Blue awnings promised comfort, good food, and high class at the small historic Café. It was in a pure white five-story building that also housed a nursery/hospital on the corner of Republic and Liberty in the southwest of NewHome’s version of Paris. The restaurant was bright and cozy, with blue chairs the same color as the awnings outside. A wall of windows showed the leafy grounds of a naval college across the street. Human and Celari waitstaff flitted about. The flowing sounds of the French language were punctuated by the Parisian attitude.
Some patrons were looking at a pair sitting at a window table. The fox-cat alien Celari in a basic tunic of red and purple was a normal sight, but the humanoid cat woman with calico-patterned fur and medium black hair in a bob was brand new. She was wearing bluish-patterned flared slacks and a green sweater. There were a few of her species here and there on NewHome, but they were usually VIPs and not the sort to just show up at a local place for lunch.
“So this place is called Thomas’s here?” Pauline Marcelin asked.
The smaller Celari nodded, asking in return, “Do you have a similar place on Union?”
Pauline smiled at her, “Oh yes, but the streets aren’t named the same, and it’s called Jaques. It takes up the whole building.”
She took a bite out of her Hachis Parmentier, enjoying the crispy potato crust atop the savory ground meat and vegetable mix. “Oh, this is to die for,” Pauline exclaimed. “You can taste the fresh vegetables and the red wine in it.” She sipped a bit of her Beaujolais Nouveau, and the fruity acidity tickled her just right. “And, of course, the perfect accompaniment.”
Aliaroo Kalante turned her nose up at the dish, “You had to be omnivores, didn’t you.” She gave a wink to the other woman after she speared a piece of raw meat with a fork. It was spiced with various sauces and herbs and was drained of blood, which she did admit made it extra tasty. “I am glad you know the local language. I just speak English, GmbH Standard German, and of course, Celari.”
“Ah, true it does help that this French and ours are similar. There are a lot of odd words for technical things that are different here,” Pauline caught herself and laughed. “But we are not here to discuss language differences in different Realities, are we?”
Aliaroo nodded, leaning forward, “Unfortunately not. We are here as two doctors discussing a mutual patient.” She looked the calico woman in the eye and asked quietly, “So can you tell me how she ended up in prison? I mean, was it her condition from before?”
Pauline shook her head and looked at the other doctor, “I read a tiny bit about that, but it wasn’t a state of catatonia.” She sipped her wine and looked out to the leafy green trees on the college grounds across the street. “It seems she was a hero that drove off a Sidhe attack.”
Aliaroo screwed up her face and looked at Pauline like she had gone mad. “I heard it was a court martial?”
“Oh, it definitely was one of those, but she got it because she didn’t follow what an idiot told her to do,” Pauline replied, looking at her wine glass, slowly swirling the ruby liquid inside. “The fool told her to stand down and wait for reinforcements while in an active battle. I’m a prison doctor, and even I know that’s stupid. Unfortunately, they lost many assets, and she wasn’t even an NCO, so they nailed her.”
“Pssht,” Aliaroo whistled derisive dismissal and shook her head. “The kitten was taken down as a scapegoat, then?”
“Kitten?” Pauline tilted her head. “A cat pun?”
Aliaroo waved her hands, “I did not mean offense.” Pauline nodded and motioned for her to continue. “Well, Althea was like she was a frightened animal I had to coax. She was so scared of me. It was like a feral…” she looked at Pauline. “An um, non-sentient kitten you must coax out with food.”
“We have pet animals too. Mostly dogs and some otters,” Pauline said with a small smirk. “I get the meaning. But to hear her described that way is amusing. She only feared not getting out and seeing her girlfriend.”
It was Aliaroo’s turn to be surprised. “Another Mechanese?”
“No, a human from Erde,” Pauline said and took another bite of the exquisite pie.
“Oh my! She opened up to someone. That’s fantastic news!” Aliaroo said. “In my surgery, I only ever saw her open up to her sisters to whom she was very close.” She covered her heart and smiled, “It makes me happy that she found someone.” Then, in celebration, she daintily ate more of the steak tartar and drank the diluted wine that was safe for celari.
“Did she ever develop her psychic abilities?” Aliaroo asked suddenly.
Pauline blinked, confusion on her face. “What psychic abilities? Aren’t Mechanese psychically dead? Althea was scanned and came up with nothing during her intake.” She blew a strand of hair off her nose.
Aliaroo tilted her head. “Oh, that was why she was in my care,” the Celari said chirpily. “She’s like a giant antenna!” The humanocat blinked, and Aliaroo replied. “Oh well, it was like a majorly broken antenna with a tuner that took in everything at once. So she picked up everyone near her every time she was stressed or emotional.”
The Celari held up a finger, “But it wasn’t people on the same Reality as her. No!” Her eyes widened, “She would pick up psychics and telepaths from other Realities, but dozens at once, and she could not turn it off!”
Pauline dropped her fork with a small clatter on the plate. “Oh, Saints, that sounds horrible,” she said quietly.
The Celari nodded and said, “Oh, it was. I think it stemmed from the loss of her sisters in combat. I found out that her caste of Mechanese is very communal from her memories, and the loss of her sisters affected her tremendously. I think she was searching for them unconsciously, and it activated a latent ability.”
She paused, “No, not latent. We ran her DNA, and it was in there. So maybe it just wasn’t supposed to be as strong? This is odd because I also noticed they had a taboo against psychics, which is why she was so afraid of me.” She shrugged.
Pauline nodded. Althea had spoken of her sisters many times and cried when emotions would come to the surface. “Watching emotions on her face was wonderful,” she said brightly. “Well, when the guards finally figured out she wasn’t a killing machine.”
“On. Her. Face?” Aliaroo stood up and leaned over the table, getting closer to Pauline with each word. “Really? But! They don’t?” She grew more excited as Pauline explained the sessions in prison with the Mechanese woman.
“Oh, my, this is exciting. Have you published? I must read it!” Aliaroo said.
“Oh no, not yet. Her file is locked down in prison for a while, but you can file an information request. I kept very good analog notes,” Pauline said. At the celari’s raised eyebrow, she added, “Anti-information war facility: everything was analog.” At the alien’s nod, the humanocat asked, “So what did you find out from her DNA, other than it’s half metal, devilishly hard to decode, and she was apparently made to be psychic?”
The celari sat back and waved a waiter over for dessert. They both ordered, and she leaned back into her chair. “This entire planet fascinates me. Do you know how many dead systems and ones devoid of life my people passed through?” The Humanocat shook her head.
“Thousands!” Aliaroo said, her arms up in explanation. “Everything was just a little off or had bacteria that would kill us or any number of horrible things. Then we came upon Earth, and not only did it have the right environment, correct biologicals, and similar gravity, but an intelligent species that welcomed us.”
She sniffed. “They welcomed my ancestors, and we helped them fix things. This planet was so sick, but after almost two hundred years, we got it healthy again. We had to learn everything about the species here. I spent my entire life learning how to be a good doctor to celari and humans alike. We mapped out the genome of everything here and figured out how to slowly and conservatively heal and fix things.”
Aliaroo smiled, “You know I was getting bored because I could fix almost anything wrong with my patients. So I thought about changing professions to research some other creature.” She held up a finger, “Then ten years ago, we got contacted by other Earths, and they all have different species and different evolutionary paths.”
The humanocat grinned, “Oh, I had no idea.”
The celari smiled at the sarcasm, “Now, how this ties us to our awkward patient.” She lowered her voice. “Everyone agrees they are a post-singularity society and have about eight percent difference from Homo sapiens sapiens , or ape-evolved humans.”
Pauline nodded. She was glad the Celari had included that. Her own people identified as humans. They were annoyed that most of the species that called themselves Human were primate-evolved rather than feline and had given her species its own designation, Felinus sapiens.
“And?” Pauline prompted.
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The alien grinned, her teeth sharp and whiskers standing out proudly. “My analysis has found out they are more closely related to Homo sapiens heidelbergensis than Homo sapiens sapiens. ”
Pauline stared at the preening celari and shook her head. “I don’t know what those words mean,” she said. “Are they not the ape-humans?”
Deflating a bit, the celari continued. “Well, yes and no.” She sighed and took a tiny slice of the sugared meat she was having for dessert. “Did you not go into your archaeological records?”
“Oh, we did, but we use different names,” Pauline said with a tiny smile.
“Ahem. There were at least twenty-five different competing versions of humans on this planet,” Aliaroo said, holding up her digits. “Twenty-five! And the Homo sapiens sapiens took the winning slot.” She made a gesture. “Now, one of the competing species won on Mechanon, and their humans were based on that.”
Pauline held her chin thoughtfully, “She doesn’t look wildly different. And she told me that her people only changed into their current caste system after the invasion. And her DNA, how did you unravel that?”
“It is a mystery,” Aliaroo replied. “We celari have been on generation ships for a long time and have, pretty much, mastered genetics. We thought that we’d have to seed a world, after all.” She paused and shook her head. “Anyway, her DNA suggests an anomaly between when we’ve been told when they were engineered and historical genetic drift.”
Pauline looked at Aliaroo and raised her eyebrow. “Still an ape-based human, though?”
The alien shrugged and whipped her tail around, “Well, yes, but not the same one as everyone thought it was.”
Pauline took a bite out of her cheesecake and sighed happily. “It doesn’t matter in the larger scheme of things, really,” she said and sipped her after-dinner coffee. “We’ve all come from different versions of Earth, except your people,” she continued. “You may very well find another Reality with Celari that made it to Earth, where it was uninhabited, or Celari that aren’t based upon the same creature as your species.”
The humanocat smiled, “My people have accepted the Sky Hurricane like no others. We’re making trades, discovering new Realities, and exploring everywhere.” She sipped the coffee again. It wasn’t the exact brew from home, but it was close, making her happy. “Ever since the Sidhe tried invading our world with their sky citadels, we’ve been aware of the situation that ignorance placed us in.”
Aliaroo blinked and nodded. “I had heard that was the reason you joined the war. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen much except the Storm League’s war footage. We heard you were attacked about forty years ago, but all the attackers were shoved out. No one’s really explained that.”
Sipping her coffee, Pauline nodded. “It was really bad from what my mother says,” she started. “I can tell you what she has told me about how the Sidhe were shoved out and the awakening of magic at home. We’re still having issues with that.”
Aliaroo nodded, “Oh yes, I heard it is different than our psionics, and I’ve seen a little of it shown as an example, but my people are just at the ‘tourist stage’ for dealing with Other Realities.”
Pauline sighed and remembered the looks of sadness and fear that her mother got on her face when she told the tale. “I’ll tell you how my Maman told me.” She paused and looked out the restaurant’s window. “It happened one beautiful spring day outside of Orleans. She told me the weather was mild and sunny, and spring flowers were everywhere. It was fairly peaceful as the Europee ́ Union had made deals with the Arabie Califates and the Afrique Socialist States to keep them from fighting again.
“But, mind you, she had thought of none of these. My Maman, she had been dealing with normal things like High School. It was a news report her teacher was listening to that was burned into her mind when everything went wrong. She was focused on her poetry lessons and the other class members when the sky outside darkened. They took it for a passing cloud, but then the thunder happened. They looked out, and it was raining, but not a normal rain for spring. These were monsoon droplets, each as big as a fist.”
Aliaroo nodded, “I’ve seen the phenomena, but never that large.”
“Patience,” the other woman entreated. Then, at Aliaroo’s nod, she continued. “The green lightning we all know was visible from the ground and lit up the classroom. Then, after a while, it stopped, but the rain continued at a lesser pace. Her classmates crowded the windows, but the teacher was very upset and told them to return to their desks.” She closed her eyes as she remembered the blank look of the trauma on her mother’s face.
“There was an explosion, then another,” Pauline continued. “The classroom windows shattered, and she passed out. When she awakened, many of her classmates and teacher had been killed by the explosion.” Aliaroo looked shocked. “She said a huge floating mountain was hanging over the city center. It looked like many of the sky islands we know about now, but this one had a fortress.
“The radio was still on, and the reporter was talking about this worldwide phenomenon. These fortresses had appeared out of storm clouds over refineries, city centers, and factories and had begun to rain fire and lightning on them. The one in her city had begun to attack the corporate offices near the city center,” Pauline said, remembering the news footage she had seen.
“Didn’t they fight back? You’re a very technical society. I know you’ve colonized the moon,” Aliaroo asked.
The humanocat waved her hand, “Of course they did. Maman said that people from the corporate towers used their legal security teams to attack with anti-tank rounds and rockets and that a wing of aircraft also came by. Shields popped up and deflected it all. Then cannons from the fortress and knights on flying horses came out to kill the defenders. Our Orbital assets were not weaponized per treaties.”
She paused to sip her now cold coffee. “Things were grim. People were leaving the city, trying to escape to the countryside, but the trains were broken, and many tried to escape on foot. They were poor and had no one they knew outside the city. So Maman went home and stayed with my Grandmother and her brother. They huddled in the dark and ate the canned food they had. Water was caught and boiled on a tiny stove that ran on gas cylinders. My Grandmother made them pray every night, and Maman told me that she thought they had a slight gold glow around them when they did.”
“Then others tried to steal from them. They were all sick. It was some bioweapon the invaders had unleashed. First, people would attack them for food and water, but my uncle drove them off with tools and weapons he had later fashioned. Then there was no one in the streets about two weeks later. The city was dead except for furtive people like my family, who were scavenging off their dead friends and neighbors.”
Aliaroo shook her head and said, “That is quite a bit more desperate than I have heard. I had not heard of a bioweapon. Was it the mild storm sickness?”
“Ah, governments only tell you the truth when it suits them. They always want to hide their weaknesses,” Pauline said and waved down a waiter to get a refill on her coffee. She thanked him and turned back to the celari. “It was not. This sickness was like an aerosol version of the black death but killed within hours.”
“Your family, though, were they immune?” Aliaroo asked.
Pauline shook her head, “They were not, but they had caught the sky sickness early, and my mother’s prayers were for health and safety.”
“Her prayers? I’ve not heard of any god granting power,” Aliaroo said in confusion.
“Recall that the Kondarrians and Tigre ́ both use divine prayers for their magic and the Church in the Ostianus Empire on Anglio also do the same,” Pauline said and sipped her coffee again. “My Grandmother’s wishes and prayers hooked into a version of biomancy that, while rudimentary, allowed her to focus on healing and keeping my Maman and Uncle safe.
“But we are being sidetracked,” she said suddenly. “After a month and a half, they had begun to see patrols from the fortress. They were almost always in armor, but we realized they weren’t like us. No tails, muzzles, or fur,” Pauline paused.
She looked beyond the café to her mother’s face when she recalled this part. “They were Sidhe, and they scared us because we had never seen anything like them and because they were also cruel. Anyone they ran across they killed or captured. No questions, nothing. They just were hunting us like mice. You would pray that you were killed rather than captured because they would turn you into a betrayer. Made to hunt down your friends if you were taken alive compelled by a control collar.”
“That is… horrible,” Aliaroo said, shaking her head, hand on her forehead. “I’ve had to treat a few people who had those horrid things around their necks, and I can tell you it’s torture for them to wear it. It makes you feel so happy and nice towards your enslavers and hate everyone they tell you to. It mentally compels you to do whatever they request while you are inside trying to stop yourself from doing it.”
“I feel that it has psionics at the base of this Charm magic that they use in it, and I know they are illegal, but there were so many Sidhe collars left that they are in the black market now, and it’s tough to get them out,” the Celari said.
“I agree, and the League has been cracking down on any group that has them in their possession,” Pauline replied. “But again, we have left the story. I promise things get better, or I would not be here to tell you of it.” They smiled at one another.
“The Sidhe Invaders were consolidating their bases. They had caused a great deal of damage in only a month and a half, killing about a quarter of the population. That was from their diseases and direct actions. Some groups took it upon themselves to use this as an opportunity to attack one another and settle grievances, which killed more.” Pauline shook her head. “We were considering using atomics against them. It was said that they would be the only way to drive the invaders from our world.
“My Papa was in the missile command at that time. He was a recruit, but many older soldiers had died in the fighting and attacks, so he had been forced to fill in. They had received orders to prep the missiles for strikes against the cities that held the fortresses. They were halfway done when a worldwide storm messed up the radar, and not even the satellites could see what was happening. He said all the fortresses were just gone.”
Pauline smiled, “Just gone, poof . So that is the official narrative.”
Aliaroo raised an eyebrow and asked, “But that’s not what happened, is it?”
“You are correct, ” Pauline said. “Maman said she was out looking for food in her old school when the rain began again. Then there was a golden light from the clouds, and huge people dressed like the Aegyptians in white and gold against their black fur walked up to the fortress, two to a side. The Sidhe fought back, shooting them with cannons and magic, but the huge people were not deterred. Instead, they gripped the sky islands and threw them into the clouds. Maman swore she heard the giants tell the Sidhe they were no longer welcome here.”
“And what happened then?” Aliaroo prodded.
Blinking, Pauline smiled and said, “The fortresses were thrown back into the Sky Hurricane, broken and battered. And the giants dissolved into light. Afterward, almost all of us had access to magic if we studied it. The Nations Unified set about fixing things and learning exactly how to go after the invaders. Apparently, compulsion collars can be used on Sidhe too.”
At Aliaroo’s look, Pauline sighed, “It was war. Almost a third of our population was dead, and the only way to keep people from one another’s throats was apparently our thoughts of revenge. We have gotten much better.”
“That is true,” Aliaroo conceded. “Your people do seem to be similar to us celari in the ways of getting along.”
Pauline laughed, “Oh, most of us are. At least now, when we have a separatist movement, we can let them leave for a new world. No one needs to annoy the NU armed forces and have them show up.”
The celari‘s ears perked up at the chiming of a clock. “I am sorry, I do need to get back to my hotel. Though I would like to meet with you again or at least have regular correspondence,” Aliaroo said as she got up to leave.
Pauline smiled, “Yes, send me the information you have compiled on my patients, and I will do my best to get you my notes as well. We can even swap more stories. Working at a prison has given me many odd tales.”
They smiled at one another and shook hands heading their own ways.
Pauline looked into the Parisian skyline and saw the Bazin Tower, ah here it was called the Eiffel Tower. I do believe that I will sent those two a wedding gift from here, she thought and headed towards one of the busses for the center of the city.