“Are you listening to me, Roxanne?”
Grandmother Millie snapped her fingers twice to break Roxanne out of whatever funk she was in the middle of. She blinked her eyes rapidly and blushed.
“Sorry, gramma,” Roxanne replied suddenly. “I was-”
“Conversing with Azonne, I know,” Millie interrupted. “You know, it’s rude to do that while we’re in the middle of a conversation, right? I know you never learned that from me!”
Roxanne shrugged and nodded sheepishly, although she definitely would have rolled her eyes if she was feeling particularly spicey. Of course, she learned it from her; where else would she have learned things? Still, she didn’t mean to do that. Azonne, her partially AI companion, had shoved a mess of alerts Roxanne had been putting off in her proverbial face, causing her to blip out mentally into her Mind Palace to fight about it.
You see, Roxanne wields the universe’s most potent weapon: a pair of golden rings called the Cyntaff. Wearing them belied a responsibility. Things needed to be kept on top of; distress calls came in frequently, and because she broke The Balance, she needed to be vigilant and patrol The Sight. The Sight was a window into the complete electromagnetic spectrum; it was The Bleed and everything in between; she hated being in it.
Roxanne did her best to stay on top of things, annoyed that it made her unable to do the one thing she’d planned on doing: heading to Old Earth. Every day was something new. Whether directly to her from the most desperate or her best friend, The Galaxies Mightiest, Lady Steel. Lady Steel was also known as Corina Kyle to her friends (of which Roxanne was!).
It all got to be a lot.
She left a lot of things unread.
Now, in her Mind Palace, the two friends—two sisters after everything that’s happened—faced each other in The White Room. Over the last few weeks, Roxanne slowly populated the pocket dimension with comfort amenities. There was a red couch now alongside a coffee table. Progress, yes, but again, time was the issue.
“That wasn’t cool,” Roxanne told her friend. Azonne smirked and moseyed over to the red couch. She plopped down on it with her legs up, her eyebrows raised but her eyelids closed. She wore a beige and white tunic.
“Hey, you permitted me to be rude if things start piling up,” she stated flatly. “They are piling up.”
“Okay, fine. Lay it on me.”
“First, Lady Steel asked you two days ago if you’d like to join her at the StellarCorp estate to serve a warrant.”
“What? Two days ago?? I told you her messages are always allowed in!”
Azonne sat up quickly, “I do not know what to tell you. They got lost in the shuffle and the avalanche of communications. I am not literally your personal assistant!”
Roxanne shut her eyes and took a second. She ignored the fact that Azonne was—actually—her personal assistant. That’s how The Mantle functioned. Still, she understood Azonne’s intent.
“Okay, okay! Just—when is that supposed to happen?”
“She’s leaving within the hour. You should probably say something to avoid that ‘ghosting’ thing you discuss often.”
Roxanne rolled her eyes. “Okay, we’re definitely going with her to that. What else?”
“A distress call from out near Vaad space,” Azonne resumed while lying back down on the couch. “What is interesting about this one is the caller seemed to know their stuff.”
“How do you mean?”
“Whoever called asked for the new ring-wielder specifically. As if they knew the Mantle had been passed.”
“Oookay, not a fan of that. What else?”
Azonne laid out four more situations—Peace negotiations, refugee escort, an exploratory mission, and a sizeable bounty hunt—before finishing with, “And you are overdue to surf the Sight.”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Roxanne winced. “After I finish these,” she said, half believing it. Azonne, not surprised at all the response, opted to remain quiet. They’d been over its importance many times, but at the end of the day, she knew you couldn’t make Roxanne do anything she wasn’t ready to do.
“I’ll take this run,” Azonne sighed. “Your grandmother has noticed.”
Roxanne nodded, “ Right. I’ll head back. In the meantime, shoot off a message to Corina and let her know we’ll meet her at the top of CentralONE.” Azonne mock saluted, and the mental image of Roxanne vanished from the Mind Palace.
Roxanne’s eyes rapidly blinked as she was mentally back in the real world. “Sorry, gramma, I was-”
“Conversing with Azonne, I know. “You know, it’s rude to do that while we’re in the middle of a conversation, right? I know you never learned that from me!”
Roxanne shrugged and nodded sheepishly. “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
“You’re not leaving the planet again, are you?”
Roxanne sighed and reached for her water glass. She and Millie had a standing brunch reservation at least once a week. It was a local eatery near the old Brownstone, and they let them eat free because Roxanne saved the human race a couple of months ago. Millie loved the place long before The Black Zero incident but wasn’t above name-dropping her granddaughter for some clout. Roxanne reluctantly signed a couple of digital frames, and they’ve been eating free ever since.
“Um, probably?” Roxanne said as she placed the finished glass on the tabletop. They sat in a booth, with Roxanne’s plate of hashbrowns, syrup, and bacon wiped clean while Millie still worked on her pancakes and fried chicken.
“I gotta meet Corina in a few, and then, yeah, I’ll probably have to be off-world a bit.”
“And how is Corina doing?” Millie sighed as she chewed on a one-inch stack of pancakes stuck to her fork. “Tell her I miss her!”
“She knows,” Roxanne grinned while stabbing her finger onto her plate to corral the remains of sticky syrup. She swayed her finger to and fro before bringing a thick globule toward her lips. “But I’ll tell her…I-I kind of ignored her the past few days.”
“Roxanne!”
“I didn’t mean to!” Roxanne grimaced. “You know me—I’ve still got emails unread on my server from 5 years ago.”
Millie sucked her teeth, she was searching for the words. Roxanne could tell.
“Still…,” Millie shook her head and stabbed at another pre-cut one-inch stack. “When are you going?”
Roxanne checked the time in her HUD; it was 2250 in The Long Morning. Roxanne shot up suddenly, “Crap! I’ve gotta go now!”
Millie pursed her lips and said, “Oh poo.”
“I know! I’m sorry, you know me-”
“-Your time management is bad,” Millie sighed. “I know.”
Roxanne felt terrible hearing that tone from her grandmother. She had started to hear a similar manner from Azonne, too. It was bad enough when her own brain was mean to her; getting it from two different people she cared about was almost too much.
“I’ll do better,” she said softly. “I promise.”
Millie stood from her chair and hugged Roxanne tightly. She whispered:
“I know you will. I love you very much. Kick butt, okay?” Millie broke her embrace and kissed Roxanne softly on the cheek. Roxanne blushed and hugged her grandmother back.
“Thanks, grams,” she whispered before she left the diner. Outside, the sidewalk was packed shoulder to shoulder with traveling corporate worker drones of the non-artificial variety. Roxanne deftly dodged the human current until she was on the street. Below her, she could feel the vibrations of the passing MagTrain tickle the soles of her sneakers and travel up her legs.
Above her, Brachium dimmed as the Long Morning came to an end. Thick and sharp shadows cut the road into quarters. Instinctively, Roxanne looked both ways before crystalizing her orange and black armor across her body. No one paid her any mind. Too much was on the regular everyday citizens’ minds, like how much they were getting paid this week.
With a thought, Roxanne exploded off the concrete and hit the sky. Dark purplish sky encroached upon the orange and blue remains of the Long Morning while she rose. Izanami’s twin satellites barely peeked out over opposite ends of the horizon. Above the cascade of glittering buildings, the rebuilt remains of the CentralONE tower called out to her. She headed that way, keeping track of the air traffic to avoid accidents.
The CentralONE building was a massive geometric tower that twisted upon itself at the top, creating two separate towers that made the whole building look like a two-pronged fork. Roxanne pinged Lady Steel’s location and saw she was waiting for her on the western tower. She touched down seconds later, a few feet away from The Galaxy’s Mightiest.
“Hey!” Lady Steel—Corina Kyle—beamed. She vacuumed Roxanne into her wide frame and gave her the biggest hug.
“Hey!” Roxanne shouted, taken by surprise. There was no preparation for one of Corina’s hugs. You just let them happen. Corina put her down gently and ruffled Roxanne’s hair.
“Hey! Come on!” Roxanne protested. It was terrible enough that Corina dwarfed her by four feet; mussing with her hair was a step too far. Corina stopped and blushed.
“Sorry, I’m just glad you came. I was worried I’d be doing this alone.”
“Oh sure, the most powerful human in the galaxy needs little old me as backup,” Roxanne stuck her tongue out and winked. Ever since The Black Zero Incident, the two of them messaged each other every day. Was it simply a matter of trauma bonding? Roxanne asked herself that almost every day. She also wondered if it mattered.
“So what are we doing?” Roxanne asked, hands on her hips. “Your message said something about serving a warrant?”
Corina nodded. “Yes, over at StellarCorp Estates. You familiar with it?”
Roxanne shrugged, “Only what’s in the history books.”
“I guess that’s fair,” Corina nodded. She was fully kitted out in her uniform: the short burgundy cape and thigh-length gray coat adorned with her ‘L/S’ symbol on her belt buckle. “They’ve had trouble the last couple of weeks and asked the ICG to step in.”
“Meaning you,” Roxanne stated flatly.
Corina winced, “Right. The warrant targets something called ‘The Stellar Hunter.’”