Chapter Forty-Nine - Back Stage Story

“The Hug series was a complete fluke. So, we had this series the, ah, I think they were called the G-13s? They were these sexbots that looked like... anyway, so there’s this law that passed that made making bots that looked like they’re not adult-appearing illegal, so we just had this whole warehouse full of these, right. We stripped them of the valuable parts, but the chassis and control units were all still there. So then one of our techies is like... why not turn them into something else?

Within two weeks, the warehouse was empty and we had six thousand Hug Bot Ones on backorder. It was nuts!”

--Interview with Jim Jimerson, CFO of General Stability, 2045

***

“Come on, we can make ourselves a bit comfier inside,” Lucy said with a thumb pointed over her shoulder. I followed her into the store that she’d apparently continued to remodel into a small headquarters while I was gone. There were more tables up, with stations along one side with a jumbled mix of laptops and VR stations. A small armoury had sprouted up as well, a place for people to hang guns and gear onto repurposed clothing racks. The wall between the store Lucy took over and the next one over had been ripped apart, and we walked through to find the other side turned into a more private break room, the walls covered in discount carpets nailed to the ceiling and taped onto the windows to make the place a little darker and cozier.

Folk in the official kitten uniform (a pair of what looked like 3d-printed cat ears) were taking breaks next to water coolers, and they had a small eating area set up.

“My office is at the back, way over there,” Lucy said with a careless gesture. “But I never really use it.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “This is... a lot to set up in one day.”

“Nah, this wasn’t too hard. I have my pick of good people to choose from here. Lots of folk want to help. Even more people want to not feel useless. I just had to sort through, find some people that had the right skills, then sort through those until I found people that were also passionate and smart. Then the rest was easy.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“Smart, passionate people are usually stuck in their own little areas, I think,” Lucy said. She tapped her chin, which she always did when philosophising. “I think that a lot of the smartest, most passionate people want to do a lot of things, but they don’t have a choice in what they do. They need jobs, they need to work to get food and a place to stay. So their smarts poof away and their passion dies out. But hey! This city is a disaster right now, so no one’s got a job anymore, and that means those same people can actually be of use!”

I noticed Manic nodding along next to me. “You get it,” she said. “Met plenty of incredible artists in my day. Most of them give up. You can’t eat inspiration and you can’t live with nothing to keep you warm but passion, not for long. Sucks, but that’s the world we live in.”

“What about you?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I followed my passions and rocked out when inspired. Got lucky a lot, enough to keep clothes on my back and food in my stomach, but I think I always knew it wouldn’t work out forever. I... guess that’s changed a little, now.”

“I guess so,” I said. “Maybe you can use some of those points you earned today to help other musicians?”

“Oh, you’re a musician?” Lucy asked. “That’s hot! I’ve always told Cat to learn how to play the guitar so that she can serenade me.”

“I literally only had one arm,” I said.

“Ah, but your fingering technique is so good,” Lucy purred.

I turned my head away, then remembered that I still had a helmet on, no one could see my blushing. Lucy, of course, knew anyway.

“So, hungry?” Lucy asked with a glance at Manic.

“I am. How’d you know?”

“Magic,” Lucy said with a wink. “I’ll get the cook to prep something for us real quick. How about you sit back and maybe get a guitar out? We don’t have much by means of ambient music in here.”

Manic shrugged, then walked over to an unoccupied table. Jennifer very notably didn’t move from one step behind me.

“What are we going to do about you?” Lucy asked Jennifer. “I don’t think you can eat, can you?”

“Only if you’re using eat as a euphemism,” Jennifer confirmed.

“Right, no. I don’t know if this is racist or something, but I’m not really turned on by sex bots, I don’t think. I like my sex a bit... fleshier. Although, I wonder where Mister Tentacles falls on that spectrum? I guess my preferences are less a hard rule and more a sliding-scale-of-bot-fucking, and you happen to fall outside the part of that scale I’m comfortable with.” Lucy nodded, clearly pleased with herself.

“You mentioned a cook?” I asked.

“Oh, right,” Lucy jumped and spun, then headed out towards yet another blown-out wall. How big had they turned the Kitten’s headquarters? “So, he’s more of a chef, really. Some Michelin Many-star place in town’s main chef guy. I think he’s actually enjoying working with canned trash food. It’s like, a challenge or something. And it all comes out tasting pretty good.”

“You ate already?” I asked.

“Mhm, a bit ago. But I can spoon feed you while you catch me up and I do the same for you? You’ve been out of the city for a few hours, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said. We met the chef, who was busy behind a small office-divider with two others. They had camping stoves out, with pots full of boiling water and opened cans stacked up to one side. Lucy ordered a pair of ‘whatever’s ready soon’ and then we were heading back the other way.

“What are your plans for Jennifer back there?” Lucy asked.

“Ah, I found her in an abandoned apartment building. Didn’t feel right to leave her behind. So I kind of kidnapped her. She probably has an owner somewhere. Decent odds that they’re still alive, but I haven’t made any effort to find them.”

“Well, Jennifer, if you need a job in the meantime, just let me know,” Lucy said.

“I am obligated to return to my master if at all possible.”

“And if you don’t want to?” I asked.

“I’m not programmed to not want to,” Jennifer said.

“Well, that’s a pickle,” Lucy said. “There’s no ‘free will’ mode you can activate?”

“They patched that out,” Jennifer said.

I shook my head. This was delving into moral quandaries that I was entirely unready for. “That’s fucked up. Maybe Myalis can unpatch that for you? Uh, assuming your first free-will choice won’t be to murder us all? Wait... Why did you want to keep her around in the first place?”

“I keep all the cute lost things you bring me, Cat, you know that,” Lucy said. She looked to Jennifer. “So, want a job, or not? It’s fine to say no, not like you take up much space.”

“I would like a job,” Jennifer said after a moment’s pause.

“Nice,” Lucy said. “Can you take notes for me? We’ll get you dressed up in a nice pinstrike and one of those skirts secretaries wear. What are those called?”

“Pencil skirts?” I asked.

“Yeah, those are the ones. I’ll send someone to find something in your size, and you can stand next to me and be my eye candy while Cat’s not around.”

I rolled my eyes. “Speaking of, didn’t I leave you with a few guard cats?”

“They’re in stealth mode,” Lucy said. “Intimidating people is cool, but being intimidating tends to only work on the people I need to approach me, and those I need to scare off are a lot more ready for trouble.”

The chef called out to us, then sent someone running over with a tray that had a dozen little plates on it. He’d cooked up what looked like tiny portions of rice and beans, with some sort of fish looking thing on top. The proportions were all tiny, but there were a lot of little plates.

“Come on, you can tell me what you were up to. I heard through the grapevine that you blew up a couple of buildings?”

“Yeah, that’s where I found Jennifer. Before the blowing up happened. Turns out there’s a long tunnel from the edge of downtown all the way to the lake. So we’re going to have to deal with that soon.”

“Think they’ll continue to come?” Lucy asked.

“As long as we’re a threat, yeah,” I said. “And I think the aliens think that anything that’s tasty and which doesn’t immediately jump into their stomachs is a threat. I think tonight’s either going to be real quiet, or the exact opposite.”

I stifled a yawn. I hadn’t quite realized it, but I was getting tired. How long had I been up for? Not... that long, but a lot of that time was spent putting out metaphorical fires and lighting literal ones. I could use a nap, basically.

I suspected that I wouldn’t get the opportunity.

***