Chapter Twenty-One - Fuzzies, Fries, Flaking

"Bio-Meat: Nectar of the Gods is the newest and greatest skin care cream from Geniricorp! Only the best Antithesis-extract to make your skin shine!"

--Genericorp Ad, 2031

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The elevator dinged as it came to a stop on our floor. I closed my eyes, then opened them again. I was tired. Not stupidly-tired, I'd woken up late after all, but still, it had been a long day. I was itchy, I had been running around for hours, and I was sore in a few places that I wasn't used to being sore in.

That last bit was probably from riding my mech around so much, it had me sitting in a weird way and tensing some of the muscles in my core for a while.

Well, whatever. The door opened onto my floor, and I started to push in only to stop as someone was standing in my path.

Lucy, and she was wearing the furriest outfit I'd ever seen. She was wearing a sort of jumpsuit made of fuzzy material, with a large hoodie tugged up and over her head. It had large, floppy cat ears, and a string of bedazzled text across her chest that read "The Fuzziest."

"Oh, wow," I said.

Lucy grinned from ear to ear, the cat who'd caught... the other Cat? I was too tired for analogies. "Do you like it?" she asked.

"I really want to hug you," I admitted.

"Good! Come." Lucy reached out and grabbed my hand, my real one, in hers. She tugged me along after her, and I finally noticed that the pyjamas had a foot-long tail at the back. It was stumpy, and very cute. "I have food for you!"

"Oh god, food," I murmured. As Lucy escorted me to the kitchen and I discovered four bags from four different fast food places, I discovered that I could not be any more in love. "You're beautiful," I said.

Lucy's smile, somehow, turned even more smug. "Damn right," she murmured. "Want to know what I'm wearing under here?"

I thought I was too tired to be horny, but as it turned out, I was very wrong. Maybe I was more thirsty than hungry after all.

The food was junk. Burgers and fries and pseudo-chicken sticks with little plastic sachets of dipping sauce across seventeen flavours. I stuffed my face while Lucy relocated herself across from me. She stole the longest fry from one of the packets and started nibbling on the end.

"Not eating?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I sat at home all day, I don't want to get fat eating all... seven thousand calories here. You at least have the excuse that you're moving around a lot."

"Hmm," I said. Lucy had always been good about that kind of stuff; dieting and the like. I was just blessed with a good metabolism and the jitters that kept me moving all the time. "This is so bad for me, isn't it?" I asked as I chewed on what I was pretty sure was a fried stick of fried cheese. Double-fried. I could taste the cholesterol and it was beautiful.

"Busy day, then? You mentioned newbies?"

"Oh yeah," I said. "I think... one of them's like, off her rocker. Girl by the name of Princess."

"That's cute, at least," Lucy said.

"Yeah. She's cute too, I guess. A bit gangly, but growing into it. She's also got crazy eyes."

"Ohhh, crazy eyes," Lucy said. "Hot but dangerous."

I nodded. "Exactly. She's got this weird obsession with me."

"She's the one who's sister's father you shot?" Lucy asked. She'd been paying attention to our call earlier, then.

I hummed. "The mayor's daughters," I said.

Lucy gasped. "No! That's... no way! That's some soap opera shit, Cat."

"I know!" I said before shoving a burger into my mouth. It took some chewing before I could continue. "If there's any amount of clones, or resurrections, or... people getting pregnant after cucking someone, I'm quitting this business."

Noted.

I blinked. What did that mean? But Myalis didn't seem ready to explain. I finished my burger while going over my day. I hadn't realized that it was this stressful until I could literally feel the weight lifting off of my back. All Lucy had to do was smile, steal a few more fries, and ask a few probing questions.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

She was too good for me.

"Shower next?" she asked. She fluttered her eyes in a way that made my heart flutter too.

"Only if you'll join me," I said with a grin.

Lucy laughed, then ran ahead of me. I caught up with her in our bedroom, grabbing her from behind in a hug that pulled her close to my chest. I peppered her neck and the side of her face with kisses while she continued to laugh, then Lucy turned in my grasp and started to remove my suit.

Which was when we both realized that the new skin I was wearing came with a nasty side-effect that I'd kinda forgotten about. Notably, that my old skin was peeling right off of me. "Oh, fuck," I said. The inside of my suit was covered in a fine, goopy dust. I retched. I was expecting to maybe be a little sweaty but... not this.

"Oh, that's nasty," Lucy said. "Yeah, sorry, shower first, and alone. I'm gonna go get like... a sponge. Also, I'm not cleaning your suit!" The last was called back over her shoulder as she slipped away.

"Fuck, I forgot," I muttered as I slipped over to the bathroom. There was no way I was gonna let all of this skin fall off onto the floor. That was gross. "Hey, my suit's waterproof, right?"

Yes. From the inside and without.

"Great," I said as I started the shower and got in fully-clothed. The fact that there was some antithesis blood that pooled off of me was also kind of gross, but not nearly as bad. I stripped, aware of the strange and disgusting pull of my suit against my skin. Lucy returned brandishing a sponge that I recognized from next to the sink (which meant it had never been used) and... "Is that a toilet cleaner?" I asked.

"It's a necessary evil," Lucy said.

"Is it new?" I asked next.

"New enough?"

"No!" I said, putting my metaphorical foot down. My actual feet were still caught in the legs of my skinsuit. The irony of that name wasn't escaping me at the moment.

I managed to slough out of the suit and let it flop wetly in the corner of the shower. I'd give it a good hose-down later. I did accept the sponge from Lucy and started to scrub away at myself. It stung like a bitch.

"You never told me of the downsides of this," I said to Myalis.

It's a moderate amount of dirtiness. The skin was your skin just moments ago and is no more dirty than you usually are. It's mostly inert organic material. Nothing you need to worry about.

"It's still gross," I said. "Is it at least done? The skin-shedding, I mean."

It should be. Your newer, more resilient skin will, of course, shed at a much-reduced rate.

Wow, I never wanted to have this conversation again. The only plus side was that I was basically hairless now. No more shaving my legs, which was nice. I settled under the warm water, then once I was done scrubbing myself raw, I tossed the sponge aside and punched the air a few times.

"What are you doing?" Lucy asked from just outside the shower.

"I've got new nerves," I said. "I'm testing them a little. I mean, I've had them for a day now. I think I've just... gotten used to them? It doesn't feel that different."

Humans will adapt to such changes with startling rapidity.

I wasn't so sure about that. It had taken me months to get used to only having one arm. Then again, maybe that was pretty fast? "Yeah, I guess this feels pretty good," I said.

"I mean, I don't mind the show," Lucy replied. "Very jiggly. They should put naked shadow-boxing on TV."

"Bet you anything they have," I said.

Lucy didn't take the bet.

I stumbled out of the shower and into Lucy who was holding out a big towel from the ends. She wrapped me up in a hug, climbing onto the tips of her toes to smush her cheek against mine. "Thank you," she said.

"For what?" I asked.

"For making it back safe again." She turned her head a little and gave me a peck on the cheek. "You smell much nicer now," she said. "Not that I really mind it when you smell like gunpowder and smoke. It's kinda hot."

"Is it, now?" I asked.

"Mhm. I never did show you what I was wearing under these pyjamas, did I?" Lucy asked.

It was nothing.

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