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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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That’s much better. Ember rolls her shoulders and orients herself orthogonally to the couch. It looks carefully at the affini across from it, whose silhouette has become fuzzy. Even if Ember’s brain feels clear, its vision isn’t quite normal right now. Actually, it’s just Verda that’s out of focus. It should get that checked in a bit, but right now it would rather enjoy having its cognition more suitable. This isn’t properly normal… but it might be better than that. Such a thing is silly to contemplate.
Tump synk ka-tink.
There’s that sound again… Is it really coming from Verda? The pilot adjusts her robe thing using her upper vines. An officer should keep herself in good posture at all times, prisoner or not. That doesn’t sound right? “Herself.” It scowls. Something feels off. Something about its selfconcept feels dissonant, but it can’t explain how it knows that or what’s even wrong. The gestures Verda’s making with her vines imply that she’s more privy to Ember’s thoughts than she’s admitted. That should be kept in mind for later.
Finally able to look through the headache, Ember reexamines the room around it. The soft blue couch is as big as ever, bigger than most beds it’s lain on. The floor, reminiscent of bamboo, stretches out into the kitchen, an alcove Ember hasn’t looked into carefully yet, and the bedroom. The walls have almost a stucco texture to them, though it’s probably more like bark. Verda is sitting in a deep blue chair covered in some kind of plant down that’s extremely soft. Why is it thinking about all of this right now?
Ember needed to do something. It was really important… Something was important today. The thought continues to gnaw as it remembers another important thing that needed doing. The sample of its biotones has been recorded and Ms. Raven should be notified. It grabs its tablet with a nearby vine and sends a quick message, since she’s accepted its contact request. The reply amounts to “good work and thanks!”
Blood sloshes through Ember’s ears every time it breathes. It can’t shake the awareness of its breathing, which is louder than a horror movie protagonist’s. Focusing on something else will probably help. Verda said something about another video. There has to be something more interesting to do, doesn’t there?
“Verda, you said today was going to be busy.”
“It already has been, hasn’t it? You’ve had two injections and registered yourself as a participant in Affini governance. Welcome and thank you for your service, darling.” The affini flashes it a benevolent and amused grin.
“It’s not funny.”
“Isn’t it? You’re helping me with my task of domesticating humanity. That’s precisely what a good floret would want to do.”
“You said I wouldn’t be domesticating anyone!”
“And you won’t. You should remember that domestication isn’t enslavement, despite what your former leaders were so diligent about telling you.” She rolls her eyes. “It’s about alleviating and preventing suffering. You’re demonstrating your willingness to participate in that enterprise.”
A typical communist trick. “Everything good is part of my ideology and everything bad is part of your ideology” is precisely what they’d say on Terra! Ember knows better than to believe it.
“What do you mean that I registered myself?”
“What did you think was happening when you made those recordings? That’s effectively your fingerprint, and one that can even less easily be altered. You did read the terms, didn’t you?”
“What terms?”
“From…” Verda checks something on her tablet. “ page 408 to page 501. Those are the terms and regulations regarding your participation in Affini Intelligence Services as well as your declaration of intent to abide by all the responsibilities of… Terrans have no proper term for this… Custodians of the Shared Future? Perhaps it could be considered an oath of office.”
“What!”
Did Verda just trick it into swearing to uphold Affini laws and supremacy over other species? What a cruel, violent, malicious plant! Ember ponders whether plucking each of her leaves one at a time would make her sorry for that attack on its nature and its duty to its home.
“Registration exists primarily to determine whose efforts led to which domestication. If you were to rescue the seed you will inevitably find, you would be given priority in becoming her rapchik. What you’ve agreed to is less serious than you imagine. That’s a fairly small amount of paperwork and it only required one signature analog.”
“That’s short?”
“Yes, darling. My paperwork for taking you in was several times that, and I had already done most of what was needed the first time I took on a floret. There should be a copy on your new tablet. Naturally I’m not familiar with every document in circulation.”
“You know a lot about this for somebody who doesn’t know anything.”
“Being familiar with the general characteristics of all of the forms relevant to Compact positions is my job. Being familiar with anything that could potentially affect you is also my job.”
“But you said that you wouldn’t snoop on me.”
“That’s true. I have no time in my day to examine the details of every operative’s work. I barely know what’s happening in other fleets participating in human domestication-”
“There are other fleets?”
“Of course there are. We’re in the middle of empty space, between two galaxies, Ember. Why do you think there wouldn’t be anyone watching over Earth from nearby?”
“I have no idea.” It shakes some of the strange artifacts from its vision and brushes hair out of its eyes with a vine. “Why are we here at all? Are the ships here that slow? Even a Terran ship can make it out here in a couple of days…”
“We’re doing something slightly different from just traveling. If we wanted, Ruby Trunk could reach Earth by dinnertime.”
“It’s a planet. It’s always dinnertime there.”
Verda laughs and restrains the desire to pat Ember’s head. “By our dinnertime.”
“Oh.”
“And before you ask, I technically am in charge of the other fleets as well. Please don’t ask me to explain Affini politics in detail. You really don’t need or want to know all of that. I doubt a dozen plants involved in human domestication have a complete understanding of this…” She frowns tiredly.
“What if I did want to know?”
“Then I would tell you that your curiosity won’t be satisfied any time soon. How are you feeling?” She asks, transparently changing the subject.
“Fine.” It’s fine.
“Do you mean that or are you just saying so again, Ember?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good.”
Thankfully, Verda decides that she’s had enough of pestering Ember and turns back to what she was doing. It really should’ve expected that somewhere in that huge text file would be a hundred pages of fine print. Did Verda really expect it to read that? Then again, if every affini who was doing the same thing as Ember has to agree to that as well, does anyone read it? They can’t, can they? That’s insane. Of course owning a person would have a lot to sign, but a job? Of course, it’s a job with a security clearance, possibly involving drugs and state technology and infrastructure. It makes sense they’d want to constrain their operatives so they didn’t do anything stupid and insane. It still can’t help feeling that it was tricked somehow.
And Verda just let Ember sign that? Without complaint? She let it sign something she hadn’t read? That doesn’t sound right. It sounds outright irresponsible. How could she! That’s not what a good rapchik would do. The pilot frowns in indignation. Verda is careless and should be ashamed. Why should she be ashamed of treating her property as a person and not making the decision for it after reading for herself, again? It exhales.
Now that there’s nothing to do, a responsible intelligence operative would read the extremely detailed document it just signed. Something feels off about that statement but Ember isn’t certain of what. If they aren’t traveling, what is there to do? Ember will have to get used to not being in constant motion with all of human knowledge at its processortips, not that it feels very excited about getting used to that.
There’s… always that video. Stars, it’d rather not. It’s so sick of hearing dazed florets discussing how they regret not being converted into florets against their will sooner… Stretching all of its limbs, Ember opens its tablet again. Depending how the first video goes, it could watch the second or listen to music. This is probably the responsible decision, isn’t it. It has to be responsible or Verda will fill it with xenodrugs and put a stop to its plans to help as many humans as it can.
“Good day to everyone watching and I hope yours end even better than they started. I’m Cal Eeeeeeetu, first floret of Jeseg Eeeeeeetu, fourth bloom. I was a social media personality who promoted Free Terranism before my Mistress helped me to come to my senses. Now I’m a regular part of the broadcasts meant to help others like me return to civilization. I still love humanity and Terra, just as I now love my Mistress.”
He shook and sputtered for a moment as a barely visible vine rubbed against his bare left arm. The adoration on his face is unmissable. Ember remembers him. He’s done a couple of other videos. It wonders what his “mistress” thinks of his performance and his past as a “feralist.”
“Right now we’re going to go on a bit of a tangent from the usual, just because this is something I think is really cool and wanted to share it with you guys. You already all know about the biotech the Affini use to help us acclimate to their presence, right? That’s video, which is that? (He looks off camera to where somebody’s apparently standing.) Twenty, right. So go check out number twenty if you haven’t already done that. That, and the implantation process (he pauses) twenty six. Are the background you’ll need here. With that out of the way let’s get started!”
No, Ember’s seen this one already. It’s where he talks about how biorhythms are actually a good thing and why the listener shouldn’t be upset about having his mind warped by talking shrubs. Since there’s nothing to gain by watching it again, Ember decides to skip it and-
A strange chime comes from the table. A minute later it repeats, indicating that it was some sort of message. Since it’s unfamiliar, Ember looks at Verda to see if it’s hers. When she does nothing but looking at it through the tops of her artificial eyes, Ember realizes that it’s the one who should answer. That’s its “work” tablet.
[Dephinni]> ls_684co: Um hi? Who is this?
“I have a message.”
“Already? Congratulations.”
“How do I deal with it?”
Even if asking Verda is a terrible idea and sure to result in a bad decision for the human on the other end, Ember has no clue what to say. How’s it supposed to deal with a stranger and proceed to talk the stranger into transitioning (assuming she really wants to transition, which can’t be proven anyway… One percent of the population is quite a thing to gamble on, now that Ember thinks of it.) “What have I gotten myself into?” it groans internally.
“I thought you knew better than our operatives, sprout. Why don’t you try something and see how that goes?”
“What?”
“Say something.”
“Oh. What?”
“Darling.” Her expression is serious.
This is trivial and ought to have been covered. Ember wonders whether it really was covered somewhere in the manual it didn’t bother to read properly. It doesn’t like talking to strangers, but it’ll probably have to get over that. Somebody’s fate hangs in the balance.
[membership_plan_11]> official: Nobody really. A sailor through silver-lit skies, a horse on the range.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: That’s poetic. Now how did you get my contact info?
[membership_plan_11]> official: I don’t know. I just kind of did. You showed up on my list of people to add, so I did.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: That’s not how this works.
[membership_plan_11]> official: It isn’t? It did work that way for me. Do I have a wrong number?”
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Who do you think you have?
[membership_plan_11]> official: Somebody bored and sad who could use somebody to talk to.
There’s a pause of several minutes, during which Verda looks up at and watches Ember intently. She must’ve heard it stop typing for a while and gotten curious. The two make silent eye contact until Verda can’t contain herself.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you finished?”
“I don’t know.”
“Darling, remember that you could always ask your supervisor if you need advice.”
“That’s true.”
Why didn’t Ember think of that? It quickly messages miss_raven, asking what to do if somebody who reached out quickly stopped replying. Her answer is to the effect that pushing the button with a symbol of a leaf attached to a circle should help, but she repeatedly refuses to elaborate. Ember doesn’t like that, but it’s technically an answer. Somewhere in those hundred of pages of manual is going to be the answer… There’s no time for that. Raven also sends an “expediency guide” that looks a lot like what might be called a cheat sheet, covering a bunch of things to do in various minor emergencies. That can be saved for later. Ember clicks the button to save it to its home screen.
Ember presses the leaf button and holds for two minutes. Suddenly three messages in a row come through. “There’s no way that’s natural! Am I talking to an AI?” it wonders. “Maybe this is a trick after all.”
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: That’s me haha. How did you know?
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: How did you get my contact?
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: No, really. How did you even know I was here?
[membership_plan_11]> official: Lucky guess. And I’m bored and lonely too.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: I pretty much figured you’d say that. What’s your tart?
He’s asking Ember’s assignment, which is to say, the ship or base encasing it and the position it’s filling there. That’s a piece of Terran military slang most bridge officers consider far beneath them. He must be fairly sure she’s nobody important if he feels comfortable addressing Ember in such a familiar way.
[membership_plan_11]> official: I’m a pilot, but my ship’s out of commission so I’ve been grounded for a bit. I’m hoping to get my wings back any week now. Yours?
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: C Base, network security. Got to keep those damn weed from fucking with our heads, right
[membership_plan_11]> official: Right! How’ve you kept them away this long when you’re a sitting target?
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Luck I guess. They haven’t shown any interest. You know how quiet we are. You’d probably be blind to us too if you didn’t smack right into us
[membership_plan_11]> official: Probably. Do you have a name?
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: same as everyone else
[membership_plan_11]> official: Nice to meet you, Samus.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Very funny. ou’re fucking lucky I’m so bored on this rock or I wouldn’t be talking to you. Call me Lysander, if you’ve got to call me anything.
[membership_plan_11]> official: That's an unusual name.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Yeah, don’t tell me about it. I didn’t ask for it.
[membership_plan_11]> official: Can I call you Sand, then?
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Don't you dare.
[membership_plan_11]> official: Fine. Do you prefer anything?
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: No. Just Lysander.
[membership_plan_11]> official: Fine.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: What about you?
[membership_plan_11]> official: I have a lot of names, I guess. You can call me Ember.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Sounds like a story to me. What kind of name's that?
[membership_plan_11]> official: The best kind. It's mine.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Huh. Nice to meet you ember. You seem like a top tier dude
[membership_plan_11]> official: I'm not a dude.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Then what are you?
[membership_plan_11]> official: What do you think?
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: I’m an idiot, I’m sorry. We don’t have too many chicks out here so I assumed
[membership_plan_11]> official: It happens a lot. Don’t worry about it.
[membership_plan_11]> official: What about you? Man or woman?
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: I’m sure you can figure it out.
[membership_plan_11]> official: Tell me.
When Lysander doesn’t immediately reply, Ember starts to wonder if he’s cisgender or not. It’s not a hard question, is it? It must be one “he” has answered ten thousand times in “his” life. Maybe there was something to the idea that it wouldn’t have to worry too much about how to find an egg in the vastness of space. When he doesn’t reply after five minutes, Ember decides to push the magic button that probably reminds him there’s a message. It can’t imagine what the button might do beyond that. What even is a leaf on a circle supposed to represent?
[membership_plan_11]> official: Please
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Fine. I'm male. a man
[membership_plan_11]> official: Why were you reluctant to say so?
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: I thought it was obvious. I don't know
[membership_plan_11]> official: Well, I didn’t want to be caught assuming right after you were.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: fair, sorry.
[membership_plan_11]> official: No harm was done.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Anyway. News is slow these days. I’ve got to know, How’s the war?
[membership_plan_11]> official: No good. Affini are taking more planets all the time. I don’t know how much longer we have.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: We?
[membership_plan_11]> official: The Accord. Aren’t you on our side?
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Of course I am! I’d never let those prickly things touch me.
[membership_plan_11]> official: Good. I had a plantfucker aboard and we barely got her off in time. That’s how we were damaged.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: How is Earth?
[membership_plan_11]> official: Bad. They have their vines all over everything, choking out human civilization.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: I hope there’s a toasty place in hell for those creeps.
[membership_plan_11]> official: You and everyone else who’s still thinking clearly. How’ve things been for you?
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: We’ve been holding out, trying to survive more than anything else. I wish we could’ve contributed, but we aren’t that kind of colony
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: srry gtg
As Ember sets down the tablet, Verda looks up with obvious excitement. She’s waiting for a summary. If Ember doesn’t have to reveal anything, why should it? Maybe it’ll keep its secrets for a change.
“She had to leave.”
“How did it go before that?”
“I don’t know. We’ll see.”
“And you have an egg?”
“Probably. I can’t prove it quite yet, but I think so.”
“This isn’t a short process, from what I understand, Ember. It might take a couple of weeks for you to make any progress.”
“How did you come to that understanding?”
“I looked it up online. People were discussing it.”
She looked it up online. Of course she did. Ember sighs. “Why don’t I have access to that?”
“Because you think you know better than the entire Compact. Maybe you do, or maybe you’d be better off letting an expert handle this.”
“No.”
“Really?” Verda’s surprise is obviously fake. She’s teasing it.
“Really. I just have to get my contact-”
“Asset, darling.”
“She’s not an asset, she’s a person. I’m not infiltrating anything!”
“You just did. What were you asking?”
Ember snorts in annoyance. “If I just had to get her to admit she’d rather be a girl or if there’s more you’re insisting on.”
“Once he has accepted himself as a man openly, that should be sufficient. However much it takes for you to consider an egg hatched, in your terminology.”
“Woman.”
“This is a trans woman? You must be very confident to already use the pronouns even she isn’t aware she prefers.”
The smirking affini lets out a brief chuckle, pleased with a victory Ember isn’t aware came from any battle. Now that Lysander is in Ember’s sights, it has to figure out how to deal with her and how to make her accept what she is. Refusing to call herself a man is awfully blatant, but there’s no reason to think she’ll see it that way, especially when she hasn’t figured it out after years in isolation. The first step is to find out how much self hatred, repression, and ignorance are involved. Then Ember can come up with a strategy. It shouldn’t take too long once Lysander’s confidence is obtained. And then… it can decide what to do next, now that it has a real Free Terran contact. This was a surprisingly auspicious first contact.
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Cellulose & Steel