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Cellulose & Steel	By : Not-Taylor Category: Misc Books > FemmeSlash Views: 1028 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own HDG or its characters and I don't make money from this work.

Chapter List
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Tump thump ta-tump. Tump thump ta-tump. Tump thump ta-tump.
The weed’s vile symphony echoes through Ember’s brain. It hurts… The air is starting to feel warm. Verda wouldn’t have changed the temperature just to sabotage it, would she? Breathing is starting to get difficult. Ember remembers how she asked it to trust her, telling it that she hadn’t lied to it. This wouldn’t be the first time. It’s known her long enough to be sure she wouldn’t try that sort of thing. If she wanted to inject it, she wouldn’t have made it inject itself. How could a slave have recourse from that? It’s silly to imagine such a thing.
Its breathing becomes more normal as it forces itself to calm down. Nothing is going to happen. Everything will be fine. Tump thump ta-tump. This is all according to plan. Verda’s plan.
Without looking, Ember can sense that its captor is paying very close attention. Her vines have slowed nearly to a stop as she focuses on her prisoner and her tablet. It resists the impulse to wave, given that she’d just pretend not to have seen. It takes another breath. Tump thump ta-tump.
The next step is to block out the horrible sound. It picks up its tablet and puts on its earphones, hoping that that will be sufficient. While Bach is helpful, he also overloads the ship’s sensors. It can’t handle all the different instruments and harmonies. Ember rips off the headset to avoid going insane. It keeps in a whimper that would have been very unshiplike to release. Tump thump ta-tump.
The dizziness evolved into a full scale headache after an amount of time Ember couldn’t hope to measure. Verda continues to sit, but she’s a plant and thus can just sit in one place forever and be happy. Tump thump ta-tump. Ember breathes carefully, trying not to grate against its hearing with the sound. Tump thump ta-tump. What has she done to it?
“Are you doing well, darling?”
“I’m fine.” It isn’t fine at all!
“Really? I’m glad. If that changes, I would be more than happy to stop your suffering with some xenodrugs. There won’t be any side effects, pet. You’ll be back to your old self by lunch.”
“Lunch?”
“That’s right. The chemicals take time to disperse through your body and I wouldn’t want to use anything dangerous, would I?”
“I don’t know that you wouldn’t.” Tump thump ta-tump.
“Well, I would not. I value your safety.” She sounds slightly offended.
As the headache continues to worsen, Ember massages its forehead, trying to do something that’ll help even a little. It prefers to believe that’s working. In the meantime, it remembers that it should be working on Verda’s latest torture puzzle. It picks up the tablet from where it fell… in between the couch and the table. Finding it did take a little since it’s having trouble focusing. The pilot holds the device in front of it with its vine, hoping it’ll somehow work. When it’s able to muster enough resolve to look up, Ember sees that the screen is alive, carrying a welcome screen in Affini. How it knows that’s a welcome screen… is by being smart. What else would be there? A goodbye screen?
Touching the obvious button, the screen transforms into something very similar to the other tablet’s. Now everything is intelligible. That’s better. Tump thump ta-tump. “Readme.txt” sounds like something worth checking out in a bit, once it’s stopped feeling as though it’s about to fall over. “Setup” and “Communications” are the other two icons. Those look promising as well. There’s nothing else to do, so Ember breathes carefully some more and tries to shut Verda out. It has to be able to make that happen or it’s going to die. She’s going to smash its skull with her horrible sounds! Tump thump ta-tump.
Ember doesn’t scream, even if it wants to. It forces itself instead to open the communications window. The UI is identical to the chat function of its usual tablet, only without the option to add anyone. That makes sense, since the process should be secure. They wouldn’t want a slave especially to have the power to subvert anything. It starts to wonder about the structure of Affini Intelligence and to whom the strange plant it met would answer. To Verda? To some inspector general? To a gendarme? There must be tons of reports every day on a ship this size…
Tump thump ta-tump. None of that matters and obsessing over minutia is idiotic. It knows better! It shouldn’t think about such things with its present diminished capacity. Once its hull is restored, then it can think about that.
The tortured individual of Terran origin looks sadly at its captor. Tump synk ka-tink. She waits for it to speak.
“I have it open now.”
“I’m glad. Are you still feeling well, or have the effects started to manifest?”
“I feel something.”
“Good. I don’t have the authority to compile another dose if that wasn’t enough. Dealing with controlled substances is problematic, darling, and protocol ought to be treated with respect.”
“Are you ready to explain?” Tump synk ka-tink.
“Perhaps. Try to touch your nose with each arm.”
It complies since it probably has no real choice and that’s not worth fighting about. Ember sighs and lifts each limb to its nose. Verda grins.
“Thank you, little one. As you’re aware, the injection which you gave yourself so bravely served the purpose of strengthening your body’s natural rhythms. That is part of our… outreach system. Using our pangalactic communications network, we’re able to make contact with anyone anywhere in the Milky Way (where the system has been set up, of course). Any delightful pet who has decided to temporarily rebel is most likely within range of at least one of our relays, which will allow anyone with the proper software to make contact. You’re aware of how simple that process is, I’m sure.” Tump thump ta-tump.
She has no idea how open somebody can be without proper security. If Affini computing is powerful enough for the virtual reality it’s already experienced, Ember is certain they could brute force any Terran system that didn’t have a mind behind it. Tump synk ka-tink. Peppermint lines Ember’s tongue, though it tries not to think too hard about the taste.
“Once access has been achieved, communications with a feralist can be established, allowing the creation of rapport. Can you see how that would be valuable?”
“Of course. That’s probably the only way to get somebody that far away to talk to you.”
Verda looks unsure then nods noncommittally. “In this case, it’s very efficient.”
“How do you manage not to scare somebody off when you’re clearly not Terran?”
“I haven’t done this myself…” Tump synk ka-tink. “The process is complex, but since you aren’t designing the systems yourself, you don’t need to know the equations behind it. It should be sufficient that finding a target is just as difficult as you believe. Operatives sometimes spend weeks searching for high utility targets. Since this exercise isn’t strategic, that won’t be an issue.
“Receptivity does matter, however. That’s why we go to so much trouble to pick a good match. I wouldn’t be surprised if most feralists wouldn’t let themselves be swayed by even the solidest arguments, if we didn’t give them the incentive to listen closely. To ensure compatibility between operative and asset, biorhythmic resonance is used.”
“And?”
“Be patient, Ember. Resonance is the potential to synchronize, more or less. There are videos in your tablet that I can unlock that will explain it better than I care to right now. What is important is that a reading of the affini’s biorhythms is taken and processed, and that is used in the initial asset selection process.”
Ember tries to understand through its pain. “Biorhythms go into a function which broadcasts them in search of an audience?”
“That’s a simple way of saying it, yes. Those who are receptive reply, and the impact of the lure is otherwise minimal. Your rhythms are required to create the transmission.”
Ginger must have been “receptive.” Ember can't help wondering whether it’s doing something wrong by participating. Doesn’t this equate to taking away somebody’s free will? Knowing how biorhythms work, the pilot feels extremely uncomfortable. It would never hurt a Terran. Verda said this was just to find somebody to talk to, and Ember isn’t even an affini, so it doesn’t have the poisonous biorhythms that would corrupt anyone. It’s going to be fine.
“But how does that even work?” Tump synk ka-tink. “Will it work? I’m not…”
“There are sufficient case studies to lead me to believe that this is more than possible. The proof of this experiment will come once your asset has been snared.”
“Experiment? So you’ve made me a lab rat after all?” Ember blinks as an especially vicious tremor passes through its head.
“Not quite…” Verda winces. “You’re a scientific pioneer, I would rather say. Since you wanted to take risks and make a difference, this is your chance. Are you happy about that?”
“So you’re hoping I’ll be happy that you’re breaking my heart in a literal sense, smashing my brains onto the floor to use as fertilizer, and recording all of that to send to torture some innocent Terran into submitting to your authority?”
“No, sprout. You should be happy that you’re advancing medical knowledge while achieving your goal of proving your competence and helping an ‘egg’ to ‘hatch.’”
“I’m not sure it’s worth it.” Tump synk ka-tink.
“That conclusion is justifiable. If you don’t want to continue, I won’t force you to.”
“This stuff is in my body now.”
“Yes, darling.”
“You’d have to remove it if you didn’t want me to die.”
“I’m certain you won’t die or suffer any enduring harm.”
“This is terrible.”
“The side effects are unfortunate, but they’re the direct consequence of having one’s biorhythms amplified. If you were one of us, you would be taking similar medications with similar results.”
“But I’m not one of you w-” Ember stops itself.
“Be careful, Ember. You remain my second floret.” Thankfully, she doesn’t sound at all angry.
“I’m not a-”
She glares at it.
“I’m not an affini.” That’s what it’s been trying to say.
“Correct. I’m not familiar enough with intelligence operations to know the details, but all the instructions you need should be included in your work tablet. If not, your supervisor would certainly be delighted to explain anything that gives you difficulty. Now that systemic feralism has been extinguished thoroughly, she doesn’t have very much to do besides entertain herself with florets.”
Tump synk ka-tink. That sound makes it sick. Verda’s noise needs to just go away! Since the chief weed of the fleet seems to have gotten bored of it, Ember decides to actually read the information it was given. The readme is absurdly long, probably at least the size of Song’s hyperdrive manual. Reading through it properly right now simply isn’t possible. It can’t tell Verda that because she’ll gloat about its failings. Instead, it skims the more useful sounding sections and starts to figure things out as it goes.
Evidently, recording one’s biorhythms is a brief process, but the enhancement needs to be maintained through first contact in order to bind the connection between the operative and the stimulus in the asset’s mind. That association will lead to continued compliance, as well as giving the software enough of a sample size to procedurally generate enough material to replicate the stimulus when the operative is unavailable. The entire process is very carefully designed, and Song can’t help being impressed… just a little.
After recording, the initial sample is broadcast (somehow) along with similar transmissions, reaching only those most susceptible. Their reactions are relayed through the operating system of tablets identical to the one Song received and added as contacts, with a notification. Communication should be somewhat frequent to properly condition the “adorable, rebellious, and soon to be snugglable seed” as described above. There’s a lot of that language, much to the Terran’s annoyance. “Feralists” are constantly called a number of variations of cute. The rest of the manual appears to focus on how not to alienate a “feralist” and how to bring one in safely.
At the very end, before the glossary, is the message, “Humans are very cute and even cuter once they’re properly cared for, Remember that the ones you talk to will be in a lot of pain and won’t understand that their lives could be better. Please be gentle with them or they’ll get hurt due to their ignorance. Everyone you reach can be helped, but not everyone you reach should become a floret, or even your floret. Always put the needs of the seed above your temporary desires. Take care and may your nectar be sweet!”
Song is uncertain. It wonders whether any of these weeds would take such a message seriously… Probably not. Artemis wouldn’t. Verda’s weird, even for one of them. Janice… Stars, it has no idea. She seemed average for a weed. It hopes that it never has to deal with that again. There aren’t meetups for… whoever it is Song just agreed to become, are there? Tump synk ka-tink.
Its head is throbbing to the point that xeno vines are passing through its vision. When it moves its hands, nothing is there, but it still sees them. Verda continues to stare at her tablet, menacingly. It can almost hear her ranting about what a worthless floret it is. That’s how she thinks, after all. A slave that cannot submit has no real value to anyone. It feels her xeno gaze…
“Darling, I know you’re looking at me. What do you want to ask?”
She doesn’t change her posture. She doesn’t even move her mouth! The sound vibrates strangely through her exterior, giving her voice a deep and hollow sound. Something about the way she manipulates the idle motion of her probing vines tells Song that she’s trying to look natural. Xeno monstrosity that she is, Verda is anything but.
“Well?” She’s still waiting for a reply, isn’t she. Tump synk ka-tink.
“Can’t you turn down the volume? You’re killing me.”
“What volume?”
“The noise! Your noise! It’s echoing in my brain and I can’t focus.”
Verda’s frown suggests that admitting that might’ve been a bad decision, but its head hurts too much right now to be as logical as a ship ought. “I did ‘turn down’ my biorhythms, Ember. I assure you that what you’re hearing is not me, unless there was a side effect of sharpening your senses. Is anything else stronger?”
“I can smell you very clearly.”
“Can you smell anything else?”
“Not really…”
“Even the brownies I prepared?”
“When did you do that?” It should’ve heard the compiler working.
“While you were reading. You seemed extremely focused. You’re certain you don’t smell anything?”
“I’m sure. I would know if there were brownies around.”
“In that case…”
Verda gets up and retrieves some instruments from a closet as she moves closer to her victim. She waves a few devices and vines around its face while maintaining an artificial expression of contemplation. Then she nods, sitting down again.
“As I expected, there’s nothing abnormal about your present condition. All is within expectations.”
“But you don’t know that I’ll be all right, because this is an experiment.” Tump synk ka-tink.
“I would know if something were incorrect, sprout.”
“You say that.”
“I did, yes.” The weed smiles innocently, betraying infinite savagery beneath her caring exterior.
Song gets up angrily. “So that’s all? You’re going to let me suffer for your weird games, in order to torture me into obedience? Your sexual obsessions and honeypots didn’t work, so now you’re using old fashioned Terran style torture? I should’ve expected that! That’s just what I should expect from a xeno. If I had my way, every one of you would be uprooted tomorrow!” It starts to pace in hopes that that will ease its distress. “All you can say is that this is expected? I don’t know how much I believe any of what you’ve been telling me. It sounds fake. You can’t just subvert Terrans with recordings of your core beepings. It’s impossible! If it weren’t, there’s no way you’d find that many targets. Terrans are too strong for that.-”
“Ember Edok, second floret of me. Be quiet.” Her slow voice carries finality, as does her cold stare. “You will control your emotions if you wish me to believe you can be entrusted with them. Your pain is understandable, but your hostility is not. Give me your tablet.”
It somehow suspects that not complying would be very ill advised.
“Thank you, Ember.” She returns to her default state. After a few clicks, the affini hands back the tablet. “That should unlock the videos that I mentioned. Watch the fiftieth and fifty first entries in the Guide for Wards and Florets once you have recorded your biorhythms. The process should be trivial. If it is not, then you’re overthinking. Don’t ask me why the videos are categorized as such or who precisely organized the Guide, I don’t know. And don’t complain about the system in which you’re now participating.”
The plant sighs and returns to her reading. Since it doesn’t want to press her mood, Ember decides that making the recording is probably a good idea after all. Tump synk ka-tink. There’s probably some nefarious purpose for which they could use it, but they could realistically do anything they wanted anyway. It presses the utility on the tablet that Verda didn’t just take. According to a cheerful popup, all Ember has to do is place the tablet close to its core and maintain a couple of different moods. That shouldn’t be too hard.
First it lets it rest there normally, pressing the rigid mass against its skin. It beeps quickly to let its owner know that it’s done. Then it has to project love. It doesn’t love anyone at all, and it hasn’t in a long time. It might not be capable of that. It thinks about how it felt about its crew. That should be close enough… Hopefully. Ember remembers the time they accidentally jumped into a solar storm and nonvital systems were knocked out for a day. Even the Affini weren’t stupid enough to come after them. In the near complete darkness, the crew came together and sang the songs they could remember. They were sort of cute together, it supposes. A few even remembered that Ember was interfaced and asked about it. Even if it couldn’t reply at the time, since it was prioritizing systems that would stop everyone from dying, it was happy they thought of it. It misses them a lot, silly as they could be at times. Bebeep!
Next comes sadness, for some reason. Maybe that’s something about empathy? It can’t be sure. That one is easy. Ember just has to remember how it felt the day it learned that Terra had surrendered. That was a grim day. Ember had been out of its tank for the morning to cuddle the traitor. The crewman who alerted them didn’t bother to knock, but that was understandable. The captain wouldn’t have wanted the news to reach too many people before consulting with his officers about how to reveal it. Tump synk ka-tink. Ember’s thought, which had been enacted, was to simply tell everyone over the speakers. It was clean and easy, even if it hurt. Ginger’s idea was to describe what the weeds were doing… but nobody actually wanted to do that or think about what was being done to humanity’s first home. Ember remembers the thought of never seeing anyone it’s ever known again… Bebeep!
The final prompt is to “imagine yourself holding your new floret after they agree to be yours forever.” Tump synk ka-tink. Fatalism of the thought aside, Ember isn’t sure how that would make it feel. It’s a lot of responsibility, but nobody should be able to enslave a Terran. Even ignoring that, slavery is bad. That was decided a thousand years ago! Though, maybe it’s not as bad as Terra thought, if a slaving race could become as advanced as the Affini… But it has to focus. How should it feel, as a “rapchik in all but actuality?” Proud that its charge had chosen it and had chosen “happiness.” Comforted that the budlet is going to live a carefree and painless life. Joyful at the prospect of decades together. Nervous about the intense responsibility. That’s what a weed “should” feel. Bebeep!
Tump synk ka-tink. All the samples were accepted and passed a cursory check to make sure the button wasn’t accidentally pressed. No, Ember would rather not resample. The device chimes happily when Ember presses Submit. It will never submit to the weeds. Shortly after, a notification appears, saying that the tablet will no longer recognize other users and that only membership_plan_11 is allowed access to the confidential materials on it, and that failure to enforce that is a breach of the privacy of residents of the Terran Protectorate. It’ll be sure not to tell everyone on the Affini dark web what it’s doing to poor innocent florets to be.
Since there’s nothing to do but wait for the transmission to come across somebody who will reply, it sits back peacefully. Ember can’t believe that anyone would, but that’s not its problem. If nothing happens, would Verda claim victory? She wouldn’t. There’s no way she’d become a liar after so much work… Tump synk ka-tink.
Settling back to watch Video 50, Ember’s head thrills with pain, as though a muscle massager were being used on its brain stem. Tump synk ka-tink. Ow!!! It clenches its fists, trying and failing to breathe. Its vines wave through the air as it can’t stop them. Tump synk ka-tink. The Terran is imploding into itself, inverting, flipping like the heart of a black hole. If it had a soul, that’s what would be feeling the pressure of hyperspace right now.
Air fills Ember’s lungs as the pain fades to something pure and clear. From whiskey to vodka. That feels better and worse at the same time. Blinking its visual organs a few times, Ember looks at the surreal landscape around it. Verda continues to sit quietly. The couch remains an inanimate object. Tump thump ta-tump. Tump synk ka-tink. The biorhythms are still there and still oppressing it, but now it thinks it can handle them. Somehow, everything feels a little easier. Maybe some primal survival switch got flipped, leaving it in a better state. It really doesn’t mind that, because there seem to be no negative consequences. It stretches its graspers and treaders. Maybe it should look up that video after all, so it can care for its new seed. Tump synk ka-tink. Tump synk ka-tink. Tump synk ka-tink.
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Cellulose & Steel

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