Chapter Fifty - Thigh Pillow

“Reverse-Turing tests (Swarski, CAPTCHA) are methods by which a customer can determine if the representative that they are communicating with is a Service AI or an actual human being.

Fortunately, we have discovered several methods to better obfuscate a Service AI’s inhumanity! Including...”

--Excerpt from CommAI Website Frontpage, 2029

***

I was in the optimal strategic-thinking pose as I listened to Lucy and Manic and Intel-chan (with the occasional bit of information added by Myalis). The position didn’t let me see anyone but Lucy, unfortunately, mostly because I was laying down flat on a bench, my head on Lucy’s thigh. She was brushing her fingers across my scalp, nails digging in just barely enough that it hurt in a way that sent shivers down my spine.

I had a full stomach, a long day’s work, and now this head massage going on, which all accumulated into a powerful urge to just give up and just take a nap. I was outnumbered and outgunned, there was no fighting it.

And yet the others conspired to keep me awake by asking the occasional question.

“Hey, Cat, do you know what Gomorrah’s going to do next?” Lucy asked.

“Hmm? I have no idea. I think I told her to take a break.” A break would be nice. Did this count? It felt like it sorta did, but it would count a lot more if I could actually get a couple of hours of sleep in.

“We might need her if things go to shit in a big way,” Manic said. “I made plenty of points, but I think I’m still firmly in noob territory. Sprout and Arm a Geddon won’t be ahead of me. They’re not useless, but I don’t think we can count on them.”

“My people are doing pretty well,” Lucy said. “Those that I have, at least. We’ve set up four daily rotations that’ll turn over every six hours. And there’s multiple sets of those. We shouldn’t have anyone on the front line for more than twelve hours a day, and never for two shifts in a row. Not having enough gear to go around actually helped there. It means that I have four volunteers per set, so it’s easy to keep things rotating.”

“They’re still just normies, yeah?” Manic asked.

“Well armed normies,” Lucy said.

Manic hummed, and I heard her idly strum a guitar--had she just bought that? There had to be a ‘normal instrument’ catalogue out there, I supposed. “Yeah, fine. Still, not enough of them to stop a big antithesis push, I don’t think.”

“The militia is taking care of most of it,” Intel-chan said. I think I noted a hint of defensive pride in the avatar’s voice. “We’re mostly treating the kittens as a... semi-competent group able to pull some slack off of our front lines. With most of River Heights evacuated we have a number of soldiers back as well. Some are being given some time to rest, but the rest are being put to work right away. We have a similar system to the kittens.”

“Eight hour shifts instead of six, right?” Lucy asked. “I modelled the kittens after the militia, but with more shifts. I don’t know if our normies have the training to keep at it for eight hours in a row.”

“Six is pushing it,” Manic said. Her strumming turned a bit faster as she spoke. “I don’t know much about fighting and the like, but when you’ve got a long set going, every hour feels like a day. Six hours in a row? With all the stress and shit? They’ll be zombies by the time they’re done.”

“I... could cut it down to four,” Lucy muttered. “But then that would mean a lot more shift changes, and those are chaotic enough as it is. Besides, things are pretty quiet right now, right?”

Intel-chan hummed an affirmative. “So far. Only getting a few reports of smaller antithesis over the last hour or so. The fire’s finally calming down, too.”

“Zombies,” I said. I’d closed my eyes a while ago, but I was still listening, and my brain was still churning along, I guess, even if it was growing increasingly fuzzy. Had I taken some stims or something earlier? The fact that I couldn’t remember was probably not a good sign.

“The zombie-removal teams are still at work,” Lucy said. She brushed a lock of hair away from my eyes, then tapped the end of my nose. “They’re going to have their shift change in... about an hour. So far, I think they’re doing alright? No reports of an outbreak yet, so we might have nipped that one in the bud.”

Myalis of all people pipped up. “I would advise you to not be so enthusiastic about an early success to the point where you stop trying to remove the threat. Historically, there are many instances where prevention and removal was stopped because of early success, only for a flareup to occur within hours or days.”

“That makes sense, yeah,” Lucy said. “Alright, I’ll have them continue. The group’s smaller in any case, so it’s not pulling that many volunteers away from the rest of the kittens.”

“How’d you choose who would go where?” Manic asked.

Lucy waved a hand dismissively, and I cracked an eye open before that hand returned to my head. “It was easy. If they had a medical doctorate and wanted to volunteer, they got added to the same team that runs the anti-zombie squad. I figured there was some overlap there. They’re the ones taking care of spreading the anti-zombie pills too. It makes sense to spread the pills out from locations where model sevens were spotted already.”

I nodded along. That did make sense.

“Anyway, we’ll do as Myalis says and keep on the lookout.”

“If the outbreak gets too big, let me know,” Intel-chan said. “The militia will want to step in if things get out of hand before they really go wild.”

“So, that’s one problem solved,” Manic said. “Or taken care of, in any case. What’re we going to do about the lake?”

“Cat mentioned some specialists coming over in a day or two?” Lucy asked.

“Mhm,” I mumbled.

I felt her shrugging. “Well, that’ll take care of it. We just need to hold out until then, I guess. Reinforcements are coming soon enough, right?”

“No, not really,” Intel-chan said. “We’re going to have problems before they arrive. We’re not well-stocked on several things. Ammunition for a few types of guns is starting to run... not low, but we’re reaching a middle, if that makes sense. Food’s going to be an issue too. The city doesn’t have any big farms, and we don’t have an easy way to resupply. We probably have a day’s worth of food left. Then we’re going to start running out of a lot of things, very quickly.”

“Can we scavenge more?” Manic asked.

“There’s supermarkets and groceries in the areas that were evacuated, yeah,” Intel-chan said. “Maybe we can set up a few excursions to check them out? We have to have a few trucks with fridges available.”

“Earlier would be better,” Manic said. “Plenty of refrigerated stuff’s going to go bad in the next day or so.”

Lucy hummed, and I could tell she was a bit bothered from the way her stroking slowed down. “I’ll tell people to start rationing things. But... I don’t want a panic.”

“Rationing makes sense,” Intel-chan said. “Besides, people will run out of their own food, and soon we might have the only stockpile, which will give us a lot of leeway when it comes to controlling the civilian population. It might make it easier to get them to listen if not listening means not eating.”

“That’s draconian,” Lucy said. “No, no, you don’t need to excuse it, I get it. We had to do the same at the orphanage a few times. Besides, one meal a day keeps you nice and lean.”

“We’re going to need to have higher rations for front-line combatants and support staff,” Intel-chan said.

“Can you prepare things, like convoys, guards, all the works?” Manic asked. “I’ll head out at first light. We can hit up every grocer in the safer parts of the city.”

“That’ll keep us going,” Lucy said. “For a bit. How’s our water situation?”

“Good so far? We still have pumps and wells and the power to run them, as well as filters. Shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Nice, so we won’t die of dehydration, that’s a step in the right direction,” Lucy said.

***