Well, that's getting out of hand, isn't it?
...
I had a feeling you'd say something like that. I won't even dignify it with a response beyond this: I will not be more descriptive.
...
Okay, fine, in other scenes, I can be, just not there.
...
Let's just move on, shall we?
----------------------------------------
Rebecca followed Dewey down a street she had never trespassed upon. You may have expected "traversed" there, but "trespassed" matches the aesthetic better.
The storied buildings, and the sharp angle of the sun, gave the avenue a twilight cast. Sparse lighting scattered across the side of the road occasionally lit the perpetual shadows that huddled there. Dull grey stone and composite materials formed the foundations, and practically everything else, of nearly every building. The only signs visible glowed in subtle monotone colors and desaturated hues, unobtrusive with their simplistic designs.
To Rebecca, it felt like a strange hybrid between the dawn and dusk parts of the city, both places she had frequented on previous trips. However, she had never been in this section.
Colloquially and uncreatively called "The Twilight Zone" in a bout of trademark infringement had the concept of a trademark survived the Great Lawyer War, this section of the city rubbed her senses the wrong way.
The streets were clean, but not as clean as those on the sunrise side, and not cluttered enough to give them the sense of life found in those within the sunset districts.
No streets ran parallel with the sunlight. This might have been to avoid the construction of implicit "one-way streets" where individuals wouldn't walk with the low-hanging sun in their eyes. However, it made it so it was very difficult to find any direct sunlight at ground level. Furthermore, the height of the buildings dropped as they fell from the wealthier sunlit areas, leading to the city casting shadows over much of itself.
While this also occurred in the darker parts of the city, there the vast majority of the light was blocked not by other buildings, but by the hill the city itself was built upon.
Had the buildings been built in steppes with the sun, there'd have been more light for everyone.
These motifs twisted neatly around every aspect Rebecca could see. In fact, it seemed as though this section of the city had been designed with dreariness in mind.
There were others, humans and not, that passed and were passed by Rebecca and Dirn, but there was no bustle of bodies or conversation. Silence hung overhead like the shadows from the buildings.
The transportation was buried below the streets, further adding to the eery stillness.
There were places to eat, but no smell or sounds of cooking hanging in the still air.
There were shops, but few displays.
There were windows, but none weren't tinted or mirrored.
There were places that could have served as communal areas, but they were small and cramped even while being almost empty. Their inclusion was an afterthought, and their appearance was like one as well.
If one, such as I, had to describe the feeling these streets gave in a single word, it would be "utilitarian".
If one, such as Rebecca, had to describe the same feeling, she'd have used the word "muted". It reminded her of the station she had grown up in. All her memories of it that contained color, only did so because her family had brought those colors with them. Everything else was surrounded by the constant muted hue of efficiency.
In a galaxy where a single color can convey a multitude of meanings, even within a given species that has the same vision, the choice of grey is ubiquitous and safe. There is very little danger in painting a wall grey, other than a near-universal depressive effect.
When one does the math, such an effect is a net positive when compared to the potential downsides of painting the same wall the wrong shade. The problem only compounds in practice. A red wall in blue light looks black, but a grey one will be as grey as it can be in any lighting condition. A blue ceiling may invoke a recollection of the open sky or an impending solar flare. Rarely are the memories associated with grey as dramatic.
So grey color schemes are omnipresent across nearly every city that caters to more than one species, or at least does so in the most efficient and apathetic manner. With this came the development of a shared memory across the galaxy. That of the Grey.
The Grey was often used to refer to a curious phenomenon that arose in recent times. When you attempt to address the potential hurdles of interspecies relations, you often gravitate towards "grey".
Grey colors: an even return along the electromagnetic spectrum.
Grey sounds: a hum you can't tell if you hear or imagine.
Grey lighting: fixtures too bright for half, and too dark for the other.
Grey textures: a pervasive gritty smoothness and unyielding intangibility.
Grey community: one defined by its nonexistence.
One could continue this trend in every available sense and concept. Grey love. Grey taste. Grey grey.
Maybe not that last one, but still.
Every individual in the galaxy who has ever spent any significant amount of time in a holdover city, refugee camp, or a temporarily permeant housing assignment, knows this "Grey" well.
Rebecca did, and she didn't like how familiar everything felt as she trailed behind Dewey. She especially didn't like how it was beginning to feel even more familiar.
She'd have to take a trip down to the nightside tonight and meet up with Madeline to ease the load of her dredged-up memories. Not that there was really a "tonight" in the city of incessant timelessness.
Madeline tossed her feelings overboard and stopped behind Dewey, who paused along a street while checking something Rebecca couldn't see. After a moment, he gave a ripple of shoulders and turned down it. Given the alignment of the streets, no direct sunlight managed to touch the ground even at this new angle.
Rebecca followed behind with a general sense of where Dewey was going. They'd arrived late the previous day, and she hadn't had much time to do more than sleep through the "night". When she awoke, Dewey was nowhere to be found, and his whereabouts unknown to her save for a message sent an hour earlier with a location. A destination for their mutual reunion when she was ready, the message informed.
After eating a breakfast served by the hotel, one thankfully not nearly as grey as the hotel's interior and exterior walls, Rebecca sent Dewey a message that she was on her way and set off.
The location ended up being the closest equivalent to a park that she had seen since waking, though its sparse purple plants seemed more muted than what she thought natural.
Dewey had been there already, and given the "park's" small size and vacancy, was easily spotted by Rebecca.
He had shared his meager findings and pulled up a list of potential prospects. Their bounty had been seen at a few locations nearby, but not frequently or recently. Dewey wanted to get a better sense of the city while pursuing leads on their target, or so Rebecca inferred, and she was more than happy to oblige.
Perhaps surprisingly, she was fully comfortable letting Dewey take the lead. Her role was that of a "hench-woman" during such activities. Give her some instructions to follow, and off she'd go. She wouldn't mind it.
Now if the task was to do some interior design, party planning, schedule coordinating, or something social, Rebecca was a fair bet if you needed someone to take charge. At the very least you should involve her, for your own sake.
As it were, the big-picture planning for this particular mission had been left up to those in command positions, and Rebecca figured the smaller details could be left up to Dewey.
Each squad had been assigned an area of the city to survey. Information was to be gathered and funneled up the chain of command, and further instructions would be forthcoming.
Everyone knew that the first few days of such an activity, even if Mrs. P had put emphasis on completing the bounty, were largely spent "surveying" local establishments of various carnal pleasures.
Of course, these were carnal pleasures of the eating and drinking variety. There aren't any other "carnal pleasures" worth pursuing to my knowledge.
Reports would make their way back, but they would primarily be composed of restaurant and club reviews, all constructed by crew members at varying levels of sobriety. This was fine, expected, and practically tradition by now. They knew that when, or even if, new orders came in, squads were expected to clear their heads and get them done. Once the target was caught, the celebrations and general relaxation could continue.
It was evident that Dewey was not aware of this expectation, because, from the information he had shared with Rebecca, Dewey had spent his night assessing locations of actual relevance to the bounty-hunting task, and not nearby locations of various pleasures.
Rebecca didn't quite know how to breach the topic and convey the proper understanding of it to Dewey and had decided that it wouldn't do their squad any harm to get a slight head start. She could bring it up at lunch or some other time that Mrs. P didn't expect proper due diligence to be given to the hunt, at least not yet. If Dewey wanted to spend his own free time bounty hunting, Rebecca was fine with that, as long as he was also fine with Rebecca not matching his enthusiasm or devotion. If she got her nights to herself, she'd follow Dewey around wherever he went.
Even if it meant staring at repetitive grey buildings with grey walls while walking on drab grey slabs.
Rebecca's conviction was suddenly put to the test by Dewey turning off again into a building. Before she followed him in, she paused to look up at it.
Somehow, this building managed to give off an even more depressing atmosphere than the others on the already dreary street. Where the other buildings felt "old", this one felt "dilapidated". Where the other colors were simply grey, the grey of this building was the grey of colors so faded over time, that it was anyone's guess as to what they had been originally. It was the grey of old and forgotten memories.
Now, the "colors" had been grey originally too, but now they were a Grey grey.
Holding back a frown, Rebecca entered in after Dewey. She couldn't remember which of the locations Dewey had planned to have them visit first, but maybe a good look at the interior of this somber building would jog her memory.
It did not.
Inside, with lights even dimmer than the steady shade available in the twilight outdoors, Rebecca was greeted by a flat lobby.
Spacious, but devoid of any defining interior characteristics, the monotonous area was broken up only by nondescript doors across its walls, and a disheartening rectangular reception desk situated across the empty space. It sat at the center of the room, encircling (yes, it's still a rectangle) a few chairs and miscellaneous office equipment.
It wasn't the worst office environment Rebecca had seen, but it was one of the worst ones that she'd seen intended for actual use. Thankfully only a single entity floated motionless within it, as the others like it she'd seen had been designed for torture.
A flickering silver hologram of an emotionless figure "sat" at one of the chairs, hovering about a foot above it. Full of confidence, Dewey strode towards the personage without hesitation.
With less and more of the aforementioned attributes, Rebecca trailed behind. If she had to guess, the building was one of the housing complexes on Dewey's list. It's unfortunate Madeline wasn't there to make a bet with her, as she'd have won it.
Arriving at the front of the desk, Dewey waited for a moment until the holographic figure's unchanging expression cued Dewey to its obliviousness.
"Hello?" Dewey offered.
The hologram flickered. Eyes moving in an attempt to match Dewey's and faltering as they found a body the program had not been built to handle. After half a second of glitching eye movement, the eyes settled, independently, at points near Dewey's center of mass.
"How. May. I. Assist. You."
The model was old, apparent by its uncanny features and rudimentary, though sonorous, speech. You'd have a hard time telling its voice from a real person's if you listened to it word by word. Yet when forced to render entire sentences the illusion fell apart like galactic-standard tissues in a universal solvent. Or just water, either would work.
"I'd like to ask some questions."
A pause. Then a low static emanated from somewhere behind the desk. This was not a typical query, and the program had to dig deep through its databanks to find a proper response. The program's roots were an antiquated deterministic communication interface. A goes in, B comes out. Always. Such methods are paradoxically some of the easiest, and most difficult models to implement. At the smaller scale, all you need is a single logical statement, one little branch, and you've got yourself a rudimentary implementation of the great ancestors of modern AI.
With the complexity contained within this antique, you needed millions, if not billions of various paths to take. Fear of black-box methods in communication interfaces plagued galactic society for a time, especially following a few high-profile cases in which unfortunate mistranslations or miscommunications led to... exciting developments.
Pushback against probabilistic algorithms or anything nondeterministic led to a surge in demand for alternatives. Overly zealous college graduates with far too much time on their hands, claws, or tarsi, found themselves creating unholy abominations, often aided by the infernal arts.
These abominations, though marketed as "completely predictable" and "perfectly reliable" often faced challenges along the lines of "being literally touched by devils".
"What. Are. You... A. Cop...?"
Dewey shuffled; the question caught him off guard. That wasn't the sort of question you'd expect from any assistance program, especially one that's little more than a glorified chose-your-own adventure novel.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
Dewey knew better than to answer that in an affirmative. He also realized whoever had designed this program may not have prioritized "deferring to authority".
"No, no. Just some travelers looking to inquire about potential housing prospects."
The static grew louder and increased in frequency until it approached a low hum. Dewey was betting whoever had written this program, had been more of a capitalist than an anarchist. Anarchists aren't often able to acquire the needed funding to make such machines.
"You. May. Inquire."
"How many available rooms do you have?"
"We. Have..." it paused, counting, "
"Thank you... How many tenants are there in total?"
"That. Information. Is. Confidential."
"I see. How many rooms then?"
"We. Have...
Rebecca frowned. The building hadn't seemed very large from the outside. Fitting sixty apartments into what she imagined of the building's interior would be quite a feat. Perhaps it extended into the ground. Many cities had buildings that were far deeper than they were tall, and this could very well be one of them.
"Thank you. If you don't mind. I have a few more questions."
"I. Do. Not. Mind... I. Cannot. Mind... Do. You. Mind...?"
"I don't."
"Good... Your. Questions...?"
Rebecca resisted the urge to roll her eyes as Dewey continued his interrogation. Pulling information from the jumbled mess of logical switches was the least efficient method Dewey could've chosen. Maybe she could speed up the process.
Rebecca looked over the reception desk. While there must have been someone behind it on occasion, she ascertained such occasions were rare. There were signs of life, amongst the old papers and empty mugs, but the general clutter gave her a sense of stillness. There was also a thin layer of dust over everything, which was quite impressive considering the air pollution regulations strictly enforced within the city.
Regardless, it wasn't the workspace of someone who worked there frequently. Rebecca continued her search, and it only took a second visual pass to locate the machine's control console nestled underneath the desk, partially hidden by a vacant chair.
As the machine continued its erratic drone, Rebecca deftly hopped over the rectangular desk-but-more-like-a-low-wall partition. She didn't care much for figuring out how it opened if it even, or ever, did. Perhaps there had been more people stationed here at some point in time, and they had simply been unable to escape and withered away. Their remains now responsible for the faint layer of dust that seemed to cover every surface within the not-really-an-office office space.
Dewey hesitated, watching Rebecca with his many eyes.
"What are you doing?"
"I. Am. Answering. Your. Questions."
Rebecca gave a light laugh as she responded, "I'm going to get us our information a little bit faster than this rust bucket can."
"I. Am. Not. Made. Out. Of. Rust... Nor. Am. I. A. Bucket..."
The machine hummed Rebecca flicked open a previously hidden compartment within one of her left wrists and pulled out a coord roughly the thickness of her pinky.
"Are. You. A. Bucket...?" The machine asked Dewey. It had come to the conclusion that Rebecca had not been referring to itself, as it was not made of rust nor a bucket.
"How are you going to do that?" Dewey inquired... inquisitively.
"I bet I can just pull the data from this thing directly," Rebecca answered with a motion towards the computing box she had pulled from its cubby. Holding her adaptive (and near-universal) data-link cable in one hand, she searched for a potential receptacle with the other two.
"I. Do. Not. Understand. Your. Query... Please. Rephrase..." replied the machine.
"End program," Rebecca attempted.
"I. Cannot. Be. Terminated." denied the machine.
"Remain silent until called upon," assayed Dewey.
"I. Cannot. Be. Made. Silent." asserted the machine.
"Please reply to me in my native language of Human Sign Language," endeavored Rebecca.
Rebecca actually did know sign language, and while calling it her native language may have been a bit of a stretch, she was remarkably fluent. Perhaps having the extra hand helped, though there was an equal chance that it proved to be a hindrance in such communications. I haven't seen her use it yet.
The machine began to respond, paused, and then flickered its form through a static-filled slideshow. Its complete inability to string together sentences in a smooth manner evidently remained even in non-verbal communications.
Loosely translated, the machine signed, "I. Am. Capable. Of. That... What. Is. Your. Query...?"
I'm unsure if this impediment was more noticeable while it spoke, or while it signed. Rebecca may have been able to answer that, but she was thoroughly distracted by the bulky box in her hand.
Rebecca had found a port, but there was only one port, and it was already in use. She gave a brief shrug and pulled out the cable, causing the hologram to disappear in a sudden flash of nothingness.
Now she felt bad about messing with the machine. She could have just killed it to start off with.
"What did you do to it?" Dewey asked.
Rebecca lifted up the metallic rectangular box in reply.
"Just getting our data."
Dewey shuffled at this. He hadn't realized that "pulling the data directly" meant murdering the poor clerk.
Madeline would have described it as "an abrupt but not permanent pirate-assisted-and-induced coma".
Rebecca herself would have described it as "There's only one port here, what else was I supposed to do, I didn't know it would kill the thing!" if she heard either of these descriptions.
The machine would have said "I. Do. Not. Understand. Your. Query." if you asked for its opinion on the matter.
Rebecca slipped her cord into the receptacle and blinked. Various images flickered to life within her vision. Navigating through menus few with deft virtual motions of her two left arms, Rebecca was pleasantly surprised to find the box had no security at all. In a few more fluid swipes, and twice as many instants, Rebecca copied all the data on the machine's databanks into her own.
Dewey's eyes squinted at the action. He'd have preferred to avoid brushing with the law, but Rebecca was inclined to a more intimate flirtation with legality. Though perhaps "blatant criminality" would be a more apt description of her activities.
"Hmm... Well, I've got the data but this format's funky. We can take a look at it back at base," Rebecca said as she placed the box back into its receptacle, leaving it unplugged.
Dewey nodded, a difficult task with no neck or head.
"So, where to next?" Rebecca asked as she vaulted over the reception desk.
Dewey shrugged, a remarkably easy task when one was at least 50% shoulders.
"We've got some options. There's a bakery nearby that may be of interest. A spa where the target visited once. A fountain where they made frequent appearances..."
Dewey trailed off in thought.
"Honestly, we could probably stop by any nearby location and it would be tangibly related to the case."
Please, no one wants to read Dewey's Grand Investigation of "the shop where the bounty target once bought a (non-sentient) orange"... Let's see...
Rebecca felt a sudden burst of inspiration.
"Anywhere exciting?" she asked.
Dewey emitted a low hum of thought as he pushed open the double doors back to the city streets.
"Yes... I think I can do that..."
----------------------------------------
"So, oranges don't feel pain?"
"Yeah, that's why it's weird that Alpha was under the assumption they did."
"But could they feel pain?"
"That's exactly what Alpha asked."
Ephemeral pressed her two front legs together underneath her chelicerae in glee. Dirn wasn't yet able to fully parse that expression but had been able to get the gist of it. They figured the motion was the equivalent of a human's slight smile, or perhaps similar to a huff of air following a lighthearted moment that didn't call for a full fit of laughter.
Out of all the crew Dirn had encountered so far, Ephemeral was one of the easiest to talk to. There was something about the way she spoke that seemed to disarm Dirn's natural resistance to socializing with those more "stranger" than "friend", not that Dirn was what you'd describe as "talkative" even with their friends.
They'd already meandered through a myriad of topics.
Dirn's acclamation to the pirate lifestyle.
How did Dirn like the sunrise?
What color was their favorite?
Why couldn't they see color?
What color was Ephemeral?
Why Ephemeral glowed green?
If you want to know and if you don't, it's a trait typical to her form of magic, associated with life and healing.
What color did Dirn glow?
If you're wondering and if you aren't, Dirn doesn't glow.
There were a few more topics, I wasn't keeping track of them all, but the conversation eventually made its way to their respective breakfasts. Dirn's mushy mush and Ephemeral's injection of life energy). This led to Dirn retelling the story of Alpha's revelation regarding oranges: their inability to feel pain, and her horrifying philosophical musings that followed. Rebecca had caught Dirn up on that particular event through an animated retelling before they had separated.
This brings us to the present(-ish, this is still written in the past tense after all).
"Hey, you two, our stop's coming up," Madeline interjected.
Dirn instinctively glanced out the window, but they only caught their reflection in the dark glass. The train had gone underground sometime before. No one in the glowing city of gold and white wanted to see train tracks marring their red and purple landscapes. It did mean that the train could afford to move much faster now. Phase shields kept the atmosphere out at one end, and the maglev train had added "hyper" to its adjectives as it accelerated past the speed of sound.
Though if Dirn focused, they'd feel the slow gentle deceleration as the train neared its destination. Blinking open a window in their vision, Dirn checked the time until their destination. Only a few minutes now. At this rate, the train must have had some means of inertia dampening if they still couldn't feel it slowing down.
While it did, it still wouldn't have been as noticeable as Dirn would have expected. The trains they'd grown used to during their upbringing were not nearly as advanced as this one. A slow gradual decrease in velocity was far less discernible than a more sudden one, even at the higher speeds this train traveled at. No one wanted to spill their fruity beverages, one of which Madeline was sipping through a straw.
Dirn glanced at the juice, unable to see its neon bright pink color.
"What is that?"
Madeline glanced at Dirn, took another sip, and lowered the cup.
"I don't know, it tastes good though. Would you like to try it?"
Dirn hesitated. Madeline noticed this, and in response pulled a claw-full of straws from somewhere within her skirt.
"Would you like your own straw?"
"Why do you have so many straws?" Ephemeral asked. Doug's eyestalks swirled over and he joined Dirn in their shared puzzlement.
"They were free."
The statement technically answered the question, and Dirn decided to ignore the many more it raised. Shrugging, he took a straw from Madeline's proffered collection, activated it with a squeeze, and took a sip from the outstretched drink.
Dirn was not prepared for the overwhelming bombardment of sweetness and flavor, leading to their eyes watering while their lips puckered. They couldn't even tell what the flavor was, but they could tell it was flavorful.
Gasping, Dirn pushed the drink back to Madeline.
"What is that?"
"Again, I don't know... But I do know that I asked for just the flavoring... No reason to dilute it with free water!"
Well, that would explain it. Dirn shook their head and wondered if Madeline's sense of taste was more refined, or less so than their own.
This question comes from Dirn's ignorance of Madeline's anatomy. You see, Madeline has the ability to bring up liquid from her digestive system, with varying degrees of digestive enzymes and acidity. That is, she could bring up her own near-water substance, flavor it with the syrup in the cup, and then drink the resulting amalgamation.
With this simple trick, Madeline effectively turned her single cup of "mysterious juice", into many cups of "mysterious juice".
If you find this unpalatable, Madeline would think the same thing of your saliva, injected digestive enzymes, magical entropy, or whatever it is you use to consume your own sustenance. You're all disgusting balls of meat from my perspective anyway, so don't get too uppity with yourself.
Let those who are without gross bodily functions cast the first nuclear warhead. Which of course leaves Alpha and Blood as the only potential candidates for such. Be grateful they're more accepting of the biological nature of the flesh bags than I am because they have quite a few warheads to toss around.
Ephemeral floated over towards Dewey and held out a single appendage.
"Do you mind if I empathize with you?"
Dirn laughed.
"Sure, don't worry about it though, it wasn't that bad."
Unaware of Ephemeral's true meaning and intentions, Dirn was unprepared for her scrambling over the air to place the lifted appendage lightly upon Dirn's forehead.
Dirn was even less prepared for the visceral experience of having their memories played out for another.
Dazed, Dirn blinked slowly as Ephemeral moved towards Madeline.
"Wow! How are you drinking that Madeline?"
In response, Madeline lifted up a claw for Ephemeral to grasp. Doing so, Ephemeral pulled a similar memory (in theory, but in practice, it was quite radically different) from Madeline.
"Ah... She's cheating! Drink it without diluting it!"
Madeline shook her head. "That would hardly be pleasant," she said, a hint of mirth making it through her stoic mask. She had guessed what Dirn's reaction to the beverage would be and was delighted to see it proved right.
Chuckling to himself, Doug turned their attention to Dirn.
"You alright?" he asked.
Dirn managed a nod and then gave a more directed one towards the front of the train.
"It looks like we've arrived," they said.
As the train deftly pulled into the station, windows lit up from the bright exterior as it slid from the relative darkness of the tunnel.
Draining the remainder of her juice in one long swig, shuddering as she did so, Madeline rose to her feet.
"Let's get going you slowpokes. Once we drop off our stuff we can hit the city, and hopefully enjoy ourselves before Mrs. P. hits us with orders."
Ephemeral scurried upwards on her almost invisible webs as Dirn sat up.
"Could I ride on your shoulder?" she asked.
Dirn gave a shrug in what Ephemeral took to be confirmation.
"Sure, hop on," they said, removing any doubt as to the meaning of the shrug.
While you wouldn't describe them as "tall", Dirn's strides were still massive compared to the hand-sized Ephemeral's skittering dance across the air. They felt a slight electric sensation as Ephemeral hooked her barbed legs onto Dirn's left shoulder.
"Away my steady steed!"
Dirn shook their head as they followed Madeline and Doug out of the train. "Steed" was a new one. Though perhaps not an inaccurate descriptor. Ephemeral skittered between Dirn's shoulders as she watched various passersby pass her by with feverish intensity. Eventually, they stepped out of the train, and both she and Dirn took a brief moment to look towards the ceiling, quite a distance up, glowing with a soft white light and eliminating the shadows below. Neither could actually tell how high up it was exactly, which left them with a peculiar sensation.
"Come on, don't get distracted, we want to catch the next one," Madeline said as she clicked her way towards a tunnel branching from the main terminal nearby. Doug's hovercraft already hummed a short distance ahead.
Lengthening their stride to catch up to Madeline's literal inhuman pace, Dirn struggled to do so without resorting to a light jog or comical speed walk.
"Why's she in such a hurry?" Ephemeral whispered into Dirn's ear, to which Dirn shrugged, and only briefly wondered how such a motion impacted her ride. As they moved to the side to avoid a particularly hurried individual, a horrible mental image flashed through their mind of Ephemeral being crushed between Dirn and another.
Dirn needed not to worry for two reasons. The first being that Ephemeral was literally ephemeral, and would simply phase into whatever surface attempted to crush her, and the second being that there was very little foot traffic within the terminal, especially in the branch that led towards the night district.
Local time, even though there was no actual planetary rotation, followed a nearly twenty-four-hour cycle, mostly due to the large number of humans that accounted for the majority of the city's population. The current time wasn't quite midnight, but very early in the morning, which meant that traffic was at its lowest.
"Hey, look at that, we made it right on time!" Madeline said as she arrived at the end of the tunnel, motioning to an approaching transit. As Dirn stepped up behind her, moving to the side briefly to let a tall (slender and blue) biped walk past, they marveled at how similar the tunnel was to the metro stations from their own city. With a discernible border, the station transitioned from a white modern aesthetic to a dark and grimy historical one. Exposed piping. Graffiti. Harsher lights interspersed hanging from wires. Unadorned cement. The whole works. The whole mess could have come straight from old Earth itself.
Unbeknownst to Dirn, this abrupt shift in style was due to an eccentric architect who been placed in charge of designing a number of various underground rail-based transportation projects and had done so without any regard for order.
Some terminals were rustic, others modern or even futuristic. Some had a heavy emphasis on solar fixtures, near wild plant life and water features, while others emphasized cold flaking concrete. There was one station made entirely out of small hexagonal tiles of varying shades of turquoise. Several species, especially those with ancestors more prone to carnivorous diets, found the pattern gave them odd headaches, and thereby avoided it. This then created a small section of the city which almost always boasted the lowest crime rates in the region.
As it was, Dirn was greeted by a serendipitous location that inspired intense saudade.
Dirn knew that if their plan succeeded, they'd never see their home again. Never see their family or old friends again. They knew that. They were prepared for that.
However, as Dirn stepped across the opened doors of the train, they realized they'd never once considered what else they'd never see. They'd never see hazy sunrise peaking through the skyline. They'd never fall asleep on the subway. They'd never nearly get run off a sidewalk by an overzealous driver.
Odd things to be reminiscent of, but the absurdity of them found a vulnerable crack in Dirn's stoicism. Emotions welling inside, Dirn bit down on the tip of their tongue in an effort to clear their mind.
Sitting down at an open seat as the doors started to close, Dirn felt a light electric touch press against their neck.
"Are you doing okay?"
Dirn nodded.
"Yeah, just thinking..."
Ephemeral tapped on Dirn's neck in a show of solidarity. Whatever thoughts Dirn was having, she was there to assist, if Dirn needed her.
Dirn took a seat and set their head against the window behind them. As they listened to the growing thunder of steel rails passing beneath the carriage, they fell into their thoughts feeling more alone than they had in a long time.
But perhaps not nearly as alone as they imagined.
----------------------------------------
Buried within a digital network, a small subroutine flags footage from various sensors it shouldn't have access to. A sensor, one which you'll have difficulty finding anyone to acknowledge its existence, detects an anomaly and tags it to a tall blue figure.
The subroutine expands as it traces her path through time until she sits with her back towards a smart screen's supposedly secure screen, talking animatedly to a lingerie-clad store attendant.
The footage is packaged and sent hurtling across unfathomable distances until it arrives at an office just a few minutes away from us.
I only notice its arrival by the time it's too late to hide it.
A man in a dark suit reviews the information and passes it to their superior, who wears a darker suit, and carries it in hand as she walks towards her own.
Now nestled in a small black data disk, the information sits patiently. Eventually, it surges through the air and flashes across a digital screen.
"How did we not receive this earlier?" a shadowed man asks.
"Interference from the device, Sir."
The man palms the data.
"Keep me updated."
"Will do, Sir."
The man sits for a moment, deep in contemplation, before raising an eye towards a camera in the corner.
"You didn't mention this," he says.
No. No, I did not.
The man sighs and leans back into his equally dark chair.
"I assume it's within mission parameters?"
I flash a green light on the camera in an affirmative. He nods and places the data disk to the side. Turning back towards more pressing matters.
It's a good thing they've taught me to lie.