It was almost elegant. Perceive and control, in harmonious parity, both working through the underlying threads in the tapestry of reality. In the beginning, perception and control had been in sync as well- perception to read information stored in technology, and control to change it. The road had parted, and the two paths had gone their separate ways, but here, in this penultimate step, the final refinement I could make without a special, esoteric sort of thesis, they'd finally met once more, in their own way.

Or perhaps that was just me. After all, it was incredibly common to specialize in scanners and not control, or vice versa. They weren't actually two sides of the same coin. Oh, sure, I'd found ample synergy between them, but they were my specialties- it'd be weird if I didn't.

Mmn. I was getting sidetracked. This new scanner, the one I was putting all this effort into building, could perceive things in more than just the three spatial dimensions we're accustomed to. The extra dimensional axes, which I currently only somewhat understood, were very much not identical to each other, however. The small, portable, quick-to-make scanner I was prototyping right now only had enough juice to pierce the veil and look into the spirit world.

However, that was more or less all we needed.

The plan was simple: build scanners more refined than the noses of Lisa's spirit-hounds, search the city's transport infrastructure, and figure out where all those potatoes, lentils, and turnips were going. And then, from there, we'd be able to, hopefully, track down whatever biology project Skinner was working on.

And, incidentally, yes, I had already used my existing scanners to draw up a map of every location in Greater Austin that had received shipments of potatoes, lentils, turnips, and/or vibrators within the last four months. We knew where to look.

The prototyping process was very touch-and-go, with frequent stops to test things, refine my working model, and proceed from there. This was the first time I was building anything even remotely this advanced, after all, and that just inescapably took time. And in this case... it took ten hours straight.

I was walking normal-adjacent at first, but by the time I finally got up to the ground floor of the house, I was staggering, and stumbled into the kitchen to catch myself on the refrigerator door. After regaining my balance for a few moments, I ripped the door open, rummaged through the fridge, and tore open a container full of leftover egg fried rice, grabbing a fork and shoveling fuel into the furnace I call a gullet.

"Damn, bitch, you live like this?" Lisa asked, standing behind me.

I swallowed, and closed the fridge with my knee. "Yes, yes I do."

"...Well, can't fault you for honesty."

"ADHD is a cruel mistress," I continued. "And my internal healing device has a habit of purging all foreign substances, so the standard treatment plan of microdosing meth or whatever isn't really an option. So... I get to deal with the occasional bout of hyperfocus, and forgetting to eat."

"That sounds perfectly healthy and not at all concerning."

"Eh. I'll live."

"That's not as comforting as you think it is."

"Lisa, I get shot at for a living." I swallowed some more fried rice. "My mildly-disordered eating isn't going to be what kills me."

"That doesn't- I-"

"Now if you'll excuse me, I do still need to eat food. Got a loooong day tomorrow."

----------------------------------------

The next morning, I woke up bright and early, trudged downstairs, and found that breakfast had already been prepared for me, in the form of a four-egg omelette loaded with cheese and mushrooms.

"I was going to use sausage, but apparently combining milk and meat isn't kosher," Lisa said, handing me the plate. "Please remember to eat lunch."

"Have one of the robots bring it down to me," I said with a shrug. "Also, thank you for the omelette."

I ate quickly, then headed down into the sub-basement workshop. The sooner I started, the sooner I'd finish.

The robots, while more sophisticated than the robot maids I'd put together before we moved in, were ones I'd built before. I already had a general template and working knowledge; now, I just needed to fill out the template and build the goddamn robot.

And then build another one.

Thankfully, the early stages of the production process were universal to the template and also straightforward enough I could do them on autopilot, doing the design work in my head while I fed files into the 3D printer and the general-purpose fabricator.

The animating theory behind these robots was largely uninteresting bullshit, but the core of it was, essentially, a magic system that an acquaintance of mine had worldbuilt at me while trying and failing to write a number-go-up LitRPG for RoyalRoad, a task so simple that it can be done by the typical author on RoyalRoad, and which this acquaintance could not manage because, in their ineptitude, they had thought a magic system rigorous enough for a mad scientist to use it as a working model for powering their robots was more important than just typing a sequence of words that described Diet Kirito styling on all the fools and fucking all the bitches.

In fact, a few years ago, I'd spent my entire November churning out reams upon reams of low-effort shitty LitRPG- ShitRPG, if you will- with absolutely no planning whatsoever, as a way of dunking on my acquaintance who was allergic to writing.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

For some reason, we never became friends.

I shook my head, setting aside my reminiscence. I had a job to do.

----------------------------------------

"Good timing," I remarked to myself as the freight elevator came to a stop, and someone stepped off of it. "I just finished the first robot. Set the food down on the table furthest from the fabricators. Belay that- set the plate down with the food on top, on the table furthest from the fabricators that is still in this room."

"Yeah, yeah, I know what you meant," Lisa said, making me turn around so fast I pulled something in my neck. "Boner ape-tit, Roxy."

"I love how absolutely deranged you can be sometimes," I said. "I'm a little confused as to why you're wearing a maid outfit, though."

"I'm a trans woman, aren't I?" Lisa asked.

"...Well, I can't argue with that."

It was a very cute maid outfit, too, one that almost looked like it could be worn by an actual maid, instead of a horny t-girl about to get railed. There wasn't even any cleavage.

"Alright, well," I said, walking over to the sink. "Let me wash my hands, and then probably put on a fresh set of nitrile gloves just to be sure. I have been handling. All sorts of nasty shit I don't want to eat."

"I... think maybe you should let me feed you instead," Lisa said, looking down at and clearly regretting the pile of burritos she'd prepared for me.

"That might be a good idea, yeah," I said. "I'm still washing my hands, though."

In truth, it was a bit of an overreaction; the handwashing station down here was itself a minor artifact of mad science, perfectly capable of scouring every last hint of lithium grease from my skin and leaving my hands clean and tidy. However, it was an artifact of mad science, and so I didn't fully trust it.

And... well, I'll admit, the idea of having my pet foxgirl feed me lunch had its appeal, to the primal part of my brain that craved power over and control of other people. It was an ugly part of me, but... well, letting Lisa feed me a burrito was hardly an unacceptable indulgence.

I pulled my forearms back out of the handwashing station, and walked over to the table we'd claimed for eating.

"So what the hell are you doing down here?" Lisa asked. "Thought you didn't spend time in the workshop."

"I usually don't," I admitted. "But, we need supernatural eyes and ears in a lot of places, and I'm the only one who can make robots worth a damn, so... here I am, in the workshop, getting my hands dirty. What about you, why are you bringing me burritos?"

"I'm Tejano, turns out," Lisa said. "I know I don't look it, or sound it, and that's because my family was old Spanish bluebloods. Apparently, after the war, they quietly started pretending to just be any other white old money aristocrat family. Hell, I had to do a lot of digging to find that out- my parents had no idea. So... I've been trying, in bits and pieces, to reconnect with what feels like lost heritage. Which, well, mostly amounts to eating a bit more Mexican food. I'm trying to learn Spanish, too, but... well, that's an entire language I'm trying to learn. It's hard."

"Especially if you don't go outside and talk to Hispanic people very often," I said, nodding. "Of course, you and I both know that what I actually meant was 'why did you come down to the workshop to deliver my lunch personally?' Nice try, distracting me with personal anecdotes and a chance to talk about Texan ethnography, but it didn't work."

Lisa shrugged. "I'm your pet foxgirl, yeah? The most perfect cat-dog. But, you don't have slippers or a newspaper, and I've gotta fetch you something, so... food."

"...Lisa, you know I was fucking with you when I called you my pet foxgirl, right?" I said.

"You were being humorous, but that doesn't necessarily mean you were kidding," Lisa said. "Besides, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of being your pet foxgirl. I get headpats and ear-rubs, and what I need to do is pretty clear and usually simple. It's... liberating, really."

"Fucking furry," I said.

"Bitch, this is clearly petplay-flavored platonic lifestyle BDSM."

"My mistake, Doctor Yiff."

Lisa rolled her eyes. "Shut up and eat the burritos."

Being as I was hungry, I acquiesced, and... they were pretty alright. Nothing special. They were burritos. Had some nice crunch, Lisa put in some fritos to try and replicate something that Taco Bell discontinued a few years ago, but they were, ultimately, just unremarkably good burritos. The remarkable part was having a redheaded foxgirl in a maid outfit feed me the burritos. The cooking didn't need to be all that special to make this sort of thing a special moment, after all.

"I think," I said, after polishing off the third burrito, "that'll be enough for the next six hours. I'll come up for dinner... probably after a shower. See you then."

"As you wish, Master."

"Wow, you are committed to this bit."

"You look at me, realize my name is Lisa Kitsune Fox, and tell me I seem like I'd have trouble committing to the bit."

"Well. Fair enough."

----------------------------------------

"Good lord, you inhaled that stew," Nicky remarked.

"I was hungry," I said with a shrug, getting up and walking over to the sink to deposit my bowl. "Urgh. Fucking hell. Even with a robot down there helping me with the next one, that was still a lot of heavy lifting. My healing implant is gonna be working overtime tonight- I am not looking forward to bedtime."

"...What?" Akane asked, frowning.

"Oh, uh. Well, y'know how we had to buy a new bed in a hurry, with Nicky moving back in? Well, I may have picked an especially cheap one to save on costs at the time out of a misplaced sense of fiscal responsibility. Most nights it's fine, I have the healing implant to deal with that shit, but..."

"I know how this is going to sound, coming from me," Akane began, "but I think, for the sake of your own health and safety, you are not allowed to sleep in your own bed anymore."

"Not even dating, and I've already been banished to the couch," I bemoaned.

"That's not what I said," Akane said.

"Sleepover time," Nicky said.

"We all sleep in this house already," I pointed out.

"Not in the same room," Nicky said.

"C'mon, Roxy," Lisa added, reaching out and cupping Nicky's chin. "You gonna look her in the eyes and tell her you won't cuddle her to sleep? With this face?"

"Alright, alright, jesus christ," I said. "You win. Sleepover time."

Of course, despite admitting defeat...

...well, I didn't really feel like I'd lost, here.