector numbers are so I can hook up the power source to the… this is less important. Vacuum-state processor core.” I lay my ears on my head as I realize I’m rambling again. And despite the fact that AIs can simulate infinite patience, I still feel *judged* when I ramble. Which I may be doing now.

“You are, and you also aren’t.” Ennos says out loud.

“I am… rambling?” Oh no! I *am* being judged!

“You are rambling, and you are not going to the vacuum-state processor core. Mostly because that is not a thing.” Ennos says.

“What? Yes it is! You helped me wire it up!” I insist. I launch myself up onto the bulkhead, which is currently looking at me mockingly, and drag my claws down the metal where the door is supposed to be. “It’s right here!” I insist, trying to dispel the illusion.

But it’s still metal, and my claws hurt now.

And after Ennos double checks their own memory, and their grid connections, it starts to look like there was never a core here at *all*. The station map even lines up geographically, there’s just never been a door here.

Except.

That can’t be.

“What about… Glitter, or Jom?” I say. “Maybe they have different memories?”

“Neither of them have full maps, and they aren’t wired into the station’s grid.” Ennos says, their own wariness and anxiety seeping in.

For all that this is terrifying, it’s a warm feeling to know that Ennos doesn’t question if I’m crazy, doesn’t accuse me of misremembering or fabricating. Just trusts that something is wrong, and we can dive into the how and why right away.

Not that the diving is going smoothly.

“What about drone records?” I ask, physical exhaustion having driven me to drape myself over an acceleration couch while we have this conversation. “Do they have their own memories?”

“They have only minimal local storage, so no.” Ennos says. “Also, I don’t have any records of drones in that area.”

“Pox!” I hiss out. “What is even *happening* to… wait, no records?”

“None.” Ennos says, trying to stay calm. And then, as their processes make the indicated connection, “None at all! Wait, how?”

I start to swipe through the part of my display that manages communications, and eventually get my upside down paws to open a subspace link to Glitter. “Glitter!” I exclaim

“Hello, Lily.” She says with a smiling voice. “So pleasant to-“

“Do you have records of drone operations where I am?!” I cut her off.

I can almost feel her being disappointed in me. She even *sighs* at me. “Yes, Lily.” She says. “I have several logs of no records of any operations in that area.”

I am on my paws, the fur on my back standing on end, tail straight up. “Ennos, did you hear that?”

“No.” Ennos says. “But I suspect I should have.”

“Glitter?”

“Yes, Lily?”

Well that’s a lot more flagrant than the station usually gets with its manipulations.

I’m not stupid. I know that I’m a little… all over the place. I’ve had to be, to keep even remotely on top of stuff, for a long time. And I’m trying to be better now that I have help again to take the edge off. But scattered or not, I’m still paying attention.

I know that the station isn’t really that friendly.

The way that things are hard coded to forbid true automation. The way things seem to be as twisted as possible to keep new forms of life from easily accessing anything. This place was *fortified*, though against what exactly I couldn’t tell you. But I know defenses and traps when I see them. I’ve set enough of my own.

The problem is that I’m caught in it. The security keeps me from fully using things, the way the station’s code seems to take over anything brought on board constantly messes with my salvage operations, and sometimes, I swear things change when I’m not looking. Not to mention it’s haunted, but I’m fine with that part. It’s just… the station is…

It’s just all that I’ve got.

But I’m getting tired of this. More than normal, for me, which is impressive.

“Ennos, what were you using this hardware for?”

“I don’t know… how I could even start to answer that.”

“Okay. The good old comparative list then.” I nod. This, at least, I can do. I start running through projects Ennos was working on, and we to try to figure out what had just been lost. Internal map was still there, just wrong. Orbital map seemed intact. Algae growth testing was untouched. Sunspot observational data was there, along with most of the scanner logs Ennos kept as part of themself. I ran through a few dozen things, all of it - and Ennos themself - seeming intact, until I remembered a conversation two days ago. “What about tracking the living code bit?” I asked.

“The what?” Ennos said. And both of us instantly knew we’d hit something. “Wait, yes. There are things that live in the grid. Of course I’d want to… I have some preliminary notes and ideas. All my work, though? Was that what I was…” Ennos runs through overlapping sentences at a rapid pace, before coming to the question I’d had from the start. “What did I find?” My friend asks.

“I don’t know.” I say, honestly. “But you were talking about it like you’d almost found a way to make contact. Or at least, you were working on it.” It occurs to me, suddenly, that whatever Ennos almost found; if the station doesn’t want them to see it, then I *really* want to take a look. “Okay. I have an idea.”

“What do you need?” Ennos asks.

I start padding down the hall, projected screens folding around me as the system decides I’m not focusing on it enough. “From you? Nothing. Well, one thing. I need to know where someone is, and then I need you to not provoke the station until I get back.”

They tell me what I ask, and I try my best to not put voice to my terror that the station has just demonstrated that it could simply erase Ennos at a moment’s notice. I start running, bounding around corners and taking advantage of the spots where the grav plates aren’t at their strongest anymore, heading for my target.

Dyn Four, a woman ancient by human standards and a child by mine, is standing at an intersection in one of the core deck spaces, running a half-metal half-flesh hand over a screen on the wall. She’s speaking when I approach, which is strange enough for her, but what’s stranger is that the words are recognizably Upper French, a language I am almost certain she does not actually speak.

I meow at her, forgoing actual words for a minute. She finishes what she was saying without looking at me, and then drops her hand, before turning. “Y’have it plus.” The woman says by way of greeting. Her words are rough, hundreds of years of mutated slang and isolationist culture leaving it tricky to decipher her speech with Ennos not listening and translating automatically. But I’ve been more or less learning it, and she’s been learning mine, even if she pretends otherwise.

Which is also weird. She’s never spoken to me without prompting.

“Have what?” I let my curiosity take over, scratching behind my ear with a paw as the cleaner nanos strike up an itch from where they’ve taken to clinging to my fur.

“Yis.” She says, running fingers reverently over the display screen on the wall. “The Oath. Null expetin’. But here ya go, yeh?”

“The station’s makers are where it comes from.” I tell her quietly. “They wrote it, and it seems to have stuck around.” I’m pretty surprised, really, that it’s kept up even among her own people. The old words, written here and there around the station in a casual way, and in a few spots painted in a much more fervent and passionate splash of chempaint. ‘At the end of all things, all of us, together, against the darkness.’ They didn’t seem the type. Maybe it’s a translation error. “I need your help.” I say finally, sitting and trying to keep my tail from flicking too much.

Dyn looks down at me. She’s short by modern human standards, but still towers overhead, a giant of a person compared to my own frame. But somehow, it doesn’t feel threatening. Maybe it’s because I know she can’t really hurt me. Maybe it’s because of what she says. “Kay.” The woman shrugs. “Null shake elsewise, eh?”

“You absolutely could find something else to do, don’t give me that.” I give a tiny feline snort, running my paw over my ear again where the nanoswarm is still giving me an itch. “Get your suit on. We’re going salvaging.”

“Wha lootin?”

“An old hypercorp-era frigate. I need something on it that I’m not gonna say out loud.” I tell her. “Jom’s ready to launch, and we’re on the clock. Meet me in bay twelve an hour ago.” I say, standing and starting to bound off, the nanoswarm swirling around my limbs, mimicking my movements more than normal.

Behind me, I hear Dyn snort, then yell in an awkward attempt at my own language. “Follow the oath too, you don’t you?!” She calls.

“I *am* the voiding oath!” I shout back, before I curl my legs up and slide into an open ventilation port, taking a controlled - really - tumble down the forty feet before it curves and brings me to an intersection from which I can make my way to where Jom has the engines running. Shortcut successful!

It’s been too long since the last alarm about something horrible on the surface, so I’m on edge. But there’s a much more personal problem, and I’m hoping I can at least start to bring a solution online.

The station is fucking with my friend. And oath or not, I still don’t trust Dyn enough to risk asking her to form a consensus and start changing directives. So here’s a halfway point. There’s a frigate a couple hundred kilometers away that Jom spotted last time he was out. These kind of old corp ships almost always have backup databases on them for record keeping.

They never have any good secrets. I’ve checked. A lot.

But they do have space, and processing power. And that’s all I need. Especially if we can get it running *far away from the station*.

Because what I need is to keep Ennos safe. And if the station won’t allow for that, we’re going to have to build a life raft of sorts. I’d ask Glitter, but she’s been too linked to the station this whole time, and is almost certainly infected with its protocols. So this is going to need a dramatic approach

I don’t technically need Dyn. But Dyn has thumbs.

As I suit up, letting the drone constructor seal me inside my engineering armor, I grimly realize that if this goes wrong, the station might just finally decide to get rid of me, too. If it even can do that, I suppose. It’s never been clear how far its reach stretches.

The suit clips into place, a hiss of air and a hiss of anxiety from me accompanying the total blackout of light and communications.

And then my ear itches. Dammit.

But then, to my wide eyed shock, I feel a tingling as large portions of the nanoswarm on my fur coils away. And before my internal helmet display kicks to life, a single word etches itself in my vision in thinly luminous nanites.

“Ready.” It says.

“What.” I hiss out. The word echoing in the dark suit interior. The nanites don’t move. “What… *are* you?” I ask. Because there’s no way these are the same cleaner nanos that have been following me around for…

Wait, the cleaner nanos only started following me around a month ago. And then more recently. I just thought I’d been spending more time in the dirt, but… is that it? Is that all?

“You’re here to help?” I ask tentatively, and the nanites blink once at me with their dim luminosity, the word unchanging. “Why?”

The letters rearrange themselves into words. “Our friend too.” They say.

“What are you?” I ask again with a quiet meow, coming to the maddening conclusion that the station isn’t the only thing I don’t know the whole story on.

Words form, one by one, as the nanites arrange themselves. “Silly.” “Old.” “Cat.” They spell out for me. And then, they pull away, and I feel a tiny rustling in my fur as they latch onto me again. And then, before I can say anything else, or question why they’re mocking me, the electrics in my suit engage, systems kick in, the connection establishes itself, and I’m ready to move once more. And the nanoswarm goes silent and still.

There’s a lot to unpack here. But later. For now, there’s work to do.

Not that there ever isn’t work to do.