Chapter 4: Little Rascal

Rimu decided to take a leisurely stroll home today. A nice stretch of the vines always helped her to sharpen her thoughts about the day, and it definitely was a day. Reporting on patients, looking at various bits and bobs around the place, brushing up on her Terran psych 101 coursework from a few years ago. It never felt quite so smooth, if you minus the regular deluge of paperwork that crossed her desk. “Death and paperwork will survive the apocalypse” she muttered to herself with a chuckle. Still, the adorable little terran girl had given her some thought… and possibly something more, though that was too early to tell.

She passed few humans in this area of Angel’s Tear station, ever since an inspection crew finally got a chance to look at the place they classified it as unnecessarily redundant and unfit for purpose. The whole station felt like it was unfit for purpose, what leaf sodding evil thought it’d be a good idea to firstly build on this forsaken rock from the hull of a ship, and second thought it a magnificent innovation to pump the exhaust gasses of the foundries back into the air circulation?

Still, it was getting more bearable for all who haunted its spaces, with the foundries automated and modified to vent into space a year ago the air quality slowly improved into something resembling an atmosphere worthy of basic quality codes. Even more, the greasy quality of the air that coated seemingly all the Terran built surfaces was beginning to slowly dissipate. The grease was by far the worst part about living here, it seemed to cling to everything including Rimu’s well groomed vines and foliage, more than once she had to take leave to a passing Affini ship to get a proper clean and degrease.

One day, this place would become somewhere worthy enough for those who inhabit its walls, if it’s not written off as a total loss and evacuated first, it was either or at this stage.

But there was another reason why she came walking here, this station was nice and quiet, as such this tended to be where those who were never fortunate under the rule of the Terran Accord still congregated, in fewer and fewer numbers. Most of them living here nowadays tended to be free terran sympathizers who would rather live in poverty than accept the free fruits of the compact. Still, if she could at least convince a few of them to take some food that wouldn’t ruin their digestive systems it’d be a step in the right direction. Today though, nobody seemed to want to pay her any heed at all, turning their backs.

Rimu felt a little disappointed, normally she’d have at least one person come up to her to get some of what she’d bring.

‘It makes sense in a way,’ she mused as she finished her last round around the area before continuing her walk home. ‘Those who’re not diehard loyalists have mostly taken up our help nowadays… still a shame that these others make themselves suffer out of misguided pride… or fear’ she noted bitterly at that last point.

Making her way through the byzantine, such a fitting sounding word, mishmash of streets, alleyways and in the early days crawlspaces, Rimu found herself back at her hab unit. Keying in her lock the door slides open for her presenting the lovely little three room apartment, flopping immediately into a pile on the perfectly positioned couch Rimu could finally relax for the day, a pair of vines already darting for the fridge.

“Evening, Rimu” Kauri said, staring intently down at what xe was doing at xyr little hobby table. Rimu looked xem over, smiling in her mind. Kauri wasn’t wearing xyr bark inside, which was a nice return to normal from a few days ago, flowing back into fiddling with human electronics, soldering iron in one hand, working on whatever piece of old Terran xe’d picked up this time.

“Evening, Kauri” Rimu replied, a vine snaking into the fridge and pulling out an after work snack out and bringing it to the couch. “What’ve you been up to?”

“Eh… Just the usual I guess” Kauri replied, marking where xe was in an old terran home electronics repair booklet with one vine, holding the soldering iron in another, feeding flux and solder in a third and fourth. “Found who was trying to jinx the parts database so it would wipe rebel ships off and replace them with random civilian ones… i’m a little impressed they even tried it, brute force and binary code is easy to pick up in a ternary system, still they have some roots on them I’ll give ‘em that’”

“Kauri… in normal Affini speech, please” Rimu jokingly interrupted, dunking roots into the pitcher full of nutrient liquid and sighing happily as she slurped down.

Putting down xyr soldering equipment Kauri thought for a moment. “Terran computers use a simple system of on and off, that underlies their whole system of computing. It works good enough and it’s simple to understand, it’s binary so something is either a yes or no. We use a system that has a yes, a neutral and a no basically, ternary, just for when we need to interact with Terran systems. It’s a bit harder to understand but it’s magnitudes more elegant and efficient. So when you start seeing code pop up in your nicely maintained ternary system that’s clearly written in binary you can immediately tell some Terran is doing shenanigans.” Kauri gave off a little sigh at that, a habit xe learned from the Terran movies xe’d watched since getting here, a nice little quirk of how humans expressed feelings.

“What’s got you down?” Rimu asked, still slurping her snack down.

“This whole thing… it’s too easy and it feels kinda pointless.” Kauri continued, picking up xyr soldering iron and getting back to work. “Sure it’s helping track down the rebels and helping us help them… but I don’t see the point, it’s a percentile of a percentile this work is going to potentially catch. If this is all that Terran space can offer I’m severely regretting coming here at all”

“We’ve all got to do our part. And hey, at least you’re doing something, i was just sitting around on my roots the other day when that human you found decided to… go for an interesting adventure not long after I tended to her”

Kauri looked at Rimu, tensing up. “Is i… she ok?” Xe asked quietly.

“Physically she’s… seen better days, but what rebel isn’t half starved and has a few fractures, still thoroughly adorable. Mentally, I suspect there may need to be a bit of creative working to help her get into a good state… which leads into the question I have to ask you.” Rimu started, pulling out her tablet and tapping a few times.

“Do we have to?”

“Of course. Right now I’m her primary healthcare supervisor until we can keep everything stable. You can’t squirm out of the questions, the paperwork does catch up eventually” Rimu replied, flipping to her patient notes. “And the sooner I can get this info from you the less you’ll need to worry about it”

“You know it’s not that easy for me” Kauri said, putting down xyr soldering equipment again, turning the machine off, accepting the inevitable barrage of questions to come.

“Right… The main question, when you met Juniper, your report says she was probably lucid… you didn’t really go into any more detail. Any clues as to what made you believe it?” Rimu asked, forming a bit more into the terran-like shape she was used to here.

“I…” Kauri started, pursing xyr pseudo lips. “When I approached her, I was already anxious, I couldn’t process what she was saying even after hearing it” Kauri started, vines and foliage beginning to tighten up, sinking a little deeper into xyr chair. “But… I remember her snapping me into paying attention to her… and the fire in those eyes, unfathomable determination and focus were in those eyes at that moment… it terrified me such drive could suddenly appear in a Terran like that”

“mhm…” Rimu grunted, her own learned mannerism from the terrans. “And the second important thing… Are you sure she never turned or looked like she was about to turn her weapon on you at any point during the event?”

Kauri tensed up a little more before forcing xemself to relax a little. “I was frankly scared of her… but she seemed to be begging for us to take her into our care. She had that little shock box in her hand more because she forgot it in all the commotion then out of a desire to use it. After I called in the on call team, she seemed to visibly relax and sat down… She looked like she was more likely to use it on her friend again if they woke up suddenly than on me or the medics.”

Rimu nodded. “You swear by that, you know that lying about that will have you condemned to the pits of the paperwork pit, from where nothing but despair rains?” she gibed playfully. “Seriously, you’ve helped a lot… I have a running thesis on what the issue will likely be… And I don’t think they’re going to like it when I have to break it.”

“I thought the human only uses she pronouns” Kauri asked, leaning forward.

“She does… but I’m weighing up the possibility that the plural they is more apt for this patient” she wondered, even as she felt like a pencil was hovering just above a mental box.

Everything felt so nice… Warm and softness seemed to radiate around and inside her body. A sense of something not quite adding up, like she should know something. That didn’t seem to matter that much in the beautifully soft and gentle feelings that seemed to embody her whole existence.

Letting out a contented little sigh, June lolled her head around, all to herself for once in the not-so-subtle haze of whatever was in the air and… whatever else was around her. Dreams seemed to gently bounce up against her consciousness, dreams of romance and desperation. All those emotions flowed around her mind and she was content to just let it all flow without disturbing the course of things.

A distant sensation of coolness radiated from one of the dreams, another of regret…. relief and horror. And yet there was a texture to these dreams that weren’t hers that seemed different in texture from what she remembers. The relief is so much more richer and the horror that much more jagged and furious. Maybe it was these lovely sheets, her mind faintly grasped before allowing herself to float in the sea of sensation again.

Another, much more tangible coolness seemed to radiate into her from her extremities and everything seemed to dim a little. “Wakey wakey little human~” a voice cooed with a pleasing confidence and reassurance that brought her to the surface.

“I swwwear” June slurred as her thoughts began coalescing around the sensations of reality. “My shift isn’t for another few hours… let me sleep” The sound of pencil on paper greeted her. “Hey hey, if you’re going to grade me on this just go ahead and give me an F… just tell me what’s broken now and i’ll…” drifting off in an imitation of falling asleep again, a useful tactic June always knew how to pull off.

“Oh no my little darling, come up now, you’ve had plenty of rest already~” the voice cooed as the explosive tingle of… something against June’s skin caused her to sigh in pleasure and open her eyes…

“H…hey this isn’t the ship I was on before” she says, her tone sobering a little as more of the cool feeling starts to grow from her arms and legs. “What happened?” turning, her eyes met amazingly deep purple eyes, speckled with gold. “Who are you?” she asks, scratching her head.

“Well my dear you’re in the Affini sector of the Angel’s Tear station. You’ve been here for nearly a week now. Do you remember?” the affini leans forward, tapping at her tablet with one lot of vines and writing onto a clipboard with the other.

“Last I remember is walking out of Doc Morbid’s office after getting a bad head cut.” June suddenly thinks, trying to piece the last… however long it’s been since that happened. Every memory that seemed to float to the surface was just a little blur in her mind however, vague colours and emotions smeared across a canvass of some time. “Not sure why I had it though.” her voice trails off as she loses herself in the collage of blurry images.

“Come back to me dear” the voice cuts through her plunge back into the unknown. She blinks rapidly as a part of her seems to comprehend what’s around her and the implications, and she has no idea why. Affini, big plant alien things, or were they alien plants? Regardless, one that seemed to stir some recognition was sitting on a chair next to her. “There we go, back to the present.” it continued, reassuring tone focusing June again.

“But… how did I get here? The ship I was working on is nothing like this, and I doubt they’d let one of you aboard” furrowing her brow as she tries to think but to no avail.

“Well that’s one of the reasons I’m here little one” the Affini started. “Well, I’d like you to answer a few questions for me, before I can really get into that. That’s if you were to indulge me of course.” June shrugged a little, catching sight of a pair of soft black bands around her wrists, they seemed kinda pretty if she was honest. Shrugging she looked at the affini, having never seen one up close… or anything more than vague outlines on posters the xeno which sat before her, should have terrified her in the detail and weirdness factor, that didn’t really matter though as she nodded, eliciting a close approximation of a smile. Closer to her torso, a few vines that extended from the affini softly stroked her, leaving a pleasant tingle wherever they moved.

“May I ask first, what is your name, little dear?” the Affini asked with silky words.

“June Glasgow, something something about rank or whatever” The affini paused for a second before continuing to write.

“Does anyone ever call you by the name Juniper?” The affini asked, seeming to focus on June more as she asked.

“The crew do, i keep telling them that’s not my name but they seem to just ignore it or call me crazy. Frankly it’s a bit rude since i’m the only one who’s keeping their drive operating”

“Interesting… Interesting”

“What’s your next question?”

“Tell me, do memories come to you easily?”

June bit her lip as she mentally saw that canvass of blurred colour again. “No… or at least not easily. I know they exist but for most of them if i try to remember them… it all just blurs and my mind blanks out”

“Interesting… Interesting indeed, June Glasgow” the affini stands up and fiddles with her tablet. “I think I may need to keep an eye on you. In the meantime, you’ll be allowed to wander around the Affini built section of the station, since you present little issue… that is of course you find any problem with Affini.”

“I don’t remember why anyone wants to be angry with all of you, so I don’t see why I’d have a problem”.

“Good… very good. And if you behave, I’ll be able to provide some more comfortable accommodations, though there will be a large quantity of paperwork for me to perform first. Until then… do try to keep yourself out of trouble, and if anyone were to get any ideas of escaping, they should know that we’ve got trackers for that” The affini rose, winking and making her way to the door. “Please, do stay out of trouble, little one, I’d hate to see you hurt yourself~”

June rolled her eyes, as if she could get into trouble here.

Rimu’s return to the human’s room, roughly an hour after leaving to probe at the idea of taking the terran in for ‘close observation’, was surely too short a time for the little thing to get into trouble, or at least that’s what she thought until she heard an alert on her tablet. Hurriedly pulling it out, she honestly expected the worst, that the escapee in her had returned in the poor thing and that she was once again frantically trying to run. What Rimu didn’t expect was news that the human was currently entangled in the root ducting under the flooring of the bulkhead, and that a group of Affini were carefully trying to untangle the ‘dirt damned rascal from extremely sensitive conduits’.

Arriving on the scene minutes later, Rimu was presented with the faintly comedic image of an Affini pulling the terran out of a crawlspace as she indignantly pouted and talked of measurements and how she needed to understand how the life support systems worked, even as several other affini looked at her, somewhat stunned. The lights on her collars shone yellow. Seeing the more familiar affini approach, June finally relented and looked at the only one here she recognized.

“Miss affini, these lot are being jackasses” she stated with an exaggerated pout. Rimu raised an eyebrow.

“Care to elaborate?” Rimu asked, looking from the Terran to the Affini who was trying to keep her still and then back to June.

“What this little rascal did was get into the ductways and started messing around, trying to measure and look at the power and data conduits… do you know how dangerous that can be for an unprepared affini, let alone a ward like her?” the Affini, a friend of Rimu’s called Sophora, asked. “It’s by luck we were able to catch her antics before she got herself or anyone else killed.”

“I was just curious” June whined “I’m a mechanic, what do you expect? That I won’t try to understand a ship made of miracle plant matter?” she replied, throwing her hands up in the air.

“Given a couple days ago you were running screaming through the corridors, dear little one, I’d say that Sophora’s concern is justified” Rimu interjected, realizing now this wasn’t exactly the time to be talking about such problems at this stage, she hoped that would just go over June’s head. June’s sudden shift in expression and posture broke Rimu’s hope.

June’s eyes narrowed as a memory cascaded through her mind just as the Affini spoke. ‘But…’ she thought to herself as the memory floated into her conscious mind. It was faint, like a slick film of oil was over every sensation, plus the haze of the affini drugs. That can’t be right, those were June’s dreams, why was the affini talking about one of her dreams? Did they see her dreams?

“But that was a dream” she blurted out. “That couldn’t have been real, I know when it’s real and when it’s a dream…” her voice started to wander off as her eyes lost focus, her body shaking a little, muttering as she started to blink rapidly. Sophora, seeing the sudden turn in the terran quietly moved back, leaving Rimu to deal with the situation they were very clearly not equipped to deal with. June’s collars first flashed yellow, then beeped as they turned red.

June’s mind raced in a blur as she felt her body go limp, a deep dark pit seeming to flow from her stomach to consume her, intense emotions, most of all fear, suddenly flooded through her body as a comprehension she didn’t even know grew inside of her subconscious, even as her conscious and another part of her subconscious sought to repress it as it consumed her, like she was shrinking in her own body, sensations becoming echoes as she stared.

Rimu moved quickly, pulling the human close to her, eliciting a catch in the now hyperventilating terran’s breath, softly stroking the little human as she pulled out one of her injectors of xenodrugs, administering a dose of class-E carefully as she’d been taught to when terrans were in distress as the bands and collar June was wearing let wailed a solid tone, introducing their own cocktail of xenodrugs into her system.

“It’s ok dear. I’m here, don’t worry about those thoughts for now, just sink into me, gently gently now.” She continued with more confidence than she actually had, wrapping the terran in her vines, her ward softly gasping as her breathing leveled out again. “Just drift off into those happy relaxed feelings.”

When Rimu was satisfied that the little terran was fast asleep she slowly got up and looked at Sophora.

“Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you there” they said tiredly. Rimu simply nodded in response as she made her way back to the human’s hospital room, taking her precious, adorable, cargo with her.