5.10
DataPacRat
Amateur Immortalist
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2015
- Messages
- 293
- Likes received
- 581
*Chapter Ten: Co-worker*
It was a very unhappy bunny who sloshed into the warehouse.
Minerva hurried over. "Bunny, I'd like you to meet the Professor, who runs this-"
I held up a hand to interrupt, glancing briefly at the man with a grey moustache and black top hat. "Did either of you tell anyone we were coming?"
The man shook his head, and Minerva said, "No."
"Then we may have a few minutes of leeway. Professor, please excuse me, but I have details I must attend to. Please allow us our privacy for a time."
I continued walking to the five remaining carriages of Munchkin, Minerva drawn along in my wake. In a low voice, I said to her, "From what I remember, the destroyed car was a cargo one, and nobody was supposed to be in it. Did anyone change the plan and get hurt?"
She shook her head, and a certain amount of tension dropped from my shoulders. I hadn't wanted to use the walkie-talkies more than absolutely necessary - radio direction finding equipment wasn't /that/ hard to build. Plus, water blocked such signals rather effectively, and Pinky hadn't swum in a direct route to get here.
In short order, we were back among the group. Not particularly caring about the proprieties, and wanting to relieve at least one sort of pain, I settled into a chair, called over Pat and Max, and opened my shirt to give them a feed.
"We have a problem," I said, restating the obvious, but regaining the focus of those who'd looked away from the nursing. "I am... /moderately/ sure that none of you had an opportunity to leak the meeting. Maybe there's a spy in the Royal Mail. Maybe the squiddies have a leak. Maybe Melvin anticipated me going to the embassy, or had someone watching it. But the short and long is, we don't have the resources to figure out which. And explosives are a lot messier than a knife or crossbow - Melvin seems to be getting less worried about collateral damage. Since I'm pretty sure none of us want to die, the main choice seems to be staying in Erie and hunting Melvin to keep them from making any more attempts, or leaving and continuing the Great Work of x-risk reduction elsewhere. Secondary questions involve sticking together or splitting up. I'd rather not invoke formal rules of order, so please don't start shouting over each other - I still have a headache." At that, Denise stepped over, leaned over to peer into my eyes, and continued examining me from there. I tried to ignore her as I continued, "The floor is open."
Toffee declared, "/My/ bleeping city. /I/'m finding who's throwing bombs around the place."
Sarah asked, "Is this," she gestured around us, "a target? Should we leave Munchkin behind?"
I answered her, "If it comes to that - all the carriages are waterproof, can float, and the legs can paddle. Not as fast as they can walk - something under a tenth of its top land speed - but there's nothing stopping us from just heading out into the lake. There are certain things aboard that I really don't want to fall into the hands of people who aren't ready for them... if we really want to get away from Munchkin, I could program it to make its own way to somewhere it could do no further harm." I was thinking of the little canyon near DeCew Falls, with enough radioactivity to keep Munchkin out of everyone's hands from then on.
Bunny Joe asked, "What if 'Melvin' follows, and attacks again?"
I shrugged, and the kids complained, so I put my arms around them to quiet them back down. "Then we'll have learned running won't work, and that Melvin has a larger reach than just this city, and it's either do something about Melvin or die."
Denise stood up. "No concussion or shrapnel - just some bumps and bruises. And you should dry off before you get hypothermia. And I hate to say it, but no paycheck is worth dying for."
I nodded at her. "If you think quitting and going back to your vet practice is more likely to keep Melvin from doing anything to you than staying with me, and whoever else stays with me-"
"I will," Sarah added.
I managed to smile and nod at her in thanks as I continued, "- then I wish you luck. However, before you head home, I suggest you take the time to really consider your odds of survival, with whatever mental tricks you need to do it as objectively as you can. Munchkin's walls are fairly bullet-proof, if not bomb-proof; we've got the auto-doc's tools to help with injuries, a lab to brew medicines, the fabber to make tools and weapons, and cash to buy what we can't make. And at least a few other warm bodies to take up the slack - everyone needs to sleep sometimes."
Denise crossed her arms and looked away. "And it's got a great big target on every wall."
"And it's a great big target," I agreed. "But will you /stop/ being a target if you leave? I think we have to try to figure out now - what are Melvin's most likely goals? What are the effects of its actions?"
Minerva frowned and said, "Well, it's putting us - well, those of us who stay - with our backs to each other, us against the world."
I scratched behind an ear. "Blowing us up to drive us together? Seems likely to have a high failure rate - any of us /could/ have been on that one carriage, if we'd been a little less paranoid."
"Trial by fire?" She looked around, then shrugged. "Okay, so it's more likely they're /trying/ to split us up. Well, even more likely they're trying to kill us."
Toffee interjected, "Us, or her?" She hooked a thumb at me.
I pointed out, "Would have been almost as easy to stab me as Human Joe. Seems to me like they're not fond of any of us."
Toffee tried again, "Maybe they're after one of the toys you're trying to hide."
"Hrm," I hrmed. I ran my mind through some of the more interesting inventory - the fusion generator that could make a rather large bang if set to do so, the boxed Berserker, the computer cabinet from the robo-fac which might have more November files, the explosive-lactation retrovirus, the snake-oid genetic data... any of them could potentially be worth killing for, by someone who knew of their existence. "The trouble with that is, just about the only people who know about any of those 'toys' are standing right here."
Denise inquired, "If you do run - what are you going to do? Other than running."
"With luck, what I've been hoping to do since you un-froze me, but I've been too benched to get around to. Pick one of the loose strings that's connected to the Singularity, and tug on it as safely as possible, to try and start untangling what happened back then... at least enough to know how to keep it from happening again."
Denise frowned. "What, exactly, do you mean by a 'string'?"
I gestured at the two foxtaur cubs. "Somebody had to invent a genome for a whole new class - they may be vertebrate, but they're not mammals. I want to see if there are any clues in their DNA." Sarah didn't look happy at the prospect, so I continued, "Transformation zones use tech beyond what was available before the Singularity - I want to find out how they work, and where they came from. There's those weird towers in nearly all the old cities - what's their function? What are they connected to? What made them? There are a few post-Singularity AIs around - do they use any techniques beyond the state of the pre-Singularity art? Why does Toronto shoot down everything in its airspace? Where did the 'spirits' of the Great Peace come from?"
I didn't add aloud a couple of more personal questions: Who'd made Bun-Bun, and why had I been revived in the first place?
I continued, "And those are just the more obvious ones. There's some trickier ones, too - like how can /anyone/ convince a whole population to wear the same colours without any obvious prompting, or affect a whole city's memory, or keep even larger areas from wanting to talk to each other? The trouble with those is that there's no obvious thread to tug at." I paused, then amended, "Unless you want to count Melvin's assassination attempts, but there's some obvious issues in /trying/ to trace /that/ back to its source." I frowned. "Might not be able to avoid those issues in the end, but it's not my first choice of projects."
Bunny Joe said, "You are one woman, and those are many things to research."
I nodded. "True - but there's you folk, there's the squiddies, I hear I have some sort of cult... and if all else fails, I suppose I could go talk to Technoville. I don't like them or their politics, but they've got a good resource and tech base, and a technocratic tyranny is better than extinction." I got a /lot/ of funny looks, so I defended myself, "What? Tyrannies can get overthrown, eventually; extinction is forever. I'm not going to use that plan unless all the others are worse - I'm just saying that it /is/ an option."
Toffee grunted. "Maybe for you it is," she crossed her arms. "From what I hear, they come here, and I'm just as out of a job as if I tried pushing your stupid bleeping charter."
"That reminds me," I commented, "have you figured out a way to test if Melvin's gunning for you? I've got a few more bun-bots - do you have any body-doubles willing to take the risk?"
"Maybe. Not that it's any of your bleeping business."
"I think it might be. If someone's going to start sniping at you, or blowing up places they know you're going to be... can you still hold onto being big boss at all?"
"Once you're dead, or leave, I'll 'hold on' just fine."
I hesitated. I was bad at reading subtexts, but Toffee's text didn't seem all that sub. "Does that mean if I leave, you're staying?"
"Even if you stay, I'm bleeping leaving. The only reason I haven't, is nobody's willing to open the door long enough to let me go."
"Toffee - we disagree on a lot of things, but I think we can still help each other. Is there anything-?"
She was shaking her head, and I sighed. I looked around. "Without saying anything, does anyone but Minerva know where we are right now?"
I got a lot of shaken heads, but Toffee threw in, "I know we're not far from water," she gestured at the puddle that had formed under my seat, "but in this town, that doesn't say much."
"Alright." I closed my eyes a moment. "Toffee, I'm thinking of putting you in the other cargo carriage, sending it off to wander around a bit, not getting anywhere near a place Melvin would think to set up an ambush, and then let you go. That seems safer for us than letting you accidentally lead Melvin here, and I can't think of how it puts you in significantly more danger than you already are. Does this plan meet with your approval?"
"Does it mean I can finally get back in touch with the Civil Guard and take control of whatever bleep-ups they'll have gotten into?" I nodded. "Then it bleeping meets with my bleeping approval."
"I'll set that up, then... uh, as soon as I get out from under these two."
Sarah silently handed me some new absorbent pads to put into my nursing bra, and I want through the rigamarole of getting myself all tucked away again. While I did, I told Toffee, "There's at least one thing I want to emphasize, so you don't forget it: Someone's been manipulating you. Not overtly, not dramatically, but slowly, over months and years, nudging you to become what they want you to be, instead of who you should be. I can't tell you how - but at the least, you should start looking for new sources of information, unconnected to whatever you're doing now. Heck, maybe just head out into the street and ask random citizens questions. If you can't think of anything to ask - you could at least try sidestepping the whole union structure, and finding out directly if the people in general, instead of the union bosses, would support that charter of rights I've been pushing you. And if you can think of something more important for you to know, go for that."
"You about done?"
"Afraid so."
"Then let's get going."
--
Once Toffee was gone, I settled down half on top of Bear Joe, resting the back of my head on his shoulder and inhaling his scent. Sarah stretched out next to us, and Bunny Joe, Minerva, and Denise took new seats nearby.
I glanced around. "Does anyone else want to leave? I'd rather not work out where to go next, only for someone to decide to stay behind and leak that to Melvin."
Denise grumped, "I don't understand how you can just /sit/ there when someone just tried to /kill/ you!"
"I think Bun-Bun still has my adrenaline turned off."
"... Okay, that could explain it."
"By the way, Doc - I'm going to have to insist you hand over my heart-rate controller."
"You don't know how to use it safely."
"Which is more dangerous, my not having full knowledge of the ins and outs and maintenance schedule of a piece of electronics - or me not being able to actually make my blood pump faster when somebody's trying to kill me?"
"I can't, in good conscience, let you hold on to that controller without proper medical supervision."
"... Does that mean you're staying?"
"That, and the fact that my house is probably filled with land-mines by now."
"Fair enough." I breathed for a few moments, then added, "There is /some/ good news out of this attack."
"I didn't think you were a 'silver lining' kind of person."
"I'm a 'grab every advantage and try to win and cheat if I have to' kind of person. Thinking about it - assuming that Melvin was trying to blow me up... he /failed/. He doesn't have perfect information about all the preparations we make in private; he doesn't have unlimited resources; he isn't willing to kill off a whole town to achieve a single goal, like the Berserker was. He's not omnipotent - he has /limits/. Which means that, whatever those limits are, it's possible to leverage them."
Minerva asked, "You think we can win?"
I lifted my head to look at her. "/Can/, yes. /Will/, maybe. And to be honest - I don't know if I'm comfortable with you anywhere near me, and whatever attempts Melvin makes in the future."
She offered a hesitant smile. "Seems late for that, doesn't it? If he knew who was visiting you, then my foster home is as dangerous as Ms. Black's clinic."
I turned to Bunny Joe. "I don't suppose I could get rid of you if I tried, could I?"
"You have a greater chance of finding Melvin than Toffee. His hand was on the knife in my other self's heart."
"Uh... huh." I sighed. "Then cards on the table - I don't plan on staying in Erie any longer than I have to. Just about any city will do, to look at zones and the towers and so on. Maybe Buffalo, maybe Metropolis... there's at least one piece of data I want before I decide: I met a, uh, unusual ship's captain while at the Embassy, who offered a ride. I didn't have the opportunity to find out what that would involve. I don't think Bunny Joe or Sarah or I could show our faces without Melvin finding us pretty quick - but you humans," I nodded at Denise and then Minerva, "could get lost in the crowd pretty easily."
Minerva perked up. "The Professor is good with disguises." I felt my ears twist in surprise, and she explained, "He does acting, sometimes. On a stage, I mean. Just for wigs, he's got at least a dozen."
I nodded. "That's good - I should probably go out and start talking to him soon. Denise - how about you head to the ship, the Travelling Matt, officially about their dinner invitation to work out any issues of precedence and protocol and politeness, unofficially to find out how much cargo room I would have available to squeeze in some portion of Munchkin's inventory?"
"You're abandoning it?" She looked around the room.
"Like you said - it's got a big target painted on it. I'd like to know what my options are.
--
"Sarah, Bunny Joe - I'd like to talk to Minerva for a couple of minutes."
I took off my glasses, cleaning the lenses on the bottom of my shirt as the remaining two adults moved off to the kitchen, talking quietly to each other, the last thing I heard before they were out of earshot being something about bulk shampoo discounts. I put my glasses back on and wriggled back up against Bear Joe.
Minerva asked, "Do you have a job to send me away on, too, so you can leave me behind without saying goodbye?"
I blinked, then shook my head. "If I'm going to leave you behind, I'll just tell you. I've got too much to deal with to try to come up with clever plans just to avoid emotional whosawhatsits." I pointed at her bag. "I thought we might start with your paperwork."
"Oh." She hugged the backpack tighter for a moment, then let go enough to open the top, and look down inside. "Um. Yeah."
"I'm guessing you didn't write them, or draw them."
She shook her head. "I didn't go looking for them, either. But some of the people in the Conspiracy, they wanted to know more about you, and started bringing these in..."
"Right, the Conspiracy. That's the other thing I wanted to ask you about. But let's focus on the papers first. Uh - do we need to have the sex talk?"
"/Please/ no. I know what's in them isn't real, isn't like what's real, and that I'll have problems if I try to have a relationship or, uh, sex, based on what's in them. I don't /like/ what's in them. I brought them so you wouldn't just shoo me away when I told you about them."
"Minerva, if I ever try to shoo you away, you have my advance permission to kick me in the shins. Now - do you know who wrote or drew the papers, or where they came from?"
She shook her head. "The guys I got them from wouldn't talk to me about that."
I rubbed the back of my neck, awkwardly. "Without you going anywhere that Melvin might have left a landmine - do you think they might be willing to talk to /me/?"
--
Once Minerva was off to the Professor for a quick disguise and then an errand, I thought about what she'd said earlier - and seriously considered trying to come up with excuses to send Sarah, her kids, and Bunny Joe out of Munchkin, and just leaving. Maybe north - Sudbury might be a nice place to settle in for a while, to try turning the old mines and such into a personal factory-fortress, hiding from the world, with just Bear Joe to cuddle with and Boomer and Archie to have high-falutin' intellectual conversations that improved my mind...
Don't blame me for fantasizing; I'd been having a stressful few days.
I let the dream-fortress fade, to become nothing more than, perhaps, a pattern for a new memory palace, and tried to turn my mind to more practical matters. But I couldn't concentrate; when I tried to come up with a plan, my focus skittered to Captain Shatter's uniform and to the school in Buffalo. When I tried to sort out recent events, up cropped games from my old Commodore 64 computer and wondering whatever had happened to my favourite authours.
I sighed, patted Bear Joe in thanks for his services as a piece of warm, breathing furniture, and pulled myself up to something resembling a standing position. With vague thoughts of tea, I wandered back to the kitchenette, and puttered a bit; my mind drifted to consider that, not too far away, vast forces had been put into motion, creating magnetic fields of such strength that atoms in existence since the Big Bang were now forced to change the natures they'd had for billions of years, becoming something new - all so that the energy released could be captured in a heat engine, shoving electrons along strands of purified metal, all so that an unexceptional mammal could try to feel a bit better by having a cuppa.
When you took the time to /really/ think about it, the universe was a pretty strange place.
As I added a bit of honey to the final product, Bunny Joe and Sarah wandered forward from the lab. The former, looking around, observed, "No more humans?"
I shrugged, sipping my beverage, and deciding 'tea' was too good a name for it - maybe 'herbal tisane', or 'boiled leaf broth'.
She asked, "What will we do now?"
I didn't have an answer, and took another sip.
Sarah, bright-eyed and tail wagging, offered, "Furry orgy?"
Classic spit-takes are astonishingly annoying to clean up, particularly when fur is involved.
While we shared that task, Sarah elaborated, "I was there when the Doc opened up the factory car." I thought back to the 'distraction bed' I'd whipped up on a whim, and my pink facial fur took on a rosier hue. "So I know you've got a sex drive, no matter how good you are at hiding it." My mind was focused, laser-sharp on trying to figure out how to explain that I'd never touched anything in that part of that carriage in a way that could be believed. I didn't /succeed/, but I was very focused. "Pat and Max are asleep and locked tight and safe, Bear Joe won't talk, and I think Bunny Joe has a thing for you." She hooked her thumbs on her vest, tugging it to better show off her cleavage. "So what do you say?"
My tongue seemed stuck to the roof of my mouth, but before I could even think of what I might say with it, Bunny Joe commented, "She is from the old people, and they had very particular ideas about sex. If Bunny still thinks that way, you should have asked for just the two of you, not all four of us."
"Oh," Sarah said. "Okay. Want to have sex, Bunny?"
"Ah..." I managed to get out.
Bunny Joe came to my rescue. "Also, they usually had several dates - shared activities - before they got around to having sex."
Sarah nodded again. "Seems silly to me, but what do I know? Jeff and I didn't stay together long. Would you like to go on a date, Bunny?"
I finally managed to speak for myself. "I would be much more comfortable with a date than a, uh, orgy. But even for that - someone tried to kill me just a couple hours ago, so I think I need to focus on dealing with that."
Sarah offered, "When death's so close, when's a better time to live?" I just shook my head, so she looked at Bunny Joe. "What about you? Do you have to have a date first?"
"I don't /have/ to; I just haven't met anyone I want to have sex with since the spirits made me a woman, this time. And maybe I can teach you a few things about rabbits, so you'll know what to do with Bunny later." They turned around and walked back into Munchkin's rear carriages, shutting the doors between them.
Once they were out of sight, something clicked in my head, and I remembered that they'd had something like three years to get to know each other - and they'd just been huddled together, chatting. Had the whole conversation been some sort of prank? Maybe a set-up, making an offer far in excess than what I'd accept, so that when Sarah pulled back to just a 'date', I'd be more willing to agree? Was I overthinking things by even considering such notions?
My rabbity ears twitched up at some noises - and I interrupted my next attempt at tea to hurriedly get Munchkin to improve its internal sound-proofing, my face aflame.
It was a very unhappy bunny who sloshed into the warehouse.
Minerva hurried over. "Bunny, I'd like you to meet the Professor, who runs this-"
I held up a hand to interrupt, glancing briefly at the man with a grey moustache and black top hat. "Did either of you tell anyone we were coming?"
The man shook his head, and Minerva said, "No."
"Then we may have a few minutes of leeway. Professor, please excuse me, but I have details I must attend to. Please allow us our privacy for a time."
I continued walking to the five remaining carriages of Munchkin, Minerva drawn along in my wake. In a low voice, I said to her, "From what I remember, the destroyed car was a cargo one, and nobody was supposed to be in it. Did anyone change the plan and get hurt?"
She shook her head, and a certain amount of tension dropped from my shoulders. I hadn't wanted to use the walkie-talkies more than absolutely necessary - radio direction finding equipment wasn't /that/ hard to build. Plus, water blocked such signals rather effectively, and Pinky hadn't swum in a direct route to get here.
In short order, we were back among the group. Not particularly caring about the proprieties, and wanting to relieve at least one sort of pain, I settled into a chair, called over Pat and Max, and opened my shirt to give them a feed.
"We have a problem," I said, restating the obvious, but regaining the focus of those who'd looked away from the nursing. "I am... /moderately/ sure that none of you had an opportunity to leak the meeting. Maybe there's a spy in the Royal Mail. Maybe the squiddies have a leak. Maybe Melvin anticipated me going to the embassy, or had someone watching it. But the short and long is, we don't have the resources to figure out which. And explosives are a lot messier than a knife or crossbow - Melvin seems to be getting less worried about collateral damage. Since I'm pretty sure none of us want to die, the main choice seems to be staying in Erie and hunting Melvin to keep them from making any more attempts, or leaving and continuing the Great Work of x-risk reduction elsewhere. Secondary questions involve sticking together or splitting up. I'd rather not invoke formal rules of order, so please don't start shouting over each other - I still have a headache." At that, Denise stepped over, leaned over to peer into my eyes, and continued examining me from there. I tried to ignore her as I continued, "The floor is open."
Toffee declared, "/My/ bleeping city. /I/'m finding who's throwing bombs around the place."
Sarah asked, "Is this," she gestured around us, "a target? Should we leave Munchkin behind?"
I answered her, "If it comes to that - all the carriages are waterproof, can float, and the legs can paddle. Not as fast as they can walk - something under a tenth of its top land speed - but there's nothing stopping us from just heading out into the lake. There are certain things aboard that I really don't want to fall into the hands of people who aren't ready for them... if we really want to get away from Munchkin, I could program it to make its own way to somewhere it could do no further harm." I was thinking of the little canyon near DeCew Falls, with enough radioactivity to keep Munchkin out of everyone's hands from then on.
Bunny Joe asked, "What if 'Melvin' follows, and attacks again?"
I shrugged, and the kids complained, so I put my arms around them to quiet them back down. "Then we'll have learned running won't work, and that Melvin has a larger reach than just this city, and it's either do something about Melvin or die."
Denise stood up. "No concussion or shrapnel - just some bumps and bruises. And you should dry off before you get hypothermia. And I hate to say it, but no paycheck is worth dying for."
I nodded at her. "If you think quitting and going back to your vet practice is more likely to keep Melvin from doing anything to you than staying with me, and whoever else stays with me-"
"I will," Sarah added.
I managed to smile and nod at her in thanks as I continued, "- then I wish you luck. However, before you head home, I suggest you take the time to really consider your odds of survival, with whatever mental tricks you need to do it as objectively as you can. Munchkin's walls are fairly bullet-proof, if not bomb-proof; we've got the auto-doc's tools to help with injuries, a lab to brew medicines, the fabber to make tools and weapons, and cash to buy what we can't make. And at least a few other warm bodies to take up the slack - everyone needs to sleep sometimes."
Denise crossed her arms and looked away. "And it's got a great big target on every wall."
"And it's a great big target," I agreed. "But will you /stop/ being a target if you leave? I think we have to try to figure out now - what are Melvin's most likely goals? What are the effects of its actions?"
Minerva frowned and said, "Well, it's putting us - well, those of us who stay - with our backs to each other, us against the world."
I scratched behind an ear. "Blowing us up to drive us together? Seems likely to have a high failure rate - any of us /could/ have been on that one carriage, if we'd been a little less paranoid."
"Trial by fire?" She looked around, then shrugged. "Okay, so it's more likely they're /trying/ to split us up. Well, even more likely they're trying to kill us."
Toffee interjected, "Us, or her?" She hooked a thumb at me.
I pointed out, "Would have been almost as easy to stab me as Human Joe. Seems to me like they're not fond of any of us."
Toffee tried again, "Maybe they're after one of the toys you're trying to hide."
"Hrm," I hrmed. I ran my mind through some of the more interesting inventory - the fusion generator that could make a rather large bang if set to do so, the boxed Berserker, the computer cabinet from the robo-fac which might have more November files, the explosive-lactation retrovirus, the snake-oid genetic data... any of them could potentially be worth killing for, by someone who knew of their existence. "The trouble with that is, just about the only people who know about any of those 'toys' are standing right here."
Denise inquired, "If you do run - what are you going to do? Other than running."
"With luck, what I've been hoping to do since you un-froze me, but I've been too benched to get around to. Pick one of the loose strings that's connected to the Singularity, and tug on it as safely as possible, to try and start untangling what happened back then... at least enough to know how to keep it from happening again."
Denise frowned. "What, exactly, do you mean by a 'string'?"
I gestured at the two foxtaur cubs. "Somebody had to invent a genome for a whole new class - they may be vertebrate, but they're not mammals. I want to see if there are any clues in their DNA." Sarah didn't look happy at the prospect, so I continued, "Transformation zones use tech beyond what was available before the Singularity - I want to find out how they work, and where they came from. There's those weird towers in nearly all the old cities - what's their function? What are they connected to? What made them? There are a few post-Singularity AIs around - do they use any techniques beyond the state of the pre-Singularity art? Why does Toronto shoot down everything in its airspace? Where did the 'spirits' of the Great Peace come from?"
I didn't add aloud a couple of more personal questions: Who'd made Bun-Bun, and why had I been revived in the first place?
I continued, "And those are just the more obvious ones. There's some trickier ones, too - like how can /anyone/ convince a whole population to wear the same colours without any obvious prompting, or affect a whole city's memory, or keep even larger areas from wanting to talk to each other? The trouble with those is that there's no obvious thread to tug at." I paused, then amended, "Unless you want to count Melvin's assassination attempts, but there's some obvious issues in /trying/ to trace /that/ back to its source." I frowned. "Might not be able to avoid those issues in the end, but it's not my first choice of projects."
Bunny Joe said, "You are one woman, and those are many things to research."
I nodded. "True - but there's you folk, there's the squiddies, I hear I have some sort of cult... and if all else fails, I suppose I could go talk to Technoville. I don't like them or their politics, but they've got a good resource and tech base, and a technocratic tyranny is better than extinction." I got a /lot/ of funny looks, so I defended myself, "What? Tyrannies can get overthrown, eventually; extinction is forever. I'm not going to use that plan unless all the others are worse - I'm just saying that it /is/ an option."
Toffee grunted. "Maybe for you it is," she crossed her arms. "From what I hear, they come here, and I'm just as out of a job as if I tried pushing your stupid bleeping charter."
"That reminds me," I commented, "have you figured out a way to test if Melvin's gunning for you? I've got a few more bun-bots - do you have any body-doubles willing to take the risk?"
"Maybe. Not that it's any of your bleeping business."
"I think it might be. If someone's going to start sniping at you, or blowing up places they know you're going to be... can you still hold onto being big boss at all?"
"Once you're dead, or leave, I'll 'hold on' just fine."
I hesitated. I was bad at reading subtexts, but Toffee's text didn't seem all that sub. "Does that mean if I leave, you're staying?"
"Even if you stay, I'm bleeping leaving. The only reason I haven't, is nobody's willing to open the door long enough to let me go."
"Toffee - we disagree on a lot of things, but I think we can still help each other. Is there anything-?"
She was shaking her head, and I sighed. I looked around. "Without saying anything, does anyone but Minerva know where we are right now?"
I got a lot of shaken heads, but Toffee threw in, "I know we're not far from water," she gestured at the puddle that had formed under my seat, "but in this town, that doesn't say much."
"Alright." I closed my eyes a moment. "Toffee, I'm thinking of putting you in the other cargo carriage, sending it off to wander around a bit, not getting anywhere near a place Melvin would think to set up an ambush, and then let you go. That seems safer for us than letting you accidentally lead Melvin here, and I can't think of how it puts you in significantly more danger than you already are. Does this plan meet with your approval?"
"Does it mean I can finally get back in touch with the Civil Guard and take control of whatever bleep-ups they'll have gotten into?" I nodded. "Then it bleeping meets with my bleeping approval."
"I'll set that up, then... uh, as soon as I get out from under these two."
Sarah silently handed me some new absorbent pads to put into my nursing bra, and I want through the rigamarole of getting myself all tucked away again. While I did, I told Toffee, "There's at least one thing I want to emphasize, so you don't forget it: Someone's been manipulating you. Not overtly, not dramatically, but slowly, over months and years, nudging you to become what they want you to be, instead of who you should be. I can't tell you how - but at the least, you should start looking for new sources of information, unconnected to whatever you're doing now. Heck, maybe just head out into the street and ask random citizens questions. If you can't think of anything to ask - you could at least try sidestepping the whole union structure, and finding out directly if the people in general, instead of the union bosses, would support that charter of rights I've been pushing you. And if you can think of something more important for you to know, go for that."
"You about done?"
"Afraid so."
"Then let's get going."
--
Once Toffee was gone, I settled down half on top of Bear Joe, resting the back of my head on his shoulder and inhaling his scent. Sarah stretched out next to us, and Bunny Joe, Minerva, and Denise took new seats nearby.
I glanced around. "Does anyone else want to leave? I'd rather not work out where to go next, only for someone to decide to stay behind and leak that to Melvin."
Denise grumped, "I don't understand how you can just /sit/ there when someone just tried to /kill/ you!"
"I think Bun-Bun still has my adrenaline turned off."
"... Okay, that could explain it."
"By the way, Doc - I'm going to have to insist you hand over my heart-rate controller."
"You don't know how to use it safely."
"Which is more dangerous, my not having full knowledge of the ins and outs and maintenance schedule of a piece of electronics - or me not being able to actually make my blood pump faster when somebody's trying to kill me?"
"I can't, in good conscience, let you hold on to that controller without proper medical supervision."
"... Does that mean you're staying?"
"That, and the fact that my house is probably filled with land-mines by now."
"Fair enough." I breathed for a few moments, then added, "There is /some/ good news out of this attack."
"I didn't think you were a 'silver lining' kind of person."
"I'm a 'grab every advantage and try to win and cheat if I have to' kind of person. Thinking about it - assuming that Melvin was trying to blow me up... he /failed/. He doesn't have perfect information about all the preparations we make in private; he doesn't have unlimited resources; he isn't willing to kill off a whole town to achieve a single goal, like the Berserker was. He's not omnipotent - he has /limits/. Which means that, whatever those limits are, it's possible to leverage them."
Minerva asked, "You think we can win?"
I lifted my head to look at her. "/Can/, yes. /Will/, maybe. And to be honest - I don't know if I'm comfortable with you anywhere near me, and whatever attempts Melvin makes in the future."
She offered a hesitant smile. "Seems late for that, doesn't it? If he knew who was visiting you, then my foster home is as dangerous as Ms. Black's clinic."
I turned to Bunny Joe. "I don't suppose I could get rid of you if I tried, could I?"
"You have a greater chance of finding Melvin than Toffee. His hand was on the knife in my other self's heart."
"Uh... huh." I sighed. "Then cards on the table - I don't plan on staying in Erie any longer than I have to. Just about any city will do, to look at zones and the towers and so on. Maybe Buffalo, maybe Metropolis... there's at least one piece of data I want before I decide: I met a, uh, unusual ship's captain while at the Embassy, who offered a ride. I didn't have the opportunity to find out what that would involve. I don't think Bunny Joe or Sarah or I could show our faces without Melvin finding us pretty quick - but you humans," I nodded at Denise and then Minerva, "could get lost in the crowd pretty easily."
Minerva perked up. "The Professor is good with disguises." I felt my ears twist in surprise, and she explained, "He does acting, sometimes. On a stage, I mean. Just for wigs, he's got at least a dozen."
I nodded. "That's good - I should probably go out and start talking to him soon. Denise - how about you head to the ship, the Travelling Matt, officially about their dinner invitation to work out any issues of precedence and protocol and politeness, unofficially to find out how much cargo room I would have available to squeeze in some portion of Munchkin's inventory?"
"You're abandoning it?" She looked around the room.
"Like you said - it's got a big target painted on it. I'd like to know what my options are.
--
"Sarah, Bunny Joe - I'd like to talk to Minerva for a couple of minutes."
I took off my glasses, cleaning the lenses on the bottom of my shirt as the remaining two adults moved off to the kitchen, talking quietly to each other, the last thing I heard before they were out of earshot being something about bulk shampoo discounts. I put my glasses back on and wriggled back up against Bear Joe.
Minerva asked, "Do you have a job to send me away on, too, so you can leave me behind without saying goodbye?"
I blinked, then shook my head. "If I'm going to leave you behind, I'll just tell you. I've got too much to deal with to try to come up with clever plans just to avoid emotional whosawhatsits." I pointed at her bag. "I thought we might start with your paperwork."
"Oh." She hugged the backpack tighter for a moment, then let go enough to open the top, and look down inside. "Um. Yeah."
"I'm guessing you didn't write them, or draw them."
She shook her head. "I didn't go looking for them, either. But some of the people in the Conspiracy, they wanted to know more about you, and started bringing these in..."
"Right, the Conspiracy. That's the other thing I wanted to ask you about. But let's focus on the papers first. Uh - do we need to have the sex talk?"
"/Please/ no. I know what's in them isn't real, isn't like what's real, and that I'll have problems if I try to have a relationship or, uh, sex, based on what's in them. I don't /like/ what's in them. I brought them so you wouldn't just shoo me away when I told you about them."
"Minerva, if I ever try to shoo you away, you have my advance permission to kick me in the shins. Now - do you know who wrote or drew the papers, or where they came from?"
She shook her head. "The guys I got them from wouldn't talk to me about that."
I rubbed the back of my neck, awkwardly. "Without you going anywhere that Melvin might have left a landmine - do you think they might be willing to talk to /me/?"
--
Once Minerva was off to the Professor for a quick disguise and then an errand, I thought about what she'd said earlier - and seriously considered trying to come up with excuses to send Sarah, her kids, and Bunny Joe out of Munchkin, and just leaving. Maybe north - Sudbury might be a nice place to settle in for a while, to try turning the old mines and such into a personal factory-fortress, hiding from the world, with just Bear Joe to cuddle with and Boomer and Archie to have high-falutin' intellectual conversations that improved my mind...
Don't blame me for fantasizing; I'd been having a stressful few days.
I let the dream-fortress fade, to become nothing more than, perhaps, a pattern for a new memory palace, and tried to turn my mind to more practical matters. But I couldn't concentrate; when I tried to come up with a plan, my focus skittered to Captain Shatter's uniform and to the school in Buffalo. When I tried to sort out recent events, up cropped games from my old Commodore 64 computer and wondering whatever had happened to my favourite authours.
I sighed, patted Bear Joe in thanks for his services as a piece of warm, breathing furniture, and pulled myself up to something resembling a standing position. With vague thoughts of tea, I wandered back to the kitchenette, and puttered a bit; my mind drifted to consider that, not too far away, vast forces had been put into motion, creating magnetic fields of such strength that atoms in existence since the Big Bang were now forced to change the natures they'd had for billions of years, becoming something new - all so that the energy released could be captured in a heat engine, shoving electrons along strands of purified metal, all so that an unexceptional mammal could try to feel a bit better by having a cuppa.
When you took the time to /really/ think about it, the universe was a pretty strange place.
As I added a bit of honey to the final product, Bunny Joe and Sarah wandered forward from the lab. The former, looking around, observed, "No more humans?"
I shrugged, sipping my beverage, and deciding 'tea' was too good a name for it - maybe 'herbal tisane', or 'boiled leaf broth'.
She asked, "What will we do now?"
I didn't have an answer, and took another sip.
Sarah, bright-eyed and tail wagging, offered, "Furry orgy?"
Classic spit-takes are astonishingly annoying to clean up, particularly when fur is involved.
While we shared that task, Sarah elaborated, "I was there when the Doc opened up the factory car." I thought back to the 'distraction bed' I'd whipped up on a whim, and my pink facial fur took on a rosier hue. "So I know you've got a sex drive, no matter how good you are at hiding it." My mind was focused, laser-sharp on trying to figure out how to explain that I'd never touched anything in that part of that carriage in a way that could be believed. I didn't /succeed/, but I was very focused. "Pat and Max are asleep and locked tight and safe, Bear Joe won't talk, and I think Bunny Joe has a thing for you." She hooked her thumbs on her vest, tugging it to better show off her cleavage. "So what do you say?"
My tongue seemed stuck to the roof of my mouth, but before I could even think of what I might say with it, Bunny Joe commented, "She is from the old people, and they had very particular ideas about sex. If Bunny still thinks that way, you should have asked for just the two of you, not all four of us."
"Oh," Sarah said. "Okay. Want to have sex, Bunny?"
"Ah..." I managed to get out.
Bunny Joe came to my rescue. "Also, they usually had several dates - shared activities - before they got around to having sex."
Sarah nodded again. "Seems silly to me, but what do I know? Jeff and I didn't stay together long. Would you like to go on a date, Bunny?"
I finally managed to speak for myself. "I would be much more comfortable with a date than a, uh, orgy. But even for that - someone tried to kill me just a couple hours ago, so I think I need to focus on dealing with that."
Sarah offered, "When death's so close, when's a better time to live?" I just shook my head, so she looked at Bunny Joe. "What about you? Do you have to have a date first?"
"I don't /have/ to; I just haven't met anyone I want to have sex with since the spirits made me a woman, this time. And maybe I can teach you a few things about rabbits, so you'll know what to do with Bunny later." They turned around and walked back into Munchkin's rear carriages, shutting the doors between them.
Once they were out of sight, something clicked in my head, and I remembered that they'd had something like three years to get to know each other - and they'd just been huddled together, chatting. Had the whole conversation been some sort of prank? Maybe a set-up, making an offer far in excess than what I'd accept, so that when Sarah pulled back to just a 'date', I'd be more willing to agree? Was I overthinking things by even considering such notions?
My rabbity ears twitched up at some noises - and I interrupted my next attempt at tea to hurriedly get Munchkin to improve its internal sound-proofing, my face aflame.