13) Upgrade

The people of the Attic had been one of Dr. Talon's experiments to Trigger powers in mice, well before he went supervillain. Unlike most of his other early experiments, this one worked.

The first mouse Triggered and reached out to create the same Triggering in the other mice in the experiment. It wasn’t so much that the Triggering made them more intelligent, but it did link them up telepathically into a group mind made up of enough mice brains to be at least human smart as a group.

They managed to escape and lived for generations in the air vents, electrical conduits, and piping accesses of Cortex Central without being discovered.

Until their numbers from their breeding, most of which had inherited their power, grew large enough that they dared make contact with humanity on their terms before they got discovered.

Humanity in turn, wanted nothing to do with them.

So they sent them to my Grandpa shortly after my parents moved to concentric city.

The Mice had learned to communicate with the graphite rods from mechanical pencils and a bit of scrap paper, so one of the first things Grandpa did with the five hundred a week given to him by the city, was to buy a cheap burner phone for the Mice and gave them his phone number for texting.

The rest of the deal he worked out them was they got the attic and whatever they wanted him to buy for them with the five hundred a month, in return for not pooping and peeing everywhere, or getting into his and my grandma’s stuff. Including their food.

The Mice also had to manage their populations.

Within two weeks they asked him for the wi-fi password so they could get on the internet with the old desktop computer Grandpa had packed away up there. It was pretty outdated, but he had paid good money for it and it still worked. The Mice seemed happy with it until they could afford to get some new ones.

I got drafted into going up there and moving the thing to where the dozens of beady eyed mice all staring at me wanted it, plugged it in, booted it up, and got them online.

Then I hooked up the old PlayStation to an even older TV. A sub-personality of their group mind had been glad to play video games with me when I stayed with my grandparents and still did online under the name AlgernonsAttic56.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Now there wasn't much room up there for even a child to sit and play console game with a group of Mice gathered around a game control mounted on a rack and working the controls. The only free space available was a spot to drop off and pick up the Amazon packages and other deliveries.

The rest of the attic was now taken up by a hundred or so birdhouses, doll houses, and dressers rebuilt into housing and workspaces. All lit up by a dozen or so strands of Christmas lights.

Standing on the fifth step of the pull down ladder, I rested my elbows on the open area in front of a monitor hooked up to a touchpad with a group of three mice working in unison to work the digital keyboard from three sides.

[Hello Scott]

“Hi Mice. What do you guys need today, that couldn’t be handled over the phone?”

[It is time for the group to split. Our numbers have grown and your new occupation may place the Attic people in danger. A new group must split off to ensure our survival as a race.]

I leaned back in surprise. “Won’t a group of you that far away mean a new mind, a different person.”

[Partially, yes. Also that many splitting away will mean the group that stays will be partially new as well.]

I looked around to see that every mouse in the attic was looking at me. “So, what do you need from me, a ride? Some help moving things?”

[We need a job. We wish to be your team’s Guy in the Chair. Officially.]

I close my eyes for a moment. Great, more weird stuff. “I’ll talk to Shimmer and the rest of them, but they don’t know you, so it might be a hard sell.”

[ We have read your contract. Sorry for not asking permission. You are a fully recognized member of Team Royal and have the authority to choose a sidekick that assists you in all of your duties. We want the job.]

I held up my hand for a moment and thought for a moment. "This is more than just a paycheck isn't it, Working in a Super's base of operations would be just had dangerous as living in the same house as me, even more so in fact. What’s your game here?”

[…]

The mice all began to stir and then scurry, several moving away and to the touchpad before they began to settle down.

[The position of sidekick would be the first legal recognition of a nonhuman nondigital person as an employee. We wish to start the journey to legal recognition as people, even if only in Concentric City.]

I nodded. Now at least it made sense. "Nice. I'll back you on this, but I'm not going to blindside the kids with this or move you into their clubhouse without permission from everyone. But even if they don't want you there, if I really can designate you as my sidekick I will. I still got you guy’s back.”

I held out my fist to the mice at the touchpad, their little paw bunched up to return the fist bump as did a few dozen others who rushed up to touch paws to hand before scurrying out the way for others.

Then I ripped open the bag of Cheesy Bits and dumped it out into several bowls already in place, and dropped the now safely decarbonized beer cans into the racks while mice pounded in tiny metal tubes with marbles in them into the bottom of the cans.

Mice can’t burp, but they will sneak sips of my drinks, so my beer had to be flat too.

Once the group's mind got a little sloshed they even hooked the monitor up to a game emulator and dragged out the player B controller for a game of Devillito.

The group mind had almost always split into the Conservatives and Algernon when the group was at odds with itself. With the colony splitting it would almost all Conservatives here at my house, and Algernon going to the base.

So in that way, it was a little sad. The people of the Attic were coming to an end, while two newish minds would take its place. That evening would be the last one I spent with the person who was one of my oldest and closest friends. Almost a brother.

But since meeting Shimmer I had gotten a little used to change being the new constant in my life.

I just hope the new People of the Attic will keep feeding the cat. The fancy stuff they got for it was expensive.