When I wake, she is back to work, as if nothing had happened. Hunched over a laptop, a broken monitor now serving as an unbalanced table. She notices that I am conscious.

“Take a bath, eat some toast, let me explain, then get out.”

It really is as if nothing happened.

A slice of toast later, we’re facing each other. She looks anxious.

“So… what did you see last night?”

There really isn’t any real way to respond to this. “Was it something I wasn’t supposed to see?”

She sighs. “I was going to use bottled moonlight, but do you know how expensive the good stuff is? It’s like…” she starts to count on her fingers, before sighing again in exasperation. “Anyway, that was technomancy. Real, raw, technomancy. It wasn’t clean or pretty. That’s what it is.” She folds her arms. “Disgusting.”

I thought it was kind of pretty, if not absolutely terrifying.

“Look… Do you know what a… homunculus is?”

“... Isn’t that like a man-made man?”

“Kind of.” She grimaces. “I’ve studied a little bit of alchemy and vanilla necromancy itself - I believe I can recreate the process, using tech.” And she laughs, bitter. “It’s a stretch, but I was hoping to produce a homunculus for the investor later this week. I was thinking that that would be enough proof that technomancy is something worth investing in.”

“You mean, investing money and research - not just… your own efforts.”

“Exactly.”

“So how successful have you been?”

“You just saw it.

“So…”

“Not very. Kind of. I’m reaching.”

“Right.”

More silence, and then…

“I have no idea how I’m going to pull this off. But either way, you need to get out. Shopkeep’s waiting.”

I groan, “what do they want me to do now? All I end up doing is sleeping.”

She gets up and heads to the door, opening it for me. “Who knows? Maybe you’re like a guard dog or something.”

Without missing a beat, I respond in the most deadpan tone I can muster - “Woof woof.”

“... I’m never speaking to you again.”

“Wh-”

“Never.”

And I’m shoved out the door. But before the door shuts, I see her smirk and mouth, “meow.”

I swear, she’s so…