Chapter Twenty-Seven - Nun Too Soon

“H-hi everyone!

Please?”

--Beatrice “Quantum Lovely Bubble Pop Honey Bliss Laser Ranger” Smith, during her first livestream, 2040

***

I stared at the part in my right hand, then the one in my left. They had grooves designed to interlock together. I knew this, because I had seven more nearly identical parts, all slotted together, sitting on a table in front of me.

I pushed the two parts together.

They didn’t fit.

“What the fuck,” I muttered as I tried shoving the two parts together with more force. Unfortunately, more enthusiasm didn’t do anything.

These doohickeys all fit along a line that ran from the mech’s leg up into a sort of little actuator in the shoulder. The actuator needed replacing, which meant that I had to take apart all of the little clamps that kept the line in place.

It had taken a few hours, and was rather tedious, but I’d figured it out and became pretty decent at it by the end. There was some skin missing from my knuckles, but it wasn’t all bad.

Now I just had to put it all back together. The new actuator had fit into place like it belonged there, and these fiddly bits I was working with were the old ones, they should have fit in well because I’d literally taken them out an hour ago.

That was only if I could get them to click together. I tried again, but the part didn’t fit into its opposite. Squinting, I looked at the two, then noticed that they were slightly different. “Myalis, what’s going on?”

That’s part 256B that you’re trying to fit into 257G. They aren’t meant to be together.

“They’re all different?” I asked.

Yes. 257B is on the table to your left. 256G is currently linked to 257C. The parts happen to click into place, though the tolerance is off.

“I did that like, ten minutes ago,” I said. “You knew!”

I did.

“Then why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. I was past frustrated by that point, but I figured I owe Myalis at least the chance to explain herself.

I am very good at running predictions. If I corrected you, you wouldn’t have made the mistake. You also wouldn’t have learned a lesson. I predict an extremely high likelihood that, moving forward, you will be significantly more attentive about labelling and marking out your parts.

I sighed. She was probably right. “Okay, so how do I fix this?”

The parts on the table started to glow as my augs highlighted them. They were each painted in two colours, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that colours went with those they matched to.

“Oh, hey, this one’s not fucked,” I said as I picked one up.

A legitimate coincidence. You were going to fit it into the wrong place, but then you dropped the other wrong side and fitted it into the right one instead. That part has rolled under the mech, by the way.

I grumbled to myself as I went to look for the part. The mecha was looking... disassembled. Which was actually an improvement. The busted, bent, or otherwise fucked bits were all gone. Now all that was left were missing pieces. For the most part, I was done removing the bad, and was now working to shove in the good.

It was just taking a lot more work to replace parts than to remove them.

I was on all fours under the mech when I noticed a large van moving towards our place. It slowed down, then flew towards the lower floors and out of sight. It was definitely heading towards us, though.

I shimmied backwards out from under the mech (with the part I’d gone down to get) then I returned to the workbench. “Hey, we got eyes on that van?” I asked. There was basically a bubble around our place that was more or less free of aerial traffic except for high-flying cars and the occasional racers that didn’t mind dipping in and out of the area.

The ground traffic was the same as always, and with the buildings all around getting refurbished there were plenty of construction crews moving through the area. I figured people would be moving back in soon. It didn’t make sense to keep a large section of the city empty, especially with so much of the incursion damage being repaired.

I supposed that building the wall around the city might have slowed down construction, but the need was probably high enough that the distraction didn’t last.

The van is a transport owned by the same church that Gomorrah lives at. It was piloted by Franny.

“Oh,” I said. Well, that made some sense. I looked over the stuff I had laid out on the table, then at the repair drone hovering nearby. “How about you fix these up and then go on and place them into the mech?” I asked the drone.

It bobbed up and down, which I took to mean yes.

You’re not going to do the work yourself?

“Hey, I do want to finish all of this sometime in the next year. This part’s easy anyway.” At least, when I didn’t mess up.

You might be missing out on an important lesson.

“What am I supposed to learn from replacing all of those fiddly bits one at a time?” I asked, genuinely curious.

How to deal with tedium?

“That’s what I thought,” I muttered. I picked up a rag and started to wipe my hands free of grease and oil. I walked back into the house and found the kittens mostly lounging around lazily, though Junior currently had Nose in a headlock and was frozen staring at me, her knuckles buried in his hair. “What’d he do?” I asked.

“Spat in my cereal,” she said before shrugging. “It was the last of it.”

I nodded and walked on past, ignoring Nose’s cries for mercy and help.

I found Lucy in the bedroom, lying on her back with her legs up against the wall. She was staring at the ceiling with the kind of dull-eyed focus that people had when looking at their augs. She looked ‘up’ and at me as I came in. “Hey. Done with the work?”

“Just taking a little break. Gonna head downstairs. I think Gomorrah’s stuff has arrived. Figured I’d talk to her, see if she needs help.”

“Oh,” Lucy said. She flopped to the side, then climbed to the edge of the bed.

“You’re coming?” I asked.

“Nah, you go. I don’t want to get roped into helping move boxes. But I will make a cake! That’s what all the old-timey housewives do in the vids when they have new neighbours.”

“Well, as long as you dress like one of those old-timey wives,” I said.

Lucy grinned. “If that’s what you want, I can certainly try.” She curtsied, which mostly meant pulling up the edges of her oversized t-shirt until the lower part of her belly was exposed.

“Mhm,” I said distractedly. “Ah, right, anyway. I’ll be back in not too long, I think.”

I got changed into some new casual wear. Cargo pants and a graphic-tee with a pouty Deus Ex on it, then I splashed some water on my face to clean it off before heading to the elevators. They were the only way down, unless I wanted to drive to the parking garage a few floors down, but that just seemed silly.

I only realized that I wasn’t armed when I was three floors down. I felt a small shock of unease at the realisation, but I took a deep breath and calmed myself down. I was home, I was probably safe.

If I wasn’t, then it was only a few second’s work to arm myself right back up.

The door dinged a few more floors down, and I narrowed my eyes against a blast of stale, warm air. I hadn’t been down to the parking garage in... a while. I was vaguely aware that the mecha cats that we had at home for protection tended to patrol the entire public space in the building, usually while stealthed, but that was the most interaction I’d had with this place.

It was strangely empty of cars and such. Then again, maybe that wasn’t so strange. I took up two floors, and a number of others were vacant. I was pretty sure that no one had really started to fix up the lower areas with the shops and such.

I found the van parked not too far from the entrance, the Fury resting next to it. Franny was in the back, along with two others that looked... nun-like, even if they were dressed casual. Something about the straight backs and proper postures gave me those vibes.

“Heya girls, welcome to the cat house. You need any help with those boxes?”

***