Memory transcription subject: Maeve, Human Integration Test Subject.
Date [standardized human time]: August 28th, 2136. Early morning
Gotta wear this fucking oppression blanket because of fucking space-racism so now I'm sweating fucking bullets because it's fucking black linen on a planet where the fucking sun doesn't fucking set when I all fucking wanted was to live on a cute fucking berry farm with my cute fucking boyfriend but now I have to be on my best fucking behavior because there's a cute fucking venlil with us but I couldn't say fucking no because the whole fucking point of this fucking experiment is to make fucking friends but now I fucking like them too, so I fucking invited them on the fucking shuttle with us like a fucking dumbass so now I have to keep this fucking death-cloak on for two more fucking hours and I just want to kiss this fucking Dope so fucking much !
FUCK!
---
Memory transcription subject: Valek, The Dope.
Date [standardized human time]: August 26th, 2136. Early morning
I made an effort to keep Alvi engaged; I knew from experience that the more you knew about something, the less scary it became, plus I could see Alvi’s curiosity was pulling her to us just as much as a shared destination. Maeve was completely silent so far, but I could tell something was bothering her; she lacked her usual grace while we walked, and shied away from Alvi and I while on the shuttle. We just needed to push a little further, and we could finally unwind at home.
As the bus weaved through the woods, Maeve watched the forest passing by, taking in every detail; I couldn’t see her face, but I hoped it was smiling underneath. Maeve brought her head forward and down, and after a moment my pad pinged.
I would like to see more of the forest. Can we get off 2km from town and walk the rest of the way? A walk like that should only take an hour.
My ears swiveled while I thought, tail swaying slowly. I already knew that there was nothing really dangerous in the forest, and even if there were, Maeve was likely the scariest thing we would see. And that would give her a chance to calm down.
Ok, I’ll ask the driver.
Gesturing curiosity, Alvi watched me walk to the front.
“Excuse me, but would you mind pulling over outside of town? About two clicks out? My friend and I would like to get off.”
The poor driver was clearly still vibrating from the stress of having Maeve on the bus, but barely mumbled out, “You want me to stop the van, in the middle of a predator-infested forest, to let that thing into the Venlil wild??”
“It would mean you have two clicks less to deal with it.” His ears perked up at that! Just a little more, “and you won’t have to deal with the crowd when she gets off. Sounds like a great way to get her out of your fur.”
The driver was still focusing on the road, but I could tell he was thinking it over. Then he hit the brakes.
“You make a great point. Get out.”
“... but we are still six clicks-”
“Out.”
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Memory transcription subject: Alvi, Venlil Citizen, unemployed.
Date [standardized human time]: August 26th, 2136. Early morning
Valek shrank from the driver, and walked back to us. “What’s going on?”
“I may have been too convincing. Maeve, they are letting us off, but it’s a little early,” Maeve stood from her window seat and stepped around me, laying a hand on Valek’s shoulder to calm him. Maeve gave me her hand in invitation, “What...?”
“I’m sorry, we should have asked you. Maeve and I are getting off and walking the rest of the way. We had planned to be closer, but-”
“OUT!”
Valek’s ears flashed back in alarm, and Maeve flinched at the command “- I won’t ask you to come with us, I’m scared, too. If you need a place to stay, head to the Old Berrypatch, let my parents know Valek sent you.” And with that, Valek walked to the door, and Maeve withdrew her hand and followed. My herd was leaving me!
“W-Wait!” I cried, as I quickly grabbed my pack and ran out the door. Valek was both surprised, and very happy to see me, but Maeve was impossible to read while covered. The door slammed behind us, and sped off into the distance.
“Well!” Maeve sighed, causing me to flinch. “Not what I planned, but we can make do. Either of you mind if I take this off?” Valek signaled an enthusiastic affirmative, but they both waited for my approval.
“O-Ok.” I could sense Maeve’s urgency, but she caught herself and slowed down. Finally free of the suffocating veil, Maeve put her face to the sun and breathed deep the Venlil air.
“Thank you, you two. I'm sorry that I put us in this position, but I cannot tell you how much better it feels to be out of that. This way Valek?” and we set off.
--
We had been walking for only twenty minutes before Valek and I started to lag behind, though Maeve caught on and walked back to meet us.
"Sun and Stars Maeve, you're not even winded, just like on the station," Valek gasped between breaths, "How can humans do that?"
Maeve smiled at our exhaustion, keeping her eyes on Valek, "That's a good question! We can take a break while we talk about it." And Maeve guided us off the road into the shade of a tree; we sat down against it, Valek between Maeve and I.
"Before I start I need to tell you something Alvi," I focused my ears to show her my attention, "Valek and I agreed early in our friendship that we would be open and truthful about our cultures, and answer any question asked. There are a lot of things that our governments, both mine and yours, are not ready to share with the general public."
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
"I need to have your word that you will not tell anyone what I tell you today, or by any other question you ask me. What I have told Valek, and will tell you, is common knowledge among humans so I know it won't be secret forever, but I could get in serious trouble for telling you these things so early. Can you promise me that?"
Was this an admission of guilt?? Did Maeve just tell me, really, that her people actually were monsters and they were playing pretend this whole time?! Steeling myself for the horrors I knew were ahead, I answered, "Yes. I'm ready."
"Ok!" Maeve said with a smile, still focusing only on Valek, "You already know some of this, Valek, but I'll repeat the basics for Alvi's benefit: Alvi, did you know that ancestral humans weren't meat eaters?"
I stared at her incredulously, that couldn't be true! So much of what they were was predatory! Clearly she picked up on my disbelief, as she continued with,
"It's true! Bear in mind, these changes took place over hundreds of thousands of years, a hundred thousand more before we could even consider these creatures recognizably human; evolution moves slowly. Ancient humans lived in vibrant, humid, tropical jungles and ate mostly fruit. Because of what we were, sometimes pests would find their way into our fur so we would groom each other, and eat the pests we found." I thought about the Zurulians, how their grooming habits led them to being one of the most social species; this was credited for their incredible medical knowledge!
"Eating these pests was how we developed the means to digest living tissue, and grooming helped develop social behaviors and kept us healthy at the same time."
"But something happened to our world that caused the death of those forests. We don't know for sure exactly what, but it turned the area into a dry Savannah. During this transition, we lost our fur coat." Now they're like the Mazics?! They're renowned for their resilience and adaptability!
"Also, since our majority food source, fruit, was in short supply and high demand, we turned to meat eating. We mostly scavenged; we would see larger predators hunt, kill, and eat a carcass and, reasoning that if they could eat it so could we, we would eat what the hunter left behind. Eventually we developed our own methods of hunting, which brings us to your question."
"The savannah was, and even today still is, a very dangerous place; not least of all because of the heat. Most creatures adapted to this by being sedentary during the day, and active at night. So evolution pushed us to be active during the day, filling the niche left open by every other creature sleeping or relaxing. Our bodies became very good at heat regulation, and keeping active for a long time, and we leveraged this to use something called Persistence Hunting."
"In short, we would pursue our prey through day and night, until they would collapse from exhaustion or heat stroke. We needed no weapons beyond the finishing blow, and we didn't need great strength to overpower; only the ability to last longer than the other beast. This endurance continued to be very useful to us, such as surviving injury that would kill other creatures, or being able to eat things most considered toxic, or the ability to wander far from our normal homes. The need to track and navigate pushed our brains to be more complex, setting the foundation for sapience. Our social behaviors allowed us to specialize, allowing each person to do less work while the whole would still prosper."
"As we developed communities, or herds as you would call them, our biological evolution stagnated; we were now so prosperous there were no evolutionary stressors to change us on a biological level. But our cultural evolution exploded. And in less than fifteen thousand years, we went from hunter/gatherer beasts, to a space faring intelligent species."
"And that is why," Maeve said with a giggle, "most humans could outlast, and probably outrun, any other species in the federation."
I sat stock still, my eyes unfocused on the woods around me. That’s why she was so eager for me to join them; escape was never an option in the first place! Maeve would catch me anyway, I was never safe to begin with! What would she do when I finally fell asleep? Would I wake with blood in my lungs, and teeth on my throat? Their words faded with my sanity as panic set in.
But I had fallen asleep. A little voice at the fringes of my maelstrom reminded me: I woke up in the sleeper cabin, just as I had slept. Maeve had even sat further from me than when I had lain down. She and Valek had talked for several weeks, and even shared a room! What has she done to justify my fear?
"Maeve?" I whimpered, interrupting their boisterous conversation about human sports.
"Hold on, babe; yes Alvi?" Babe? What's a babe?
"I-I'm still scared of you. I'm sorry, I know you haven't done anything to hurt me, or even imply you would, but I'm still afraid." My ears drooped. I was trying, but I still couldn't get a handle on this conflict in me, and I didn't know if I ever would. Maybe this was a bad idea.
"It's ok Alvi. Trust takes time, and you've only known me a few hours." Maeve crooned, still looking ahead into the trees.
"Yeah! When we first started talking I could only respond once every waking. The rest of the day, I would be in a haze of stress chemicals! And the first day we met on the station, I dove under the bed!" They both giggled at that, and I could feel myself relax.
"Actually he missed! Slammed nose first right into the bed frame!” That got a healthy laugh from me! Through her own giggling, Maeve continued, “I was so terrified, I just ran down the hall screaming for someone to help, Venlil passing out in my wake! That was a rough day." A predator was terrified? For the health of a Venlil? Always more surprises!
"You didn't have to tell her that!" Valek shot back playfully, "or am I going to have to tell her when you first had Firefruit?"
"Your entire menu was sweet things till then! I thought it would be, like, cinnamon or something! Not a solid bite of wasabi!"
The tension snapped as we descended into hysterics; I think this could work!
As we calmed down, Maeve asked me, "You said your last job was service? What kind of service?"
"I worked for PrimeCom, helping people set up their networks. Nothing big, I'm not licensed or anything, but I'd like to believe I was good at it; not good enough, clearly."
"I'm sure you were fantastic at it, Alvi." Valek told me, with more confidence than I earned.
"I used to do something similar." Maeve started, "I worked for the customer service branch of TonkaLife; they did insurance and maintenance for their personal autos. I remember this one guy- so, we needed to identify the caller before we could do anything, right? Member number, first, last, date of birth yada yada, and of course we needed to know why you called. This guy calls in, and is screaming at me, right out the gate. We just finished training for irate customers, so I knew what to do and click, disconnected while he was mid-swear."
Oh, I saw where this was going, I had a call like this not even a week ago!
"Our system matches you with the same agent when it can, so I got him again. And again, hung up mid-slur. This happened three more times before he was finally calm enough to have a productive conversation. Not the best or worst call of my time there, but definitely the most cathartic!"
Valek signaled pride, and I couldn't stifle my laughter. I got a good one for her, "Oh I have one! About a year ago, I had a call from this guy, retired exterminator, you know the type, that demanded I tell him what his connection speed was. I look and see it's 2tb InstaLight, which is pretty damn good for FTL communication! Most people only get sub-light, and download inter-planetary from the bulk packets. He tells me his contract says 512 gigabyte sublight. And! His contract rate was grandfathered from 20 years ago, so he's paying a quarter of the cost of today's plan!"
"Oh no!" Valek sighed dejectedly, while Maeve was cackling on his other side.
"So obviously, this guy wants the bigger number. I try to explain to him he has a better plan than he should, for less money than I can confirm him for, but he's not having it. So!" I flung my arms and flicked my ears in resignation, "I did what he asked me. I left so many notes, made sure to send a bunch of receipts, and had my supe pull the call for recording."
"Next billing cycle, guy calls back pissed, for obvious reasons, and asks to speak with me directly. Supe takes over and shows him the receipts. I washed my paws of it and took a long lunch."
Maeve was gasping for air at this point, and I couldn't help but feel my fluff swell with pride.
"I- I can- I can't believe," Maeve struggled through gasping guffaws, "that Customer Service is the exact fucking same, on another fucking planet!" Maeve's laughter devolved… to crying?
Maeve was sobbing! Sobbing from some unknown grief, and it's because of me?! Valek tried to console her, before she struggled out, "I want to be here! I'm so damn happy to be here, and be with you! But it still hurts. It's so amazing that everything is so familiar, but it just reminds me that I'm not home."
This wasn't a predator that sat with me. This was a scared, isolated, intelligent creature that so badly missed their home. At every turn she has had to hide who she was, and settled for ‘non-violent tolerance’ when open acceptance was what she so desperately needed. I got up from the ground, crouched in front of Maeve, and grabbed her wrists in my paws. Maeve's breath caught and she flinched, almost pulling me off balance, but I recovered.
"I can't make this your home Maeve. But I can welcome you, and accept you into my herd." Maeve's eyes rose to meet mine, her face blotchy red, wetness streaked her cheeks and nose, her eyes-
Thud
ERROR /// Memory transcription fragmented /// Subject no longer conscious.