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Cellulose & Steel	By : Not-Taylor Category: Misc Books > FemmeSlash Views: 1028 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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Chapter List
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“Wow, this track is bland,” the nameless Terran gripes to itself. The affini who wishes to be its mistress probably doesn’t want to be disturbed. “Hurr, why don’t you change the channel OLIVIA???!?” She’s sitting on the other side of the room, smugly reading her weed gossip. Not bland, bad. Bland things don’t put one into such a prickly mood.
Time to choose something else, then. It’s not really Verda’s fault that not everything in the selection is perfect. She’s just a plant, not some object of worship the way they portray themselves. Not that she didn’t willingly admit that. Hm. Her taste in headphones is excellent for somebody without ears, though. These are comfortable and have top tier acoustics. It’s surprised at just how good they are. Of course they’d be good, if they could just be compiled as replicas of the highest quality out there. Suddenly it’s a lot less impressive.
Scrolling is fun. The words in the list zoom by at maximum speed. It’s missed doing that. Last time was… back when it was lying on the couch at Verda’s residence before its daring escape. What happened to those two? Saha? Was that one? Maybe it could ask… No, that’s not a smart move.
When before that… It remembers Verda scrolling through movies to watch, but that was after, not before. It must’ve been a year ago, at least, if it’s not counting Affini technology. Well this wouldn’t count either. It’s the idea that matters. Somehow. That’s hard to explain. It doesn’t know what it’s talking to itself about.
Anyway, the music needs picking. There are so many different things to choose from. It had no idea ragtime was such a big deal, even accounting for how many renditions of the same five bits are there. Something interesting must be there. It flicks through the options looking for something interesting.
Hello… That’s an unusual cover. It looks like a haunted house, covered in brambles. There’re so many with a New Orleans aesthetic, mostly from after that city no longer existed, that it stood out instantly. Why a haunted house? That’s so weird. Is it a Halloween special or something?
It clicks on the tab. What’s with the squiggles? Is that Arabic? It doesn’t think so. No, it’s nowhere near linear enough. That looks unnervingly like Affini in a very tiny font. It wishes it had its internal parsing tools right now to find out if those are unicode characters. It can’t be. The entity who most certainly is not an affini presses play.
That is an abomination in the eyes of the stars and Terra herself. By the Ev- by everything and by Nothingness. WHAT IS THAT NOISE. And… why does it sound kind of good? The more the Terran listens, the more the way the Affini compose grows on it (it wants to jump into a black hole for that pun, even if it wasn’t intentional). It sounds like a combination of hollow logs, wind passing through branches, and various unrecognizable voices singing together. It wryly notes a lack of anything to “prevent virtuosity.”
The next one’s good too. The key signature (which is the term Verda failed to find before) seems picked at random. It’s almost a dirge .Or maybe it’s not and it’s just not able to understand. Why do Affini rags have lyrics? What are they saying? No subtitles or transcripts. That’s odd. It thought they were extremely fond of that sort of documentation, especially “accessibility.”
The third almost sounds like words it can understand. That’s creepy. Why are the weeds that creepy? Is that a trick? Wait… is Verda putting Affini nonsense into its head with this? Did she know it’d go for this one? Probably not, since it’s just a vast number of albums. But it can’t shake the paranoia… Ugh.
All right, this is certainly a sign something’s going on. It could’ve sworn it knew what the weeds in this one were singing. “My floret found a girlfriend and they’re so cute together.” Seriously? It can’t fault them for having that attitude, especially knowing how they are, but it’s creepy. It’s weird. What’s wrong with them? No… those can’t be the words. They don’t match the rhythm of the piece.
Rhythm? Of course. It silences its bodily sounds and plays the track again. That was a mistake. The absence of its humming hyperdrive is much more obvious now. Of course that’s coming back. It’s been two days, right? That’s how long it takes. It sighs and remembers what it was doing. There are too many affini singing for the biorhythms of any one of them to be pertinent. Maybe all of them combined serve as a tool of domestication? Fascinating. It checks its urge to rebel due to knowing it would achieve nothing only to question whether that’s an effect of the music. Suspicious.
It listens to the rest of the songs to find out what they are. The group is talented. They don’t really do justice to a uniquely Terran form of art, but they probably come as close as xenos can. It likes their take on instrumentation. The album has a distinctly high postmodern feel that’s immensely satisfying and reminds it of flamecore. Maybe a flamecore of a deragged version of one of these… That’d be something special. It’d take the Compact by spacestorm. By that it means it’d use it as a vehicle to transmit a virus across Affini space to render them helpless against whoever sees them as an easy target. That’s what a good Terran ship would do. Good ships fight as hard as they can for as long as they exist.
“Verda. What’s this.”
She’s busy but that doesn’t matter. Aren’t affini supposed to pay attention to “pets?” She perks up at her name. The thing that’s most certainly not a pet unplugs the earphones and plays a sample.
“I don’t know. It sounds like that music I found for you during our outing before. Which rag is that, I’d like to listen myself, later.”
“You put it on here.”
“Well, I don’t know everything that’s there. That would be a very long time to spend on finding you music when you know your tastes without my help.”
“You don’t recognize these specific singers?”
“No, darling. Are they famous on Earth?”
“Listen more closely.” It turns up the volume all the way to be sure Verda knows what it’s talking about. She takes a moment to notice.
“How lovely, they’re singing in Affini!”
“Why can I kind of understand the words?”
“I…” She looks completely surprised, probably more than if it’d asked to become her floret on the spot. “I don’t know.”
“Here. What’s this one about?”
Verda leans over to listen better. The tablet’s built in speakers aren’t that powerful. She frowns and then smiles as she starts to be able to hear. A few of Verda’s vines bob to the melody.
“It’s about how the main singer’s floret has a crush and they’re doing cute things together, like sneaking off alone and thinking they aren’t noticed. It’s an adorable image.”
“I knew that.”
“What?” She looks like somebody electrocuted her. Some vines go completely rigid.
“The floret has a girlfriend, right?”
“Y-yes. The floret has a female mate.” Verda switches to gibberish.
“What?”
“So you don’t speak Affini entirely. That’s good information. The fact you were able to understand any at all… I suppose ‘girlfriend’ is an acceptable translation of ‘female mate.’”
“Pseudomate is a preferred term, I think.”
“Yes, thank you, sprout. That’s true. Terrans languages lack that concept, but for academic purposes…” Verda realizes what she just said. “Who taught you that word?”
“Artemis.”
Verda groans. “Of course she would say that. And that’s why you brought it up when I recovered you from her. That makes much more sense than what I thought. Using that term to address Terran floret is like quoting a medical textbook at a patient. It’s simply not done.” She scowls and taps her chin with her tablet.
“You’re awfully eager to criticize other affini in front of me. Isn’t that unprofessional?”
“No, why would it be? I trust you not to spread rumors.”
“Now I just might.” Verda smiles, but that wasn’t a joke. Maybe they have value… No, nothing has value and everything is worthless here. Fucking commies.
“You can behave when you want to, I know it. Speaking of which, there’s a copy of the Guide for Wards and Florets on there if you’d like to be studious.”
“That isn’t going to work on me. You can’t just give a prospective compliment and expect me to reach for it when I don’t value your praise.”
“That is a very interesting way of phrasing that sentiment. Not that you said anything inappropriate, but would you mind rephrasing?”
“Why?”
“Please? It’s to do with your linguistic skills.”
“What makes you think I’d care enough about you calling me studious to do what you said?”
“I see. The way you said it first… No matter.” It evidently does matter, as she starts typing furiously with a couple of vines she’s hiding behind her back. “You don’t have to watch if you don’t want to. As stubborn as you are, you’re a lot more understanding than many florets tend to be.”
“That might be the xenodrugs you haven’t been giving me.”
“True, I have been slacking in that regard…” Her smirk reveals it’s no less than half a serious statement.
“If you really wanted me to be studious, maybe you could teach me Affini some time.” Verda nearly drops her tablet. “You’re always speaking it to everyone around you, talking about me when I’m in the room with you, it’s on signs everywhere we go… If I’m going to be spending the rest of my life here, I may as well learn the language, right?”
“Yes, you may as well,” Verda replies absently. She’s clearly not paying attention any more. Is she paying attention to her tablet, or just staring in that direction? There’s no point in continuing the conversation, so the Terran sits somewhat patiently, kicking its heels against the bed and listening to their satisfying thumping sounds.
Hospitals are boring, it decides. This is completely different from primetime dramas or reality shows. It’s going to have to sit here all day. If it’s noon, that’s going to be around nine hours before bedtime, if it’s lucky. The weed nurse- no, that was the veterinarian pretending to be a mechanic, was going to come back in the morning and decide whether to let it go the next day.
Stars, why? Its head hurts from the idea of sitting still that long. Maybe that’s partially due to the effects of being out of the sensory deprivation tank (or sensory restoration tank, one might call it), but really. Why can’t it be looking at stellar mass objects and mapping dark matter? That’d be fun right now. If it had a clump in front of it it’d run so many scans…
Maybe if it took Verda along and it crossed its backup generators that it wouldn’t try to kill her again the Compact would let them go. It doesn’t matter where, it just needs to go. There isn’t even anything wrong with the room, it’s just small and boring. It stretches out as much as it can. It feels so small right now. The room isn’t really that small, it just feels that way with an affini in it.
Breathing is harder now. The room feels really tight. It shouldn’t. It should just be a normal cell. Verda needs to leave. Not that that wouldn’t make it better. Being free of her would help in general. It wants to go away. It wants to be gone away from. It wishes it didn’t exist so the pain won’t exist either. Sacrilege. What’s that supposed to mean? It panics.
It literally can’t panic because of the modifications it made to the software regulating its junction, which isn’t present because it isn’t plugged in because it isn’t on a ship or at least not a Terran ship and anyway it isn’t the pilot so it wouldn’t be plugged in anyway and if it were the perverted weeds would probably have turned it off just to make it suffer so it’s really in a bit of a hopeless situation and even if things were better they still wouldn’t be and they might actually be worse because then it would not only be experiencing the same things but it’d know just how close it was coming to not suffering through them and that the weeds were responsible for the fact that that wasn’t good enough to stop it from being in this horrible pain which isn’t going to end because if it did that’d be something nice and the weeds can’t allow that to their political prisoner who they’ve decided to make an example of in order to destroy the rest of the Resistance which they’ve surely been lying about having dismantled in order to break its resolve for the abovestated purpose which sounds circular but is secretly a brilliant military strategy because even if the weeds are evil they’re not stupid and that’s how they’ve survived despite being so slimy as well as stealing technology from less violent races in order to destroy them too in order to take down the foundations of civilization and prosperity across the universe because they’re weeds and not actually anything of value and it needs to get away because if it doesn’t they’ll continue what they’re doing to Terra and there has to be a way to take them out-
A vine wipes cold water across its face. It didn’t even see it coming. That’s not good. It ought to pay better attention to how the weed is moving in case she tries to inject it with xenodrugs which are probably in the water anyway which is why she wiped its face instead of offering it a glass like a normal person because weeds don’t drink water and if they did they’d do it in a degenerate way that would shame anyone who saw it because of their perversity and the fact they don’t hide their impulses around civilized beings and they can’t even hide any of that during their broadcasts which are otherwise full of lies-
More water. “Darling, what’s wrong?”
“What?”
“You were sweating and staring into space. You didn’t react when I waved one of my vines right in front of your eyes. If I weren’t somebody you distrusted deeply, would there be a way for me to help you? Would you like a bottle of water?”
It nods. Wait- was she stealing its thoughts?
“Isn’t it kind of wasteful to use bottled water?”
“Why would it be? The compiler recycles anything left over.”
“Oh. But doesn’t that take a lot of energy, if you’re just making and unmaking bottles constantly?”
“The heat death of the universe will come two percent faster because the Affini Compact provides its residents with a fresh bottle of cold water whenever they’re thirsty. Are you happy?” It’s not sure how sarcastic that is, or if that was an actual statistic they calculated somehow. They probably would think about that. Or would they?
“That’s not soon enough.” It sort of regrets not waiting to think of something less edgy to say. Verda takes it in stride (or would have, if she strode).
“I know you know that doing anything increases entropy. If you’re that concerned over that fact, why even live? What sort of life is being preserved for the future at that point? Frankly, I’m more concerned with whether my floret is thirsty right now than what may or may not happen in a hundred trillion years. So, do you want a drink or not?”
It nods, despite not being a floret. A vine shoots out from somewhere inside of Verda and brings back a bottle before the intended recipient can see what just happened. It takes something that looks identical to the other bottles it’s seen.
“Where did you get this?”
“Under the bathroom sink. It only makes water, so don’t get any ideas.”
“Not little water?”
“Probably not, though you can check. They tend not to make ice either, but you shouldn’t need it.” She missed the joke. Oh well.
The water tastes precisely the same as the other water. It’s uncanny, or it would be if the person drinking it didn’t remember it was fabricated from a template stores who knows where. What planet’s water is this? Is it a synergized solution to the Compact’s hydration needs? At least it tastes good.
It recoils as the affini tries to ruffle its hair. Not today, weed. It doesn’t want to be touched. Something about the appearance of her vines makes it even more ill than usual, and it would rather not be sick again.
The door opens without warning. It’s It’heela. Doesn’t she know what privacy is? Evidently not, going by her expression. She seems to have decided this was a social call and that she has an invitation. That wasn’t entirely false, but it was by no means entirely true. They’re starting to get on its nerves in a way it wouldn’t have expected before its capture.
Good afternoon.” She glances at Verda and then back. “How are you feeling right now, Song? She can’t see, but Verda is staring thorns into her back.
“I’m fine.”
“How are you feeling in relation to your little walk?”
“Good. Moving around helped.”
“Excellent. Has the nausea returned? Any other aches or pain or discomfort in general?”
“No.”
“Really? I could’ve sworn there was something about you missing a hyperdrive.” That doesn’t appear to have been a joke.
“I’m really fine.”
“I’d like to look at your electronic connection. May I?” She looks to Verda.
“No, it’s fine.” The weed flashes it a very obvious “I wasn’t talking to you” glare.
“Well, my floret’s connection appears to be fine. Perhaps some issue will come up later which will merit your attention.” Her eyes suddenly look sharper. How can an eye be sharp?
“In that case, you should tell me about your sensor dysphoria so I can see how I can help you feel better.”
“Oh-” The difference in size between the two affini is suddenly more noticeable. The smaller one backs down. Why was that an issue that merited a fight, again?
“In that case, you should tell me about your sensor dysphoria so I can see how I can help you feel better.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t.”
“No, you should. Your mistress told me how bad you were a few days ago, while you were out.”
“I’m fine.”
The affini vet looks at Verda, who nods. It can’t help feeling that this portends badly.
“You need to tell me what you can. Even if it’s just a little about a few of your symptoms.”
It looks at Verda, who shrugs and pretends to focus on her tablet.
“Now, if you don’t mind, Song?”
“Ugh.” This is hard to talk about. “I can’t see anything. I know I can technically see some things, but it doesn’t feel that way. It’s as if I’m looking at a black and white movie all the time, even if it’s a normal range of vision. I can’t tell what your radio emissions are and I can’t see how hot anything is until I’m touching it. Your breathing is extremely loud and distorted. I didn’t know you weeds had to breathe until this hit. My brain is telling me that the way you’re flicking your pen is of crucial importance to my crew’s survival despite obviously not having a crew, and I couldn’t see you even had one until I started talking now. I’m being stabbed everywhere on my skin at once, including places where that’s really upsetting. I’m having to resist the urge to use sonar right now and I’m mad I can’t tell what the magnetic field in this room is because it feels off for some reason. Is that enough for you, or do you need to hear about how my weapons systems are targeting your pathetic excuse for a face?”
That face. She wasn’t expecting anything on that list. She’s never dealt with this before. Of course she wouldn’t have. It’d heard stories about how nobody on Terra could help either. It’s unsurprised that the weeds wouldn’t know anything about it.
“The treatment, by the way, is to spend more time piloting. That’s it. That’s the only thing that’s ever worked. That is, literally, the only successful or even marginally helpful treatment.”
“I’m sure we could find something. I’ll message some of my colleagues-”
“I don’t want to be a lab rat. I know you don’t know anything.”
Not a lab rat. If there’s no known cure, the only way to treat you is to try things.”
“My floret will not become your lab rat, nor the subject of your next research paper.”
“Well, there’s no need for that. Depending on what’s already written-”
“Nothing’s been written, It’heela.” Verda sighs, almost groaning. “There’s no real solution, other than what my floret already told you. I’ve looked very deeply into the archives of medical knowledge. The only other species to develop such technology are neurologically distinct enough from humans that their treatments would be ineffective. Why… do you think I would put my floret in a sensory deprivation tank if there were a simpler and easier way?”
“Because you’re not a medical professional and wouldn’t think to look in many of the places studies on sensor dysphoria would be hidden.”
“You didn’t know what it was this morning.” That should get that weed. Verda stares at it.
“My floret’s assessment is accurate. You didn’t seem to recognize the term before. While understandable… We just need you to help manage the symptoms without heavy xenodrugs. If my floret must fly, that’s better done without.”
“Um, speaking of xenodrugs…” She takes a bottle out of her coat. “The directions are on the side, given as a function of body mass.”
“Thank you, Mx. Oras.”
“Do you need anything else right now, or should I let your floret recover in peace.”
“I’m not a floret.” They look at it briefly before pretending it didn’t say anything. Maybe if it still had that male voice…
“No, this suffices. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.” The affini vet addresses them both and starts to leave.
Verda flicks some of her forward vines in her direction in some sort of dismissal. The prisoner flashes its headlights rather than verbalizing a goodbye. It doesn’t have headlights but it still feels the muscles associated with them. Headlights don’t have muscles but it feels something activate.
As the door shuts, Verda deflates onto her chair. She looks tiredly at her alleged floret. “Your first vet was more familiar with human physiology.”
“Oh.” There’s nothing to add to that.
Verda sighs and raises herself from the chair limply.
“It’s time for your medication, pet.”
“No.”
“I wasn’t asking for your assent. It is time for your medication. If you don’t want to throw up, you’ll comply with my directions.”
Vines move decisively forward carrying the bottle of fluid and what it recognized from before their trip as an injector. There’s nowhere to run. Vines bind its arms and legs to stop it from moving away. Other vines fill the injector and empty it into its neck. That took five seconds at most. Nearly all of the vines withdraw, leaving only enough to keep its head stationary.
“And now I’m going to look at your junction. My sympathy to your desire not to be mishandled doesn’t extend to a willingness to neglect your care, darling.”
Verda’s bulk moves closer in an instant. She pulls back the hair of her “floret,” revealing the metallic point of contact. It’s designed to be mostly sterile. If the weeds haven’t removed the cap, it’’ll stay that way. Verda makes a song reminiscent of wind passing through a nest of skyscrapers.
“You look fine, if a little swollen. Is that usual for your connector?”
“It’s always done that after a few hours of interface.”
“Even days later?”
“Usually. It’s been a while since that area wasn’t red. It’s perfectly safe according to my medic.”
Verda nods and lets go. “Somebody else will need to look at that. Your preliminary examination wasn’t thorough enough for my liking.”
She sits down and continues to stare. She hasn’t picked her tablet back up.
“Now what?”
“Now we see if anything happens.”
Ten minutes later at least, nothing’s happened. The Terran sits down and then flops onto the bed. The affini’s vines slide happily into a comfortable position. How does it know that when it’s looking at the ceiling? When it goes to check, it seems to have been right. That’s concerning, actually.
Since the weed seems immensely distracted, it decides to see if there’s anything interesting on the tablet she gave it… something other than music, hopefully. Tump thump ta-tump.
Right… Enough of that. It doesn’t want to deal with that now. It tries to shut out the melody by moving to the head of the bed. It kind of works. Verda doesn’t seem to be paying attention or trying to drum a beat. It shudders. Please, stars, not again.
There’s nothing here. The sheer lack of anything to do is obnoxious. Really, nothing to read? Nothing to watch? Nothing to listen to outside the single genre? Pathetic. The lack of icons is deeply unsettling to the Terran, who’s used to seeing others’ screens filled past capacity with icons for various files and applications. Its icons were never that unkempt, but this is beyond salvaging.
Is there a way to take it out of floret mode? There doesn’t appear to be. This one doesn’t appear to even have such a mode. The options are all in Affini, and the reason it didn’t notice before is that the titles aren’t. It’s not intranet enabled, so it’s entirely safe for a “floret” to use while remaining insulated from the outside world. Is the plant afraid it’ll learn what porn is?
It looks at the Videos list again. It sighs. It didn’t think it’d end up here when it went to turn itself in. Here is where it is, with nothing better to do. Maybe it can try to learn Affini from the one album… Not a great plan. Who knows what subversions were implanted into those tracks. It shudders in dread.
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