Prologue

Lucy sat on their front porch, wearing a one piece swimming suit that was made of the bare minimum possible amount of material, and sipping from a drink with a long swirly straw.

They didn’t really have a porch, but the large landing space at the front of their home, between the two large paws of the massive cat shape-penthouse was vaguely porch-like, she supposed.

She was wearing a healthy amount of sunscreen and lounging on a cushioned chair with a little umbrella set up next to her.

There was no sun out, because this was New Montreal, and the best they could hope for was an evening without rain, but it was the image that mattered. Plus, this was kind of fun overall.

“Ouch, fucking, fuck,” Cat said, and Lucy bit her lip not to laugh.

Catherine, in a fit of... Catherine-ness, had decided that she’d be the one to fix her giant warmech. The large quadrupedal vehicle was parked in the middle of the landing space, and Cat was standing on a small scaffold set up next to the front-left of the warmech. Next to her floated a ‘repair’ drone which she’d bought to basically do the thing that Cat herself was doing right now.

“Do you need help?” Lucy asked.

Cat glanced back, lips drawn together in a frustrated line. “No, I’m fine,” she said.

Lucy nodded, then took another long pull from her straw. She thought she’d tire of seeing the liquid spin around in little loops before reaching her mouth, but it hadn’t happened yet. Nor had she tired of seeing Cat bend over double to get into the guts of the mech.

Cat was wearing jean overalls and a sports bra and about half a gallon of grease and oil. Her hair was stuck in a dirty ponytail to keep it out of her face, but it hadn’t saved it from some of the liquids that sometimes squirted out from whatever she was working on.

“Hey, Myalis,” Lucy said. She had a nice relationship with the AI. Myalis wouldn’t help Lucy unless she thought that in doing so, it would help Cat, and the AI was very firm about that boundary, but at the same time, Myalis didn’t mind chatting.

It was, as far as Lucy could tell, a little strange for a Samurai to talk to their AI as if it was a person, but Cat had imprinted hard on Myalis and complained and talked to her as if Myalis was an old friend, so Lucy felt like she had to reach out as well.

Myalis’ voice replied right in Lucy’s ear, overriding for a moment the music that Lucy had been idly listening to. “Yes, Lucy?” Myalis asked. Her voice was always rather neutral. Feminine, but not... attractively so?

That was probably for the best, Lucy figured. If Myalis had one of those really sexy accents, then she might be in trouble. “How’s it going with Cat’s project?”

Myalis took a moment to respond, as if she had to think on what to say. Which was silly, Myalis had probably guessed what Lucy would ask before the thought had crossed Lucy’s mind, and had a million answers prepared already. “All things said, it’s going quite poorly. Catherine doesn’t have the ‘knack’ for mechanical work. She is also not very good at following the instructions from the repair drone. Nonetheless, even with several setbacks, the work is progressing, and she is making fewer mistakes.”

There was a clink-clank from where Cat was, then a lot of swearing.

“Though fewer mistakes doesn’t mean that none are being made, I should note,” Myalis said.

Lucy held back an inappropriate giggle. It would have upset Cat. “So, is this a new hobby? I don’t mind the butch-mechanic girl look, it’s hot, but I’m pretty sure Cat’s not doing this to try and... seduce me, or whatever.”

“I suspect that this is mostly happening because Catherine is not good at taking breaks. The prospect of sitting on her laurels makes her feel somewhat powerless, so she has decided to do something, even if it’s somewhat counter-productive. Of all the things she chose to do, apparently fixing the damage on her warmech by hand came to mind first.”

“Hmm,” Lucy said noncommittally. She supposed it made some sense. Cat was under a fair bit of stress, even if she was doing nothing much at the moment. They’d only arrived back from Burlinton a day and a half ago.

That meant one night celebrating her return with the kittens, then later with Lucy in their room, then a whole day spent cuddling and fucking and then cuddling some more, and now this morning, Cat had left and decided to become a mechanic.

Lucy sipped, and her straw made that loud slurping noise that meant she was fresh-out of juice.

She sighed, then kicked her legs to the side and with some effort, got to her feet. Her thigh and calf muscles sometimes still hurt, but she’d been assured that it was plain old muscle soreness from overuse, not anything nefarious.

Walking over to Cat, she paused by the bottom of the scaffold and looked up. “Hey,” she said.

Cat paused in the act of scrutinising two... metal thingies. “Huh? Oh, what’s up?” she asked.

“I’m getting another drink. Do you want anything?” she asked.

“Uh. Grab me a can of something sugary,” Cat said. “You know what I like.”

“Oh, I do,” Lucy purred, because she wasn’t going to pass up a line like that.

Cat stiffened for a bit, then grinned. “Ah, uh, hey, can you do me a favour while you’re in the house?”

“Sure,” Lucy said.

“I printed some parts. I need them,” Cat said. “For the... twisty bit, and the rod-shaft gizmo.”

“Ah yes, the rod-shaft gizmo,” Lucy said.

Cat huffed. “I just started this, you can’t expect me to know what I’m doing.”

“I’ll go fetch your rod-shaft gizmo,” Lucy said with a chuckle. “And after, maybe we can talk about lunch? It’s a couple of hours to noon, but I’m peckish.”

“Yeah, sure,” Cat said. “Could eat too, I guess.” And then she returned to her work and Lucy stepped off, heading back into the home.

It was incredible how different the air tasted just past the entranceway. There was no kerosene scent, and the air had a crisp, clean taste to it within the museum.

She shook her head as she caught herself calling it the museum again. The habit just wouldn’t die.

The kittens, she discovered, were spread out across the main room. Half of them were zoning out, staring at nothing and probably scrolling their media feeds, the other half were running after each other and making a mess.

She’d have to see about getting some sort of cleaning android, because getting the kittens to clean after themselves was a lost cause. “You’re gonna get fat,” she sing-songed as she walked past Daniel.

He was on a couch, legs kicking over the edge--which was a new habit he’d gained recently, much to anyone passing close’s annoyance, and he had a Meshgear helmet on. It wasn’t so much being plugged into the mesh that was the problem as it was the extra large bag of chips open next to him.

He flashed her the finger, then very conspicuously grabbed a chip and ate it.

Lucy shook her head and moved into their kitchen, set her cup down, then refilled it from a big bottle in the fridge, then she added more ice for good measure, and found a can of something sugary for Cat.

Then, finally, she went to the room in the back with their printer.

It had been going on non-stop lately, printing out laser turrets which they’d been selling or giving away in equal measure.

She didn’t expect to find someone in the room already. “Rac?” she asked.

The teenager jumped, and Lucy recognized the look that flashed across her face as guilt. She’d seen it on plenty of kittens before. The girl wasn’t one of the kittens though, not really. She was too independent, and didn’t share the same history. She was still welcome in their home though, as one of Cat’s rescued strays.

“What are you up to?” Lucy asked.

“Uh,” Rac said. “Nothing?”

She was standing next to the matter printer, and it was pretty obvious she’d just stuffed something into the bag on the floor next to her.

“Uh-huh,” Lucy said. “Did that just print off some parts? Cat sent me to pick them up.”

“Maybe?” Rac said.

The machine beeped, and it sounded like an affirmative, so Lucy circled around Rac, and opened the hood up.

There were a number of parts there, like Cat had mentioned, but also a small, neat stack of what looked like very large shotgun shells, which Lucy imagined wasn’t what Cat had ordered up at all.

Lucy eyed Rac, and Rac stared at anything but Lucy.

“Well, whatever,” Lucy said as she picked up the parts. They were still warm. “I’m on vacation, so don’t start too much trouble, please,” she said.

Rac seemed relieved at that.

Lucy wondered how relieved she’d be if she knew that Lucy was definitely going to be keeping an eye on her now.

***