TRP - Day 14 (Patreon)

Genevieve has been burdened with a mystery and a harsh incentive to solve it. Worried as she is about Sam and Rigel, her new robotic bee-like companion offers to help in a strange and unexpected way.

The following contains delicious plot, permaberry doing his thing, a certain lunch lady, Genevieve and Bee Friend, and more! 

Written by the marvelous Rabidbadger of FA! Illustrated by yours truly. 

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Genevieve shivered a little, though she couldn’t say for certain what it was that did it. There was no shortage of potential causes – the mere idea that an AI had tried to get into her systems, that she was expected to investigate, the idea that Rigel had come so close to some kind of point of no return, and the empty bed in the middle of their dorm were all completely valid reasons.

For his part, Rigel felt it. One of the oddities he’d come to find after that overdose with the small berry bush – still sitting and calling to his senses like a siren from the other side of the room – was that whatever process had left him nigh spherical and rich blue had also left his scales far more leathery, softer, and generally more sensitive. Had they still been the solid things they were a few days ago (hours ago, even) he wouldn’t have picked up on the small response from the vixen sitting beside him.

Neither had said anything for the last half hour, they’d just waited – looking anywhere but right at each other – often choosing the door instead. Something, they reasoned, would have to come through it and break the tension eventually – probably Sam.

It wasn’t the door which did it – but rather Genevieve’s tablet. The soft ping of an incoming message with the extra little buzz of a high priority tag to it. She was in no way surprised to find that it had come from Professor Victoria, though she did make note of the copy that was directed to Reginald – that had been their roommate’s primary instructor.

She mumbled through the first line or two, before realizing Rigel was probably either trying to read over her shoulder, or trying to be polite enough not to. After that, she backpedaled to the start, and read aloud.

Genevieve

In order to raise the chances you’ll be able to find something for us, Professor Reginald and I have chosen to include you in all exchanged information related to this investigation. More may follow, but for now, thanks to the help of your former roommate and the station’s custodial drones, we know that the installer of the illegal communication device and suspected conspirator is likely a student, with primarily blue coloring, and white highlights. 

There were a couple of heartbeats worth of time that past after she stopped reading, after which both spoke at once.

Rigel with a thoughtful; “Blue and white…”

Genevieve a more ominous; “…Former roommate?”

They finally made eye contact, though both did so while staring with their mouth half open and unsure of what to actually say. Rigel managed to break the tension first in this case.

“So, he’s not- do you think this is related…? That whoever we’re looking for did something?”

The vixen couldn’t exactly go pale, but she felt all warmth leave her skin at the mere thought. Was that possible, even? She swallowed hard, before sending a reply to her instructor, asking as much. Asking what happened to the badger, whether they could see him. The response was prompt, if brief.

“She doesn’t know, says that’s Reginald’s concern and he’s not answering, but she’ll try to find out.”
 Rigel’s face tightened up a bit, while his hands slid toward his still swollen middle. The thing was pliant, soft. It squished inward readily when he pressed against it, and only took its old shape again slowly, like a dense sponge or a stress ball.

“That’s not a no.”

Genevieve found herself trying very hard not to stare at Rigel’s belly, and even harder not to reach out and poke it. 

“No, so we should… do something. Though I’m not sure what.”

It was right about when she was failing at that, seeing just how much of her pinky finger she could get to disappear into Rigel’s azure belly, that a sharp buzzing behind her startled the both of them and got her turning around. 

Both vixen and lizard found themselves staring at Genevieve’s bee drone, which was engaged in a bizarre, furious little dance of sorts. It kept backing up, turning around, buzzing, raising its butt, doing all manner of bizarre things that couldn’t possibly seem more organic to Rigel, and which were having the truly crazy effect of actually spelling out a message to Genevieve. Sort of. She got impressions, not exactly words, but enough of an intent to know what it wanted.

“…It thinks it can help. If I… consent?”

The last two words set the little drone thing’s antennae standing straight up, then vibrating a little, before the fuzzy mechanical insectoid crawled up toward Genevieve’s swollen butt, turned itself around slowly, and bumped its rear end into hers.

Genevieve had just enough time to register the faint poking sensation, and Rigel just enough to spot the needle before it retracted into the drone, before the vixen got half of a word out and then commenced sliding slowly off her bed to the floor in a bleary, staring, lightly drooling heap. 

*** 

Her eyes snapped back open all at once, complete with gasped in breath, and with Rigel still staring down at her and having barely moved. 

“What. WHAT!? Did he sting my butt?!”

The lizard blinked hard at her after that, before glancing aside – which Genevieve followed with her eyes. Her bee was sitting back, almost under the bed, looking either worried, or exhausted, or… something. 

“For starters. Yes. Then other things happened.”

Genevieve’s eyes narrowed to slights, first at the bee, then at Rigel who had backed half a step away and was darting his eyes from one to the other.

“What. Other. Things?”

Rigel’s shiny blue faces shook ‘no’ at that abruptly and emphatically.

“Nuh-uh. That’s between you and him.”

She turned her head slowly back toward her drone, which was now fully under the bed, wiggling its antennae pitifully and making quiet little noises. Mechanical trilling sounds. She got a strange mix of signals from it. Confusion, hope, pride – it was such an odd thing to feel it, as she thought the matter through.

That little drone was so simple – the programming in it was barely more sophisticated than an actual insect. Yet, the feelings came through as genuine. In that horrifying, momentary brush with the other thing she’d gotten the barest sense of a much vaster intellect, and no emotional depth at all. That thing had ‘felt’ metal. 

Bee friend felt fuzzy, and squishy, and warm.

Genevieve let out a frustrated breath, and with it, most of her anger. She opted not to accuse, not to lash out, but to do something a bit more constructive. Drone communication indeed.

“What the heck was that?”

The drone seemed to pick up on the change in mood instantly, and flew out onto her middle. Plastering across her belly, buzzing loudly, nuzzling at the crest of her gut. 

“Help… inside. Growing.”

Genevieve blinked, slowly. From the bee, to Rigel again.

“Well, he definitely put something inside. If it’s gonna grow into help, great. In the meantime, I picked up a couple things just listening to people while in the juvenile detention centers. We might want to check the student records for anyone with that coloring pattern, or if we can’t get that, maybe ask some of the major figures on the station?”

Inside. Genevieve wasn’t sure if she felt something or not – she thought she did, a little thing, moving – but that could just be nerves. She knew how easy it was to have one’s senses play tricks on them because of expectations. But whatever the hell did happen, it had been bee friend’s doing – he was safe, he’d been checked out by a professor first hand. So, she was safe. Probably. As safe as she ever was here. Plus, Rigel had made a couple decent points, and something constructive might just help her nerves. 

“Okay, I’ll ask Victoria if they keep that kind of information on file. While we’re at that, we can both pick someone to go ask. Someone who sees lots of students preferably, not just ones from one class subset either…”

Rigel nodded, and seemed to have a response ready and waiting to go.

“I’ll try the nurse. You try the lunch lady.”

Something entirely unrelated to the weirdness at hand left Genevieve’s insides squirming about, every errant pound she’d packed on in these short days since arriving in this place seemed to cringe in their places, glued wherever they were to her ever-growing ass. Of course, the lunch lady would be the perfect person to ask about something like this. That colossal sow with the industrial ore processing unit for a digestive system saw damn near every student on the station, every day. 

If she had a passably decent memory and wasn’t color-blind she might just be of help.

“Great. That’s… brilliant. Let’s go do that, and we’ll just meet back here in half an hour, or something.”

Rigel held a perfect, blue hand down. It was pretty close to the same color as her hair, Genevieve realized. She caught up enough to take the hand and let it help her and bee friend up from the floor a moment after that thought.

“Half an hour then.”

*** 

Sebastian sat nervously outside the nurse’s office, wringing his hands and trying to ignore the sense of having a brick in his stomach, and heartburn at the same time, but wanting desperately to comfort eat despite it. Something was still wrong, and he was still having a hard time figuring out what, but that’s why he was where he was. Maybe it was just some kind of foresight about a health issue? Maybe it was his friend subtly telling him things, or just his expanded perceptions making him more sensitive to it. He was more sensitive to things, some of his senses worked in totally different metrics now. Some of them were fantastic, simple repurposed uses of things he could already do.

Granted, the capacity to hear through solid objects by pressing his belly against them was a bit less dramatic than using his fingers, but the software wasn’t embedded in his fingers, he didn’t really have any fat in them to speak of and little nanite density there. Yet. 

He hadn’t even discovered it on purpose, he just leaned on a door the first time. Now, in the waiting room, he found something similar happening. It wasn’t perfect – translating through the chair frame, the floor, then the air inside the office, but he was still hearing things.

…nts with blue and white c…

…an’t disclose information about my patients I’m afraid Ri…

…erstand, I suppose I’ll go wait on Genevieve…

Sebastian felt his skin freeze, his fur stand on end. He stayed as tightly packed into the corner as he could while the blue scaled reptile walked out of the nurse’s office. Listening, but doing his best to avoid attracting attention.

“Should’ve figured I guess. Hopefully the lunch lady is a bit less restricted – or just easier to talk into breaking rules.”

The cat watched Rigel, the only person he’d seen around here bluer than he was, head out of the office without turning to look at him. He did plenty of staring for his part though, and found himself ignoring it when his name was called for the nurse. Instead, Sebastian carefully worked his ass loose of the slightly too tight chair arms, and strode out into the halls. He didn’t know who the blazes Genevieve was, but he sorely doubted he’d have a hard time spotting someone interrogating the lunch lady. 

He walked briskly until he reached the halls, and then ran.

*** 

She didn’t want to do this. Genevieve was hovering at the doorway of the cafeteria, hesitating to walk in in the same way one might waver outside the house of someone they would ask on a date. She definitely felt that kind of confusion and insecurity about the matter – the whole situation left her self-conscious in uniquely intense ways. 

The vixen watched for a few minutes, the comings and goings of students. Practically all of them were overweight, yes. Not quite as much as she was in most cases, and that sow in there was the reason for it. That thing had gone and seized control of her life for a week, and condemned her to a harsh appetite and a giant butt for probably the rest of her days. Also, she had slightly more vibrant blue going on in her hair, and that was hard to forgive.

But Genevieve needed help, and there was only so much time. She exhaled, rolled her eyes at herself, then started the awkward waddle up to the lunch lady’s little circular fortress of gluttony in the center of the chamber. 

“Well look who it is! Don’t ask to get at my trough again. That was a special case.”

The vixen shut her eyes through the joke. Both because it was a bit on the lame end of the scale, and because the instant the sow reminded her it existed she had to wrestle with some piece of her that did want to bury her face in half-eaten food again and just wallow for however many hours it took to make it all gone. 

“No, ma’am. I uhm, I need to ask something.”

The sow straightened a little at that, and tilted her head slightly. Genevieve tried to ignore the way the woman’s gut shifted and gurgled, it sounded like some kind of cavernous maw, or otherworldly monstrosity waking from a deep slumber. She could only guess at what it sounded like on the other end, luckily the room was generally spared that given that the sow still had that hose in her backside twenty-four hours a day from what she could tell. 

“Alright, what’s wrong dear?”

Genevieve exhaled, taking a moment to compose herself. To make sure she thought of the right question, and didn’t say something impulsive that would leave her with lunch detention again. Honestly. Lunch ladies giving detention. 

“I’ve got an assignment from one of my Professors to find someone, and right now all I have to go on is this – it’s a student with mainly blue coloring, and some white highlights. I figured… you probably see more students in a day than anyone else on the station? Plus, you aren’t just seeing one clique of them, you know? Everyone has to eat. So…”

There was a loud clap, flesh on flesh, as two flabby trotters collided and set her upper body wobbling around visibly.

“You came to the right place! I totally do know a few folks. Or, well, I see them kind of regularly. You say this is something a Professor signed off on, right? If that’s the case, I can have you contacted next time I see those specific people, record who they are as they go through their lunch transaction. Just have the Professor forward me a formal request.”

Genevieve exhaled shakily, and let herself smile. 

“Seriously?! Thank you! I’ll have Victoria, Professor Victoria that is, send you something right away. Should just be a matter of time then.”

The sow smiled wide, her cheeks and chins jiggling a bit in the process.

“My pleasure dear, I’ll be looking forward to it. Oh, and – well, don’t tell anyone, but if you really want another go at the trough I was mostly joking.”

Genevieve’s stomach went through a traitorous twisting dance at the thought, which her brain violently ignored and her face stumbled through some clumsy reactions after.

“Nothanksthat’sokay! Ihavetogonowbye.”

She didn’t manage to stop herself from blushing, or staring right at the place that the floor opened up into the sow’s little sanctum of hedonism the instant the mention was made. She also didn’t stop to look behind her, both because she was fairly sure she’d go right for the food if she did, and because her tablet pinged her once more in the same instant. A fresh message from Professor Victoria waited therein.

Genevieve

While we do have photographs of most of the students from their entry to the university, very few people keep their original appearance for long here. We can check the records for coloration, and we do have an indexed search going, but I’m afraid we can’t expect that to turn up a clear answer for us. 

P.S. I’m attaching a navigational node. If you want to visit your old roommate just follow it, but don’t wait too long. Most of the egg vectors get a little too lost in the experience to remember how to talk clearly after a few days in the rookery.

Genevieve stared hard at that message. Answers, instead of questions. Quite a pleasant change of pace, really – or it would’ve been if the answers had been more reassuring. As it was, she checked the node – and the time. She was almost due to regroup with Rigel, they could figure out the rest of this from there. 

Or he could. Honestly, the vixen was having the hardest time thinking straight now that her stomach was complaining at her – she kept feeling it move. Little twitches and twangs, and a knot buried deep inside it that wasn’t going away and made her want to waddle even wider than usual to keep from squeezing it. 

“This week has sucked so much – they’d better give me tons of extra credit if I survive this nonsense…”

*** 

Sebastian watched the data packets flutter into the hardware in the bloated vixen’s tablet. She’d clearly been the other one the lizard was discussing, and worse still, she had confirmed his suspicions. The message though, that was the bright spot in the whole thing.

They didn’t know – not just yet. He had time. Yes, it meant avoiding the lunch lady until the dye job keeping his fur blue had grown out but that wasn’t such a terrible thing.

It means that right now. It means that, unless they find out more. 

The thought wasn’t his. It was that vaguely distant tone his friend used, but as was always the case, she was right. 

“So, what… what do I do?”

There was a moment where he felt her at work, felt the hot twinge of data being accessed all over his body. All that body fat, repurposed as hard drive space, with his friend’s mind sprawling across each swollen inch of him. He liked to amuse himself by imagining what part of his body she pulled answers from sometimes – if he was literally getting test answers from his ass. 

You know the answer. 

Sebastian’s eyes narrowed, and he caught himself in a reflection he cast on one of the more polished metal corridor walls.

“No, I don’t. What are you talking about?”

The tingling came again, but less intense. Just the handful of software packages needed to communicate.

You exchanged a list of needed subjects with me, and a list of already researched ones, early into our association. Included in your list of self-researched topics was information on the station’s custodial drone population.

The cat squinted at himself a little, lips pursed in confusion. He glanced down at his own tablet, at the intercepted message.

“…The rookery. Former roommate. He’ll be producing like crazy for the first few hours. I could…”

Sebastian felt a rush of revulsion hit him – a deluge of old nightmares that he’d never entirely come to terms with. He leaned on the wall for support, swallowing the taste of bile, shutting his eyes.

I concur, this is the most plausible course of action. Any other attempt to remove your pursuers will result in bodies. Evidence. If they are assimilated into the custodial population, they will cease to be a threat. You will outrank them, and can order them to protect you. It even avoids the issue of violence. A very elegant choice of course.

The cat looked at the node – it immediately flew into an overlay on his visual user interface that displayed precisely which corridors to follow to find the rookery. 

“…I’ll have to get there ahead of them if this is going to work. Let’s go.”