There was just a moment of shocked silence then Molly launched herself out of her chair, almost colliding with Summers in the process, she looked down evaluating me from her full height.
“Hi Molly, did Alica get out ok?” I asked up, hoping that I would both learn a bit more and maybe offer a bit more confirmation of whom I claimed to be.
“S-sorta.” She answered blinking back tears. “It’s really you Sam?”
“Yeah!” I confirmed still grinning. “How’s it been over there? I’ve kinda been out of the loop, so I’m sure tons has gone on.” Molly didn’t respond, instead choosing to abruptly pull me into a hug, she was squeezing me so tight I was surprised it didn’t buckle any of my armor. “Hey, careful you’ll smudge my makeup.” I joked tearing up as I returned it, reaching up to pat her back with one hand.
“Martin, Dr. Woodword I think we need to find some important people, immediately.” Mary declared from nearby. “You three catch up, we’ll be back.” I got the barest glimpse of her striding away towards the crowd while mom rushed to catch up, Summers delayed just a moment to give me a smile then followed them.
Molly kept up the hug for a few more moments then pulled back to look me up and down, holding my shoulders as if I might run away. “Fuck do you look different, and what was up with how you were moving? We couldn’t believe it was you, particularly when you were just standing there like one of those robot people.” She lifted a hand from my shoulder just long enough to gesture, presumably at one of the synthetic assistants that would have been around.
“Er, afraid they aren’t really people. They haven’t figured out how to do proper AIs here yet.” I admitted to a frown from her.
“But then…“
“I’ve kinda been pretending not to be a person for a lot of the time I’ve been here, I was purposefully trying to look like them. It’s not like it’s actively illegal or something, just uh it’s very much not a thing here.” My eyebrows drew together. “Did Anna not tell you about the maid persona thing? I bet she would have recognized what I was doing pretty quickly-”
“You’re all shiny.” She interrupted, having returned to looking me over closely.
“I got fancied up this morning, and that’s after I got a full round of maintenance done,” I grinned. “I’m better than brand new!” Which is accurate, if stretching things a bit. I did get a few spare parts from the upcoming production model that would be better quality than some of the cruder pieces done for the prototype, but that was usually for ease of reassembly rather than performance or wear reasons.
“Wow really- Sorry Ivy.” Molly suddenly jerked her head over to acknowledge the beachball size sphere that had started bumping into her arm to get attention. “She’s really glad to see you too Sam.”
“Get over here Ivy, I’ve never given you a hug and this is as good an opportunity as any!” I offered with a spread arm as Molly made space for her between us, Ivy practically thudded into my chest as she arrived getting a chuckle out of me as I wrapped her in a hug. “So was this a random visit or were you looking for me?” I asked Molly as a sort of bubbling noise emanated from Ivy.
“Of course, we were looking for you,” Molly answered while wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand as a slight smile formed. “Maybe not officially, but definitely.” She settled back into standing a couple of steps away, having released me from her part of the group hug.
I bobbed my head awkwardly, then voiced one of the questions that had plagued me for weeks. “How could you know to look? Surely you thought I was dead…” I trailed off then let Ivy gently nudge away from me.
Molly let out a rush of air as if she had been struck, then flopped back into the folding chair behind her with a clatter. She didn’t respond immediately, clearly wrestling with how to respond. She grabbed the chair Mary had been in before half tossing, half sliding it over towards me. “We did for a while… where should I start. Ah, fuck it let’s just start from when it got worse.” She rubbed a hand on her face as I sat down. “OK, so you were still there for the part where I fumbled blocking the evictor, then there was that fucking red glow. I was initially still just running until I heard Alica start to scream, I look back and then there was just a wall of red. She had tumbled to the ground, and I had no idea what had happened so I went back for her…“ She trailed off for a moment, then shook her head as if to clear it. “Fuck I didn’t know where you were, I was about to dive back into the red when I realized Alica’s foot was just fuckin gone.”
Molly had a sort of far-off look, not focusing on me or the crowd beyond us as I was shocked into silence. “She must have been just at the very edge of the area of effect, caught her mid-stride taking not only her foot but a good chunk of her left hand off.” She quickly amended to herself at the hiss of alarm that escaped my torso as I was finally able to mount a response through my horror. “I made that sound real bad, she still has a good part of her fingers but her pinky is all but gone along with half her index and most of her middle.“ Molly was drawing an arc across her fingers to indicate the shape, she trailed off staring at her hand. I was about to say something even if I don’t know what, then Molly was roused with a mumbled ‘I know V, I know…’.
She sighed and sat up straight, even if she still wasn’t looking me in the eye. “After that, I hauled her over to the truck before attempting to make a getaway.” Some life returned to her face as a wry grin formed. “Kept on being torn as to where to go, I nearly drove through the front of that crappy Mexican place across the street. I don’t exactly remember what happened next, but I was trying to stop the bleeding with the help of some guy from the restaurant when Mary comes roaring down the road literally guns blazing with that baby tank she can’t have had for more than an hour.” There was a pained chuckle. “I don’t think they were expecting that at all, I think she straight up pulped a couple of them but she didn’t let me see the aftermath. I do know they bugged out though, through one of those local portals we think.”
She sighed mirth draining away. “Then we thought you were dead and gone, along with everything in the crater the evictor left. I… things weren’t great.” She gave me an attempt at a grin, but it wasn’t convincing. “We got a hint that might not be the case when one of the people who was picking through the debris in the days that followed got beaned with a stapler.” I must have made a face because the dry chuckle she had paused on was broken off as she started to explain. “Stuff sort of started to, I dunno, splatter back into our dimension. Working their way back into existence in random-ish spurts of stuff.“ She had been wiggling her fingers like worms through her description. ”I didn’t see it myself but apparently for a little bit before something returns you can kinda get the impression of it flailing about, like a physics glitch in a game or something.”
She had mostly returned to a normal tone as she continued, the minor physical comedy of her description seeming to have been enough to get her back into a better mindset. “At first, we just waited to see what would appear, hoping you would get tossed back in before long. We initially thought there was a reasonable chance of it after Katherine had worked out what was happening with the other items. it’s like how the portal devices form a connection to another dimension, stuff gets dragged off to wherever its perceived as being from once tossed out into the nothingness between dimensions, it just takes a bit for the bubble to get reabsorbed by its origin dimension. We hoped you were still amongst the detritus; we had no idea how it would affect you but most of the stuff up to that point had been relatively intact.”
I considered interrupting to describe being choked out and then waking up in an alley but thought it would be better to let her keep the train of thought she was on, not to mention I didn’t want to sour her mood again.
“Once we got impatient, Peter got the idea to open a portal just partially to try and suck in whatever was bouncing around against the edge of reality.” She shuddered. “That was fucking scary, it just spewed everything that was stuck out, we had splinters and chunks of concrete flung out with enough force it was sticking in walls…” A brief sigh of defeat escaped her before she continued. “But for all the stuff that got thrown out we had no evictor, and no you. We got a few of Alica’s fingers back at least, even if they were too far gone to reattach. I don’t even remember who it was at the moment but someone who was there complained she was giving us the finger.” She hacked out an almost hysterical peal of laughter before falling silent.
She drummed her fingers on her knee as I waited for her to resume her story, I think Ivy wanted to butt in but it’s not like I could hear her. She was doing what I could only assume fidgeting, rolling this way and that in the air.
“Kat actually was pretty sure that you had gone here pretty much the instant you weren’t there but everything else was roughly accounted for. Knowing and being able to do anything is another matter though.” Molly eventually continued, her voice a bit more normal. “The work of trying to find you nearby and the disruptions the ambush brought completely threw off the timeline of getting the portals ready for safe use, not to mention the usual underestimating the time involved.”
“Honestly we’ve only had them working for like a week at most, all we have done is a couple of days of safety tests then we started throwing out those diplobots to here and the rescuees back home.” She gave me a guilty smile. “I’m sorry to say Summers and the government oversight overrode our initial order of places to visit. Much as we wanted to find you, we had a bunch of people we could get home with a lot more certainty.“
“No worries, a couple of days wouldn’t have made a difference on my end. Er, I guess that means you’ve gotten the hostages back home? Did you do all this with them too?” I asked while gesturing at the proceedings around us that mostly seemed to be ignoring our conversation, I guess stuffing one’s face was taking priority over us.
“Not really, some rough chats have happened but mostly just dropping them off and lining up more involved stuff later.” She answered with a shrug. “The language comprehension isn’t really great enough for safe diplomatic negotiations and having Ivy as the sole means of communication that would go both ways isn’t going to work out too great. We’ve passed on english primer material with those we returned along with the hope that the ones who have some understanding of our language can help vouch for the authenticity of what we are saying when we drop in again soon.”
“As for you, God damn was it hard to wait another two days to just start to looking. You seem to be ok, but we had no certainty that you actually even got here, it was all just theory that you would. Katherine was worried that maybe you had enough characteristics of both dimensions that you might just end up floating at some balance point between them.” She swallowed looking down. “Fuck Sam, we missed you eh? I know I couldn’t stop wondering what might have happened…” I didn’t trust myself to speak so I alighted from my seat to give her a hug instead, my tears splotching on her dress shirt as she returned it from her seated position. “Ivy asked what you have been up to, that woman called you her daughter.” Molly relayed a few moments later voice husky.
“Ha, well I expect you’ve guessed that she’s the counterpart to my biological mom back home, kinda picked me up a few weeks ago,” I explained. “As for the rest, well turns out I am exceptionally good at breaking into places here…”
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I gave them the abbreviated version of the last couple of months, starting with discovering I was in another dimension and sleeping on roofs, to setting myself up in the taxi depot. She interrupted as I got into talking about having met mom.
“Wait, she had you disassembled? What the fuck!” Molly cried aghast.
“Well yeah, they were trying to figure out how their prototype had been duplicated-“
“But she took apart a person!” Molly exclaimed.
“She didn’t know I was one, the idea of an intelligent robot is something out of fiction here too.” I gently pointed out. “She thought someone had just loaded me with evasion routines, not gonna deny it’s a bit fucked up though. But if you think that’s gross, imagine the rest of that week...”
I will admit I got some amusement at the horror on her face while describing assisting in the full rebuild I had done. I also discovered what almost vomiting looks like for Ivy, she kind of went purple and her tentacles retracted into recesses in her mouth. I eased up on the specifics after that, not really wanting to push them over the edge.
“…honestly I’ve kinda had a vacation the last few days, mostly reading or watching TV.” I admitted at the end of my story. “Although there was stuff I’ve helped with, and mom has been learning how my mind works so she might be able to give this dimensions version of me a mind too.”
“Huh,” Molly answer while looking towards where mom was just visible as the crowd had started to return to their seats after the food had been wheeled away, it looked like there was an intense conversation still going on between Summers and a few of the suits from both dimensions. “You’ve been calling her mom?”
“Yeah, it feels natural and she’s nice,” I admitted, then conspiratorially looked around and whispered. “I haven’t figured out how I am going to differentiate this mom and that mom when talking yet.” Molly laughed, then I got a slight smile as another thought crossed my mind. “Oh yeah, you might have seen me again without having come over here.”
“Huh?” Molly responded with a frown.
“Yeah, I haven’t been completely idle here. Those Org A people are attacking over here to take stuff from warehouses, I was working on figuring out a way to do an ambush of my own to try and hijack a portal back home!”
“No shit really?” Molly asked, a hand on her chin and a thoughtful look forming on her face. “That’s wild, obviously we assumed that they were doing that, but you have confirmation?”
“Not only that, but I have all their attacks recorded along with what they were taking,” I answered with a smile. “I was hoping to try and predict what they were going to be next…” My smile turned sheepish. “I said a grand thing there, but I will admit that I didn’t really make much progress on getting whatever help I would need to make use of that knowledge. It’s not like it would have been a great idea to just go in gung-ho with nothing but my fists or whatever.”
“Hmm, well we might be able to do something with that anyway…” She said tilting her head in thought. “Oh yeah, we know a bit more about them from our end too-“ Her thought was interrupted by a call from nearby.
“Good news, you’re coming back with us tonight Sam.” Mary declared having approached us while we were distracted, the warm smile initially on her face somewhat out of place for her. “We even managed to gain the aid of one Dr. Woodward, she will be joining us as a technical representative from this side.” Peeking past her, I could just see mom and Summers walking towards the parking area with a mixture of officials from both home and here judging off the variety of suit styles.
As I looked back from Mary, I saw that some of the tension had slipped out of Molly. She had already been loosening but now she was looking positively exhausted, as if whatever had been keeping her going was spent. Mary’s impromptu briefing continued with a wisp of the smile for an instant. “We will have to make this a bit quick to get everything and everyone through at the scheduled time so here is the approximate plan…”
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Mom’s trike sat waiting at the bottom of a ramp up onto the ‘stage’ that the negotiation table was upon. I stood next to it with Molly and a few of the soldiers, ready to give it a push if needed. Mary and Summers stood just in front of where the portal is expected to form, along with some other suits that included a few other local representatives that were coming along to make the inclusion of mom a bit less egregious. It sounds like the whole thing is being painted as a research expedition that just happened to have been prepared as an option, and that the trike and trailer full of analysis equipment and maintenance supplies being on hand was intentionally orchestrated of course.
Ah, politics.
When the portal opened exactly on schedule there was a hurried conversation once the people with biological eyes could bear to look through the window hovering before them, then the group up there not quite ran through. A few seconds later there was a hand signal from Summers leaning back through the portal for a moment, in response, Mom gunned the engine on the trike before launching off. It made a respectable go up the ramp and made it to the flat portion without assistance. As she brought it up to the portal, someone dropped a mini ramp just in front of it so it would be high enough in the portal that the wheels would fit. We had to give a gentle push to get the thing over, but it made it and the trailer followed with minimal resistance.
As I looked past the trailer into the chamber beyond there was bright daylight at the end instead of the closed door of before. Even as I watched, the little vehicle and its charge burbled its way along the plastic flooring before disappearing down a slope beyond with a loud clatter of a ramp that must have only just been rated for this purpose.
“Come on Sam,” Molly said gently pulling on my arm, as a soldier pulled the ramp out of the way to make it easier for us to step through. I was still taking it in as we stepped onto surface just beyond the portal.
“Is this an airlock?” I asked as I trailed a hand along the plastic of the wall as I walked down the tunnel, having already looked over my shoulder to have seen the heavy door that was attached to the portal device. The supporting infrastructure was hidden by the plastic around the door, this whole get up made it feel downright professional instead of the crude rig that it had been a part of within the U-Hauls I had once seen it in.
“Yep, we assumed that all three places would be safe to breathe given the rescuees having rough biological compatibility at worst but this let us check to be sure.” She answered, having pulled to the side and stopped to let the others who were returning stream past us. She stifled a yawn and then continued wrapping her knuckles against a section of plastic where a wall could just be seen through the semi-opaque material. “The box around it is pretty well armored, and those slow-to-open doors at the end and over the portal can be pyrotechnically shut in like a half second or something should we be unable to close the portal. The other side of the portal is just straight up covered with a plate of steel, no shenanigans here.” She tugged at my arm again after a moment’s silence as Ivy looked at her expectantly in the pause between sentences. “I can tell you about it later, come on.”
The fact it took her urging me to continue and break away from being distracted by honestly unimportant details when home was right there probably spoke to something I was afraid of. Namely that I was worried that this was too good to be true, and it would turn out that I stepped out into someplace else like when I emerged out of that alley almost two months ago. Sure, it was almost certainly irrational, the overlap in our mutual stories seems too great for that really to be the case. I really doubt it’s possible for that tight of an overlap of both the clashes that changed people and cross-dimensional attacks.
I think.
Steeling myself with a rush of air that would have been a deep breath for anyone else I stepped out past the threshold of the airlock to look around in the brilliantly bright day beyond.
The town hall and its park were basically the same as the one I had left behind when I went through the portal, both had been around for a hundred years with similar ideas of external preservation after all. Around that though was a world I knew well, the cars, the fashion, and even the stupid CTV van were all familiar and normal in a way I hadn’t really expected to see again.
I stood there looking around stunned for a few moments before Molly gently brought me along as she went down the ramp. We went past the parked trike that was occupying almost the entire space at the bottom of the ramp where Summers and suits were rapidly talking as mom got out to join them.
“We didn’t expect to meet you, but we did invite some people to be by just in case,” Molly explained as she guided me off the edge of the ramp early to avoid the crowd at the end “Let’s hope they hung around.”
My burners flared a little as she brought me through the masses of people darting this was and that around us. Ivy floated just ahead parting the people like a shark through a school of fish, I assumed she was clearing the way knowing she could be heard. We arrived at one of those temporary buildings like you see on construction sites, and Molly gently pushed me ahead to go up the stairs to the door on the narrow end of it. I stepped up and put my hand on the handle of the door, I hesitated for just a moment before pulling it open.
Looks like they did hang around.
Mom and dad were vaguely picking at some plates of pasta while sitting at a small table on the left, Kat was leaning on the wall next to them a full plate abandoned on the table. Past them were a couple of couches facing each other with a coffee table between them covered in four empty plates. Jake and Mike sitting on the left, then River had an arm around Anna across from them, Anna was resting her head on a hand glumly. It’s funny how much I took in during that brief moment before anyone moved, the blue in Anna’s hair had all but faded to her natural dirty blonde, and it was laying rough without any of her usual intentionally messy styling. She was back to wearing worn ill-fitting jeans and a faded T-shirt like when I had first started talking to her.
“Hi, I’m back.” I called out voice unsteady while trying to smile as the heads in the room turned towards the noise of the door opening.
The next few minutes were chaotic, Kat managed to get the first hug in by advantage of already being on her feet, but it kinda turned into a rotating dog pile after that. At some point, I found myself on one of the couches with Anna wrapped around me and sobbing quietly while I gently rubbed her back with one hand while this mom was sitting next to me holding my other hand.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I was saying to another uncertain questioning by River. “A lot of it was pretty lonely though, but it’s been not bad the last couple of weeks-”
There was a knock at the door, I glanced over to see Molly pulling the door open before letting someone in ahead of her. I jostled this mom’s hand to get her attention, then gestured my head towards the door when she looked towards me. She was visibly startled upon seeing who was there. “Leah?”
“That’s her name here too then?” Other mom answered uncertainly, if she had planned out this meeting it looks like it was already going differently to her hopes off her slightly concerned expression. “It’s Jess actually, I suppose it makes sense if there’s that much overlap otherwise.”
“Uh, mom meet mom” I said awkwardly as Anna lifted herself off me a bit to see what had prompted the change in atmosphere. My two moms sort of uncomfortably looked at each other, after a second this mom released my hand and stood up.
“My team and I were the ones who made the body… my-your daughter is in.” Mom as a way of explanation.
“I see.” Mom said.
“She’s a good kid, and I think that’s up to you two.” Mom continued glancing at dad, she swallowed. “I’m glad I got the chance to meet her, and I hope you’ll let me be around enough to help her at least.”
Anna was looking between the two of them like it was a tennis match, an expression that was some mix of wonder and confusion across her face.
“Yes, yes of course.” Mom said a bit uncertain. “You care for her then?”
Mom nodded, one hand clutching at her purse and the other against her sternum. “I’ve only known her as a person for two weeks, but I’ve spent my life building her and her… sisters.” She looked away guiltily, then mumbled almost to herself. “How could I not.” Had the room not been so silent I doubt I would have heard it.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Ugh, this conversation is hurting my brain, and not just from the emotional aspect.
They are both mom and I still don’t know how I should be differentiating them; I could obviously tell who was who as they differed in behavior and appearance due to their different histories. How should I refer to them is something I hadn’t decided yet, as far as I could remember I called this one mom, so it wasn’t natural to refer to that one as something else.
Anna settled into a more upright position next to me, clearly paying more attention to the ongoing interchange than I was. If anything, my guess from whom she was focusing on, she had questions of her own to ask of a technical sort. As I looked up at her, it occurred to me that an opportunity lay before me - something I hadn’t done for far too long. As important as this meeting was, I don’t think I could resist the temptation. Moving slowly so as to not draw too much attention or interrupt the conversation with some loud clank or quiet hiss of steam, I drew myself up against Anna and then rested my head against her neck and cheek.
The feeling of bliss that went through me was almost shocking in intensity, I don’t know whether it had just been long enough I wasn’t ‘used’ to it anymore or that it had always been that wonderful.
I think I let out an involuntary sigh of satisfaction, but I was already zoning out so quickly that I kind of lost track of the specifics beyond hoping I wasn’t disturbing Anna. I was aware enough to feel her gently wrap her arms around me, then a kiss on my forehead. I vaguely wanted to return it, but that would have required far more coordination than I could manage right now.
I think I had been intending to decide something, but such things didn’t seem important like this.
It took a while for me to realize it had gotten quiet. Really only when I heard a mom, I couldn’t tell which, ask ‘Is she ok?’ in what I think was a concerned tone.
“Oh yeah, she’s really into snuggling with Anna, it can basically turn her brain off.” Mike (I think?) said. “Don’t worry about it.”
That was about as much as I could manage to pay attention to for quite a long time.
----
“Hey Sam, we probably need to go.” I heard Anna say gently, then I felt a hand cupping my face.
“Mmmmm.” Why would I need to go? I just got here, and now it feels even better. I pulled myself closer to her instead.
“Oh Sam, I missed you too, but you need food at some point.”
“Mrrph.” I accepted, if I ran out I couldn’t enjoy this. I reluctantly pulled back, and then let her ‘pull’ me up with her as she stood up. While I was a bit too heavy to make such a motion natural for her alone, I came willingly. I tottered there for a moment, I sort of was aware there were still other people in the room but decided to just pull myself back to Anna’s side anyway, shoving myself under her arm. While I was willing to follow her lead it wouldn’t be without getting something for it, the laugh it prompted out of her made me think she didn’t mind at least.
I missed that sound so much, it would be a lie to say she didn’t have a somewhat awkward one, but it’s not like that made me like it any less. “I love you Anna.” I mumbled into her side.
“I love you too. Now come on…” She answered still chuckling as she wrapped her arm around me, I zoned out again as I let her guide me. Somehow, I found myself in the back of my parent’s car still against her side as it drifted to a stop.
“We’re here Sam.” She said while unbuckling herself from the middle seat, Kat was looking around her at me with a goofy grin, but I was feeling too good to figure out how I was supposed to respond. It took me a little bit to release my belt and get myself out of the car, while to say I was unsteady wasn’t quite accurate, I was definitely still out of it as I gently closed the door behind me.
I managed to get myself a bit more coherent as I worked to catch up with the others as they waited for me in the grass beside the road. I stopped short just as I stepped up onto the curb, the sight I had seen while looking up having dislodged some disbelieving part of my mind. Still illuminated in the fading light of the sunset was an overgrown two-story house that could probably use a coat of paint and some decorations, but it was the place I had called home for most of university. It was even more positive proof that I was home, this entire neighborhood having been the site of the General Synthetics campus on the other side.
Sure, I knew I was back before. I was surrounded by my family and had just spent who knows how long snuggling against Anna after all, but there was some part of me that didn’t believe it up to now. I felt a hand on my shoulder, causing me to look up through the tears that I hadn’t realized were building to find mom smiling back. “You ok dear?”
“Yeah, just…” I mumbled back unsure what I was going to say while wiping my eyes with a hand.
She lay a hand upon my shoulder. “We’re so glad your back safe Sam.” I nodded unable to respond. “Now, I’m expecting to see a lot of you for the next few days, but I believe your friends have some kind of short notice homecoming arranged in there.” She gestured off towards the house, and as I looked again without the haze of incoherence or shock of where I was it occurred to me we hadn’t parked in the lane. I glanced around to see the collection of other vehicles in the driveway and filling the street around us. Molly’s Civic was tight against the garage door, while a CRD-blazoned minivan used the half spot behind it, completely blocking off the sidewalk.
“We will leave you to it, as I’m sure I wouldn’t have wanted my parents to be a boat anchor at your age.” Mom continued, drawing my attention back from wondering how many people were packed into that house. “Besides we have much to talk about with Dr. Summers and your… other mother. Isn’t that right dear?”
“Huh?” Dad responded. “But-“
“Bryson.” Mom counter with her, ‘this is an order, not a suggestion’ tone.
“Yes honey.” He sighed, I could hear some grumbling about pizza under his breath before he addressed me. “Have a good night kiddo, don’t get too… Wait, can you get drunk-“ Dad’s question was interrupted by an ‘oof’ while mom’s smile had turned slightly wooden. Her other hand returned into view to arrive upon my other shoulder, she then pulled me into a quick hug before rotating me off in the direction of the house. “Better get going Sam, they’re waiting for you,” Mom said while gently pushing me towards where Anna and Kat were waiting for me just before the steps up into the house.
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The place was about as full as I had ever seen it between roommates and a ton of faces from the CRD, seeing a pile of people squeezed into the house made it feel small. While Mike had hosted some parties before he had mostly been the sort to leave the rest of us in peace, he tended towards going to other people’s places for grand parties instead. As we took our shoes off, I could just see Mike himself darting from the kitchen as he vanished into the dining room.
There was a scattering of people calling my name or lifting cans in my direction as I worked my way down the hall, I just kinda waved back into the living room along with awkward ‘hello’ as I passed in response. I was quite glad most of the crowd was already caught up in their own conversations, between some kind of organized greeting probably being pretty embarrassing along with that fact that I didn’t know most of them that well.
Sure, I had talked with Drew pretty often when he was with Alica and I discussing some aspect of my internals before the ambush, and I had been in enough meetings with Conor to be comfortable chatting to the somewhat nervous analyst. Most of the people were at that acquaintance level of interactions, hell I think I might have been gone longer than I had known some of them. I couldn’t even remember the names of the two that were watching some DJ stream on the TV with Conor and speculating on the vinyl on display, pretty sure they were both artifact engineers though.
Any feeling of being out of place was broken when a grinning Mike returned from the dining room to intercept me as I entered the kitchen with Anna, Kat having broken off to chat with a tall blond guy I didn’t recognize at all. “Sam! You’ve gotten here at a perfect time, it’s not a grand meal for you or anything but I got something ready, and the pizzas only just got here!”
The dining table was piled with pizza boxes in various states of having been ravaged despite its recent arrival along with an assortment of drinks, mostly of the alcoholic sort, sitting in our large serving bowls amongst ice. Other than a couple of them, most of the chairs had been moved to walls so people could have easy access to the food.
Without the slightest pause, Mike tipped the chair Jake was sitting on, causing him to slip off with an annoyed ‘hey!’, then offered it to me with a grin. Accepting it with a quick apology to Jake who waved it off, I found myself facing a single setting that had been hidden amongst the pizza boxes. It was a plate of those ‘chicken wings’ that Mike and I had figured out months ago along with some stripes of something brown and… crispy?
“I think those should taste like French fries, give it a try!” Mike explained while going for some pizza himself. “Those are a miracle of modern chemistry, and I only partially butchered them.”
“Huh they do!” I exclaimed upon trying one, it had dug out a half-forgotten memory from before the clash with something that was probably a bit too recent to be called nostalgia. “They even kinda have the right texture.” I eyed the next one with suspicion as I tried to imagine what potentially dangerous things he had been doing to make it, it looked too tasty to hold off so I started into it. “I’m not gonna ask what kind of terrifying process went into these.” I made out between bites, the roar of laughter didn’t necessarily fill me with confidence, but I’ll give Mike a pass this time. If nothing else, I needed the recipe.
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“Its good to see you seem to have gotten back intact, although I think we have the ability to make spares of almost everything that didn’t have obvious now!” Alica said from behind me with a gentle punch to my arm, I hadn’t initially realized she was here amongst the hubbub. I turned in my seat to face her, uncertain what I would see. She had a wide grin on her face, between her jeans and long-sleeved loose shirt the only evidence something was off besides the crutches she was leaning on was that only one socked foot was visible.
“Alica!” I responded with relief and guilt staining my voice. “How are you?”
“I’m going to be fine!” She said waving a hand without the right number of fingers. “Tis just a flesh wound!” She laughed at the horror on my face, then gave me a serious glare and a waggled finger. “Now don’t you be blaming yourself for this one, it’s been bad enough having Molly moping around the place. Plus! I’ve been working on something for myself, and with access to some of the stuff from where you just were…“ She got a ever so slightly concerning grin. “Why the possibilities are endless!”
I gave her an uncertain smile. “I don’t think they have, like, laser integrated cybernetics or anything.”
“No of course not.” She answered with a dismissive wave while settling into the chair Anna was offering. “But I pulled up some notes that Summers passed on from the doctor that interviewed the man with the cybernetics before he was…” She uncomfortably cleared her throat; I knew why of course, the guy hadn’t survived when Org A went for him after failing to nab me. “Anyway, he had talked about having feeling in it, so I imagine that I could get my hands on that too.”
“Uh…” I tried to think of what I remembered about prosthetics, its not like I had been intentionally researching them. “Yeah, I think its fairly common, if expensive.” Then I remembered something I had seen in a catalog that I had flipped through at while at General Synthetics once. “An offshoot of mom- uh, mum’s company makes them, so I might be able to help you get a hold of them.” I think I had agreed to refer to my mechanical mother as something like that when I was out of it earlier, but even if I didn’t it was probably as good a way to refer to her as any.
“That would be great!” Alica confirmed, then a look crossed her face that unleashed some concern within me. The last few times I had seen her get that speculative look it had involved my internals. “Enough about me, I hear you had maintenance done? What was it like? Were you actually hollowed out or was Molly exaggerating?”
“Um, well it sounds like what she said wasn’t far off…”
Given the detail she wanted me to go into, it was probably for the best that Ivy was somewhere else in the house. I imagine she might have had trouble keeping her dinner down if the summarized version had made her queasy earlier.
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“Is this really the first time you’ve considered having anything alcoholic since you changed?” Mike asked with curiosity as he fished around in one of the serving dishes for something to try.
“Yep, you didn’t host anything before my, uh, trip and besides Jake’s collection we never seem to have anything to hand.” I answered as I accepted the can he eventually offered.
“So, what’s your prediction Sam, is it food or drink?” Anna asked with curiosity as I considered the local beer, it wasn’t anything I recognized beyond the company’s chest of drawers logo which presumably referenced something made in a local factory historically.
“Gotta be treated like water with impurities.” Peter piped up from the wall he was leaning against with a gesture of his own can towards mine. “It’s what, five-something percent alcohol? There’s no way that’s enough to be worth it.”
“You’re probably right,” I agreed while popping the tab. I gave the open can a sniff speculatively, all I got was maybe a slightly sweet and savory smell. I never drunk much before but that definitely wasn’t the least bit similar to my admittedly fallible and somewhat distant memories, but there wasn’t anything I would have called yeasty or boozy to it. “Well, may as well find out.”
I took an experimental sip.
The gate at the back of my throat stuttered for a moment as I considered the taste then flipped to treating it as a drink. There’s one mystery solved at least, so far as I’m concerned this is basically just water, and it’s not like I really disagreed since it didn’t even really have a flavor. Upon consideration, I got a hint of something that was probably the taste of the heavily diluted alcohol, definitely not as sweet as gasoline and maybe just a little medicinal. It was so faint I couldn’t really be sure I wasn’t just imagining it though.
My experiences of flavor and odor are still a bit of a mystery to me, and I didn’t really have great technical reasons for it. While my taste buds are very much orientated to determining the viability of fuel sources, my sense of smell should be comparable to or better than a human. Even if the air composition sensor that I interpreted as a sense of smell was orientated towards detecting harmful contaminates it could register pretty much anything a human’s nose could, so any differences is probably related to how my mind mapped itself onto my hardware.
I guess that means flowers and herbal tea smells like they did before but booze smells like food instead.
Neat.
“So?” Anna asked with a note of concern. “I heard that little flutter in your throat, is that bad? Should I get someone?”
“Nah it’s fine, I guess I just couldn’t decide what it was for a moment.” I took a deeper swig, then paused to consider the can for a moment. “It’s like really crap tea more than anything, super weak flavor.” I declared, then leaned my head back over the top of the chair to call out into the living room. “Hey Jake, do you have anything really high proof? I kinda want to know at what point it becomes food instead of drink…”
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“Wait your eyelashes look weird,” Anna commented while leaning forward to look at me closely some time later. “I thought I was just imagining it, but they are… longer? Do they grow?”
“Nope, they’re swappable,” I responded, shifting myself a little to accommodate her examining them. We had shifted to the couch as the night had gone on, it had emptied out as people had already started to drift off as it was going to be a workday tomorrow. “My regular ones are somewhere in mum’s trailer.”
“Really? That’s neat. Do you like them?”
“No strong opinions honestly,” I answered while reaching up to touch the ones over my left eye with a hand. “They are stiff enough that they mostly don’t droop into my view and it’s not like they get in the way, I might put the regular back on just cause it seems weird to have them.”
“They look nice…” She said looking me over. “Definitely work with the rest of your outfit, did you pick it out?”
“Also no,” I admitted with a light chuckle. “This whole look was originally prepped for a trade magazine article.”
“Wait you got pictures taken while you were there?” She asked with raised eyebrows.
“The alternate me did around when the clash happened, that’s why the hair matched-“
“Hey Sam, sorry to interrupt but Peter and I were going to be heading out,” Molly said having arrived to lean over the back of the couch, I had to crane a little to look over at her. “I’ll catch you up a bit more next week after you’ve settled in a bit, ah assuming you’re interested in that…”
“For sure, I can probably ask mum to pass along the little bit of research I did too.” I wasn’t really all that surprised she was taking off, while most people here were with the CRD that probably didn’t necessarily mean having to do more than support the negotiations. Molly on the other hand had to maintain at least a semi-professional appearance for the whole time she would be on the other side if I guessed what her original role from today had been.
“That would be great!” She paused for an awkward moment before offering a fist to bump. “It’s good to see you again.” I didn’t leave her hanging for long, but as I extracted an arm to do so I noticed that Anna had an unreadable expression. It softened the barest hint when Molly addressed her. “Uh, bye Anna, good to see you again.”
There was a long awkward second then Anna responded. “…yeah, good night.”
I glanced between them uncertainly, but Molly was already taking off to catch up with where Peter was putting his shoes on at the door. I returned a wave from both of them then straightened back out on the couch as the door closed behind them. I gave Anna a raised eyebrow, prompting a sigh. “I’ll tell you later.”
As much as I wanted to know more, I let it go rather than pressing when it was a long day for everyone and there would be plenty of time later. I just hoped that the potential friendship I had seen before wasn’t irreconcilably destroyed.
Anna didn’t immediately launch back into more questions or examine my eye lashes, so I snuggled in against her while contemplating how it seems like everyone is a little reluctant to catch me up on all the goings on that I had missed. Presumably out of some mix of not wanting to overwhelm nor upset me as I doubt it was all chocolate and roses here.
I had picked up a decent image of generalities so far through osmosis and the stuff that people did seem happy to chat about. Once I vanished my roommates, family and Anna got brought in basically immediately into confidence as to my being missing. There was that initial window of uncertainty as to my fate followed by an indeterminate wait for the portals to be ready. Peter even admitted to me that he kept on having to revise predictions as to them being ready as the safety changes weren’t nearly as straightforward as they had initially hoped.
Everyone’s plans for the summer were quite thoroughly derailed, which I suppose makes sense but added another bit of awkward guilt. Their dismissals of my concerns weirdly made it harder for me, despite that being irrational.
Jake hadn’t moved out for the summer like he usually did, plus this meant he wouldn’t be going on a trip with his girlfriend. He was never the sort to go on and on about such things, but he had been excited for the opportunity to couch surf through Europe at her relative’s places when he had been telling us about it way back in the Christmas break.
The other two didn’t quite have as grand plans, Mike had been planning to stay local anyway with his polycule/harem being here and all. River would normally be down with their mom in California though, they implied that they had spent some time there already but definitely wasn’t as long as normal.
Kat was mostly unaffected so far as summer plans went, a few months ago she would have been expecting to be working all summer on her schoolwork but after being attached to the CRD it was lots and lots of attempts to unravel the secrets of the portal tech. She admitted that she may have done quite a few more weekends than she had originally planned in pursuit of verifying her thoughts on what had happened to me though. She mentioned that mom and dad’s vacation had been canceled, but neither of us had any clue as to if they planned to reschedule it or anything.
Beyond what was disrupted, I kinda got the impression everyone had been in a holding pattern just waiting to hear news one way or another. No stories of parties from Mike, Jake chatted a bit about some series he had watched but River didn’t mention any books they had picked up or anything. Anna was pretty evasive as to what she had been up to, besides some commissions that she didn’t sound that enthusiastic about.
I didn’t want to spoil the mood by pressing for anymore, so rather then trying to get anything more out of anyone I had just let myself be immersed into the party. There would be time for details and stories later, I may as well amuse myself by listening to a guy I only kinda knew argue with Drew about being able to take various dangerous animals in a fight.
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I pushed the door shut after waving the last of our guests off, in this case Kat since she didn’t really have anything she was required to be in for in the morning. It’s not like theoretical physics will change the practical work Peter and his team were doing keeping the portals ready, it sounds like she was just grinding away at the comprehension side of things still.
“The other two have already been in, do you want to go next?” River called down while leaning over the banister of the stairs, presumably asking about the washroom.
“Nah, go ahead I’m not in a rush.” I responded with a smile, getting a nod in return before River returned to the second floor.
I plopped myself back on the couch beside Anna, I was still a little reluctant to head up in spite of my increasingly obvious exhaustion making itself aware as the edges of my vision started getting murky. While tomorrow didn’t really have the same kind of uncertainty as to my fate the concept once held, the present has an Anna beside me that I can snuggle into while she browsed through Twitter alternatively giggling at memes and grumbling about politics depending on what her feed was consisting of at the moment.
“I should head back then,” Anna said reluctantly once River called down that the washroom was free.
“Do you want to stay?” I asked phrasing my desire as a question, not really wanting her to leave.
“Yes, yes!” She answered brightening up. “I just thought you might have wanted some alone time in your own space…” she explained with a guilty smile.
“And why would I want that, when I can have you in it too?” I responded with a mischievous grin. “That just seems like a wasted opportunity!”
She laughed in probably the most unfettered way I had seen since I got back, but as it faded, she was shaking a little. “Heh, I had almost forgotten your brand of horniess.” She choked out while trying to avoid crying. She leaned in for a kiss I gratefully accepted, as it went on, she almost sagged onto me and when she pulled back I was both disappointed at it ending and astounded at how tired she looked.
Her smile was genuine like she had been released from a heavy burden but also like the tension was what had been keeping her going. “What?” while stifling a yawn. “What are you seeing?”
“Mmm, nothing,“ I responded thinking it probably wasn’t a diplomatic thing to point out. “Maybe we should go and get ready for bed at least, I expect River still tries to keep a consistent sleep schedule. “
She tilted her head down while giving me a slightly goofy grin. “Sam, are you saying I look tired.”
“Um, noooooo?”
She chuckled. “Well, I haven’t slept more then a couple of hours in days so you wouldn’t be wrong.” She didn’t manage to stifle the next yawn. “Would there be a spare brush or something? I don’t have to but given my diet recently…"
“Why are there that many?” Anna asked incredulously looking through the drawer with Mike’s cache of toothbrushes that I had indicated to her once we got up to the washroom.
“I’ve told you about Mike’s… uh adventures shall we say, right?” I answered as I wiped the last of the makeup off with a dampened hand towel, she nodded understanding setting in. “I dunno if it’s the normal thing to do, but he seems to like to keep them just in case his guests need them.”
I studied her face as she brushed her teeth, between her exhaustion and being slightly heavier I could see how the stress had eaten into her past just mentally. My choice of words to Molly earlier itched its way back into my consciousness, I had the nerve to say that it was like a vacation when everyone here was beyond worn out. “Sorry,” I said quietly from my seat on the edge of the tub.
“Hmm?” She responded pausing a mid brush to look at me.
“For worrying everyone…” I answered the implied question, then trailed off as recurrent thought from the other dimension itched its way to the forefront of my mind. “I… I knew my family and probably my roommates would be there on any rescue attempt made, but I don’t think I could express how glad I was to see you with them too. I’ve been gone a long time…”
“Mrphphm” She angrily responded while slamming the brush down, then rinsed her mouth out before rounding on me. “Sam, I hadn’t had a girlfriend in two years, if you think I couldn’t wait a few months until-“
“I want you happy Anna.” I interrupted looking back at her with tears dripping, and she stopped. “Not worrying, and if that means you found someone, I would happily have supported it.”
She looked at me for a long moment, then sighed before walking over while drying her face by wiping an arm across it. She dropped herself onto the edge of the tub, then put an arm around me and tried to pull me over into her. I resisted for a guilty moment then relented. “You can think of yourself too. I’m Ok, I had company the whole time at least. Besides were you intending to tossed out into another dimension?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I was-“
“Did you even know they could do that when you went out that day?”
“No-“
“Then you don’t have anything to apologize for, besides maybe not being better at kicking their asses.” She was clearly forcing a humorous tone, the exhausted undertone perhaps undoing a bit of her message.
I realized I was more tired than I thought when the field of view I could understand started to cut parts of Anna even as I was looking at her face, but I stayed where I was until she got up with a gentle smile. Somehow, she looked less tired then before.
I followed just behind her as I made my way towards my room, reliant on the tiny pinprick of vision on her back and the memory of having gone to my room so many times before. “Its pretty much as you left it,“ She mentioned as we entered. “I think they have been cleaning so it didn’t get dusty, and I doubt you left the bed that crisply made when you left.”
Honestly, I couldn’t see shit anymore, just vague blobs of color, but I made the motions of looking around anyway. “I might have,” I responded casually. “When I’m not thinking about it, I do have a tendency for the maid instincts to kick in. One night I was bored waiting for mum to get back and I was halfway through organizing her drawers before I realized it.”
“No really? How’d she take that?”
I shrugged still attempting to look like I was aimlessly looking around. “We chatted about a bunch of stuff like that, she was more fascinated by trying to piece out how my personality got overlayed with software than bothered that I had cleaned up her place.”
I turned to close the door behind me, grateful it was roughly where I guessed it was and hoping she didn’t notice that it took a couple of attempts to touch it. After a moment I could hear what I’m pretty sure were the sounds of her undressing, so I started into the same myself. I had taken off the gloves at some point earlier in the night I couldn’t remember, so mostly I was feeling for and undoing the hidden zipper of the dress.
Pausing with a thought, I turned to where I thought Anna was then made use of the slightly loosened nature of the dress to pull its front forward a bit so she should have been able to see into the open sides. “Hey look Anna, no bra!” I called out cheerfully.
There was a pause for a second, then her voice came from a completely different direction from where I had been facing. “You’re that tired then?” She said softly, it wasn’t quite worry in her voice but she was clearly concerned by my current state. Startled by the disconnect between where she was and where I thought she had been I tried to reorient myself, feeling around I realized the bed was over there.
Dammit.
I guess she remembered me telling her about how exhaustion expresses itself for me, even if I can’t remember when I told her exactly but I’m sure I must have. Maybe it was the morning after the con? That would fit.
“Yeah, I’m way past it,” I admitted, trying to reorient myself to her again then giving up when I couldn’t figure out where she would have been standing off her voice alone. I sighed and then started to try to pull the dress off over my head, I struggled for a few moments trying to feel where everything was then I felt Anna gently stop the motion of my hands. “Here, let me help…”
I basically just let her do the rest, it didn’t take that long for her to undress me as it’s not like I had a million layers on or anything. I had kinda been looking forward to teasing her with a crappy strip tease or something, but the intimacy of her helping was probably better anyway.
I will admit to having forced her to cop a feel once I was naked, having managed to catch one of her hands when she was going to guide me to bed. The sound of mock exasperation from just behind me was cute, and I got a full body embrace for my troubles. The feel of her skin and hair brushing against the side of my face as she leaned her head over to plant a kiss on my neck was exquisite, but anything further was well beyond me at this point and Anna seemed content with just having me with her from how she held herself against me once we were in bed together.
For my part, I made no real attempt to stave off the tug of sleep. If nothing else drifting away while pulled tight to her with an arm around me on that too-small bed was one of the best experiences of my life up to this point. Just a few fleeting minutes where I was aware of being home, safe, and snuggled up against the woman I loved followed by gently slipping out of consciousness