Esterwood was, on the whole, not a very child-friendly dome. There just plain wasn’t all that much for kids to do with their free time. Somewhere like Anchorsway or Locksmouth had options, and even Harbington had its mall. Esterwood had a fairly small shopping district that was probably fine enough for most teenagers, but there weren’t really any stores that catered to people Sophie’s age. The school had a playground, along with a few sports facilities, but those got old pretty quickly and anyway Siti couldn’t exactly use them for obvious reasons. They could always stay at home and play video games, and very often that was what they ended up doing. But not necessarily because any of them wanted to so much as because Siti couldn’t manage to get out of bed and Sophie didn’t want to leave her out.

But, well, no child could really manage to just sit around doing the same thing all day every day. And so, when video games got boring and sports wasn’t an option and you really didn’t want to resort to just running around in circles in the backyard again, there was only one option.

“Hey, welcome!”

“Hi, Miss Carolina,” Siti said, waving.

“I see a new face!” the arcade’s owner said, waving from behind the prize desk. “Did the pack expand again?”

“Uh. Something like that.” The siamese cat trotted over to the front desk and stood on her tip toes in order to be able to at all see over it. “May we please have some tokens?”

“How many?”

“Oh, um.” Siti turned around to the other kids. “How many tokens?”

“We’re probably not going to be here for very long,” Sophie said authoritatively. “There’s a town meet later, right?”

“Ugh, do we gotta go to the town meet? They’re always so boring.”

“I promised Vicky we’d meet up there,” Sophie replied with a shrug. “And anyway, Miss Phoebe probably has to go. She’s always got stuff to say at town meets, don’t be a buttball.”

“I’m not being a buttball!”

“Kids. It’s fine,” Phoebe interjected with a patient smile. “Kelly’s going to handle the counter while I’m at the town meet, and I can let your older sister know you’re here. Just stay as long as you like. Worst case scenario, if you buy too few tokens you can just buy a few more, and if you buy too many then you can just use ‘em next time you come here, right?”

“Oh, uh, okay. How about ffffffive hundred tokens for now? There’s five of us now, so that’s a hundred tokens each. That should be a few hours’ worth of tokens, depending on what games we pick.”

“Sounds good!” Phoebe poked her PET’s screen a few times before holding it up and over the counter so Siti could reach it with her own. The process was quick, painless, and mostly automatic. Luckily, both Siti and Sophie had fairly generous allowances of Luxury Notes, so the price wasn’t really a problem. They could probably collectively afford to live entirely in the arcade for a few days if they really wanted to. They wouldn’t, of course. If they did then they wouldn’t be able to visit the arcade again until they got more allowance, unless they managed to convince Vicky to take them. Which wasn’t really a reliable proposition. As much as the elder sheep liked using the arcade as leverage, she wasn’t a pushover.

“Okay, everyone gather round,” Sophie ordered. “PETs out.”

Ami felt kind of weird owning a PET, considering that strictly speaking she sort of was a PET. Her mobile projector was mostly built out of salvaged PET parts, after all. But, well, it would obviously stand out if she didn’t have a cell phone when everyone else had cell phones. She could, she supposed, have pretended her parents were naturalists, but as it was her cover story stretched credulity. And her family being naturalists was just a little bit too specific to not prompt uncomfortable questions. And so she owned a PET. It was weird, but she was really the only one who realized it was weird.

Still, she couldn’t help but dwell on the fact that everything it could do, she could do better. It was miles beyond anything the average pre-splice smartphone had ever been capable of – much closer to a full on high-end desktop PC in tablet form. But, well, Ami herself was miles beyond even the highest-end desktop PC. The superest supercomputer. But she couldn’t really make use of that without blowing her cover. And, frankly, she’d already blown her fucking cover enough today.

She held out her PET and, after a moment, Siti transferred a hundred tokens to it. That was neat, she supposed. More convenient than physical coins – honestly, she was pretty sure that post-splicers flat out didn’t even have physical money anymore period.

The Arcade was a lot bigger than Ami had really expected, given how small Esterwood was. She was honestly surprised there were enough people in Sophie’s age group to justify a Chuck E. Cheese knockoff, especially not such a large one. And, on further thought, she realized that there probably weren’t. If this were pre-splice, the Arcade would likely have been doomed to failure. But, well, it wasn’t. Money, as far as she understood it, wasn’t really an issue. Everyone was guaranteed a bare minimum of survivability – food, basic shelter, clothes, and other necessities could be paid for with a stipend that everyone got automatically. And then if you wanted any luxuries you could choose to get a job and build up a stockpile of Luxury Notes, or at least to a point. There was apparently a wealth cap at which point you literally weren’t allowed to earn more money.

Which, really, all of that was well beyond what Ami had any frame of reference for. She understood the system, of course. She was a computer, numbers were her element. It’s just that she was also a kid, and so didn’t really care. Really, the only point of this that was actually directly relevant to her was that it didn’t really matter if the Arcade didn’t have a particularly big customer base, so long as it had one at all. It could afford to be spacious because the economy was basically just a formality at this point.

The space was divided roughly into two sections. There was a relatively small restaurant section, with tables and chairs and a small stage – presumably for some kind of animatronic show. This was also where the front counter was, manned by a frumpy looking squirrel who was apparently named Phoebe Carolina. Given her experiences with Post Splice proportions, Ami was honestly surprised someone could even be frumpy, but Phoebe rose admirably to the challenge. She was short, or at least had extremely bad posture, with big round glasses – not thick, just large and unfashionable – and frizzy hair that was tightly but not very well braided. Even her clothing was frumpy, her fashion sense not all that far removed from Viola’s.

The other segment, and indeed the bulk of the space, was dedicated entirely to games. Ami had come in expecting video games, but instead the roster seemed to mostly be carnival fare, albeit reskinned to fit Post-Splice sensibilities. There weren’t a lot of games that she recognized, but in one corner there was a crane machine with plushes of what she assumed was the Arcade’s mascot, and there was an entire wall of Skeeball. Beat Basher, the game that Viktor had claimed, seemed to be some sort of variation on Whack-a-Mole, themed after a simplified keyboard. Instead of moles, there were little robotic musical notes and instead of a hammer you hit buttons on the keyboard, which made a piano-style hammer hit the notes and make them sing. Sophie and Siti had both taken up positions playing a game called Asteroid Miner, which looked to be a 3D version of Asteroids. There were holographic projections of asteroids, floating in formation, and shooting them made them break up and start moving. Sort of like a combination between a really high-tech lightgun game and one of those cabinets where you’d throw balls at empty milk bottles.

Honestly, all of this was just a bit overwhelming for Ami. She intellectually knew what arcades were like – but she’d never been to even a normal arcade before, let alone a weird post-splice arcade where everything was just slightly different. At least they got the decor right. They called it Star Fantasia, but Ami knew what it was – it was the ‘90s, distilled to its essence. Dark blue carpeting with neon pink and blue and yellow and purple spirals and squiggles and lines and shapes in patterns that somehow managed to be both consistent and chaotic. It looked random but it wasn’t. It was an aesthetic that was well documented in her archives and she recognized it immediately.

It’s just that the vast majority of the games trended more towards Beat Basher or Asteroid Miner than they did to Skeeball or the crane machine – the latter of which looked like it didn’t exactly see much use. Still, there was skeeball and there was a small collection of pinball machines. There were plenty of ways they could have post-splice-ified pinball, but it looks like they’d at least managed to get the core concept right. And she outright couldn’t imagine any kind of twist on skeeball that wouldn’t result in it outright not being skeeball anymore.

Ultimately, she decided on a Cap’n Comet themed pinball table. It somehow seemed fitting. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that she was really fucking bad at pinball. Being a computer, she had nearly perfect reflexes – especially considering that the post-splice communications technology her remote projector was built from had hardly any latency to it. But it turns out that having perfect reflexes didn’t really matter if you couldn’t properly feel the tactile elements of pinball. The ball had a weight to it, and she couldn’t feel it as it moved around the table, hitting obstacles and paddles. It was a bigger handicap than she’d expected, and she couldn’t even really admit to it because that’d require outing herself. “Whatever, these places notoriously cheat anyway,” she grumbled to herself.

“Want to play skeeball?”

“Oh.” Ami hadn’t noticed Greta following her, which was impressive given how much bigger than her the moose was. “... yeah, okay. You can’t go wrong with skeeball.” Honestly, she’d probably have the same problem. Any analog game was going to be difficult for her because she was a hologram, even if she was a really high-tech hologram.

“It’s okay. I’m not very good at the games either. But it’s nice to spend time with my friends, and they have chicken tenders and Hazel’s shows are fun.”

“Who’s Hazel? Like, the mascot or something.”

“Oh, right! You probably don’t know Hazel yet.” Greta gently grabbed Ami by the wrist and ran over to the reception table. “Miss Phoebe, Miss Phoebe, can Hazel please put on a show? Ami hasn’t seen her yet.”

“Oh. Um, sorry. Hazel’s going to be... busy for a while. Maybe after the town meet.”

“Oh. No, it’s fine. Ami’s got plenty of time to see one of Hazel’s shows.” Ami had an inkling of what was going on, and the Look Greta gave her as they turned and headed back to the skeeball tables all but confirmed it. Hazel was clearly some kind of animatronic, remote controlled by Phoebe. She couldn’t put a show on because Phoebe was going to be leaving to attend the town meet soon, but everyone was just pretending that Hazel was her own, individual person. Which was fine. There was a sort of charm to that. It was kind of like Santa Claus – all the kids knew that he wasn’t real but they pretended to believe anyway because it was more fun. Same with Hazel, she assumed.

“Are there any video games, or is it all just carnival games?”

Greta tilted her head in confusion. “We’ve got video games at home.”

“Right, right, that makes sense,” Ami replied with a shrug. That was mildly unfortunate – she could definitely play video games well. Didn’t need any tactile feedback to be good at a video game. But, on the other hand, there were plenty of games that she was pretty sure she’d be decent at in spite of her holographic handicap. “Why don’t you show me what you like?” she said after a moment. It was a good excuse to get to know the kid better. She was gonna be stuck with them anyway, might as well at least build up an actual fucking friendship. Even if she still wasn’t really sure on that front.

Still, she couldn’t help but smile a bit as Greta enthusiastically led her back onto the Arcade floor, even if it was in spite of herself. Might as well make the best of a bad situation. Maybe she could even end up having some fun.

Or at least that’s what she was telling herself, trying her hardest to drown out her doubts.

~~~~~~

“So, let me get this straight. First of all we have Fantoma, Osoth’s chief assassin. Anyone she hated enough to want gone but not quite enough to deal with them herself, she’d sic you on.”

“Former chief assassin,” Aubrey replied tersely.

“And you would be Delphi, Osoth’s chief of intelligence. Or at least you assumed that role after Phactys defected to Echelon’s forces. Your work in studying the history and cultures of the many worlds we’ve targeted was invaluable in determining the optimal invasion plans.”

“I am entirely aware of that fact, yes,” Delphi hissed sullenly. “As is everyone in this room. Why, exactly, are we recapping things we all know?”

Rakni, for her part, completely failed to register Delphi’s complaint, instead turning her attention to the next in line. “But that’s not the end of it! Here we have Edifice. One of Osoth’s most prominent shock troopers. Technically not particularly high ranking, but where the likes of Laibon concerned themselves with tactics, you consistently fought on the front lines. I doubt there’s an Inkling alive who isn’t terrified of you.”

“Hmph.” Edifice frowned deeply, but said nothing more.

“Why, the only Osoth-loyal Elite I can think of who is more terrifying would be you, Titania. Osoth’s living siege engine. Countless civilizations have quite literally crumbled beneath your feet.”

“I would really rather not talk about that,” Titania replied, cringing as she tried not to think of all the destruction she’d wrought under Osoth’s command.

“Wonderful! Simply splendid!” Rakni clapped her hands together in delight. “My dear Miranda, I believe we have, as the saying goes, fallen in with the wrong crowd. What we have here is a collection of all of the most feared of Osoth’s loyal short of the Elders themselves. Absolutely delightful!”

“Your sarcasm is palpable and decidedly unappreciated,” Delphi snapped.

“Sarcasm? Oh, goodness, no, I am being entirely genuine.” She clapped another pair of hands together, slightly below and in front of the first. “You see, I am something of a coward. Rather than participating in the invasion, I hid inside Miranda here in the hopes of, ah, taking my leave in the confusion. Obviously, that did not play out as intended, but the end result is mostly satisfactory. No more war, no likelihood of dying horribly for a cause I don’t believe in. Of course, the problem with that is that the war isn’t really over. It’s just merely changed form.”

“What exactly are you getting at,” Edifice said with a deepening frown.

“Ah, my apologies, I am told I love the sound of my own voice,” Rakni said, clapping the final pair of hands together. “The point, to be as blunt as possible, is that the civil war has changed from a conflict between Echelon’s freedom and Osoth’s control, to an absolute free-for-all with the prize being Osoth’s vacated seat of power. And I have about as much interest in being involved in the former as I did in the latter. Understand?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with us.”

“Well, it’s like you all repeatedly stress; your loyalty to Osoth died with her. But the thing none of you seem to quite grasp is that fact is not common knowledge. In fact, I would go so far as to say that no Inkling beyond those in this room is aware of that fact. So anyone who, for example, might want to drag me kicking and screaming into the conflict for the Crown would, from their perspective, first have to deal with four of the most feared inklings there are. Next you’ll tell me that Vor is living in your basement? Or perhaps that lion boy from lunch is host to Actima? Ooooh, or perhaps you’ve got Zanto hiding in your closet?”

“No to all three.” Delphi glowered. “I don’t think I particularly like you.”

“You don’t have to like me, you just have to tolerate me,” Rakni said with a shrug from all six arms. “So long as Miranda is present, so am I.”

Delphi snapped back with some snide remark or another. None of the hosts on the other side of the mirror paid it much attention – all of their attention was, instead, on Miranda. The spider wasn’t really entirely sure how they managed to tune out their inklings’ bickering. Probably just practice, she supposed, considering there was, in fact, a gigantic mirror in the dining room. Specifically, a large closet with a mirrored surface on the sliding door, which had apparently been a large factor in choosing this particular house to squat in. It was, she supposed once again, a convenient feature for inked, making it easier for their inklings to participate in conversation without having to ink over.

“So Rakni’s power is pretty simple? Or at least I grasped it pretty easily. She can sort of... reinforce things. Objects, maybe people but I haven’t tried it yet for obvious reasons. Extends ink over them and in doing so makes them basically indestructible for as long as they stay inked.”

“That already sounds pretty useful. I can already think of way more situations I’d wanna have that power in than I can being able to see the past. Unless I wanna be a detective or something, I guess.” Ursula leaned back in her chair, quickly chugging a can of carbolate. “So what about the ropes?”

“Oh. Um, yeah. That’s the weird bit. Even Rakni doesn’t really know what’s up with that. The best I can guess is that when I reinforce my web, because it’s technically a part of me, I can sort of telekinetically control it? Like web-o-kinesis or something.”

“Wait, ew, that was your web?”

“Hey, hey, it’s probably the least gross bodily fluid there is.”

“It’s not like she’s an actual spider,” Vienna interjected diplomatically. “Spider subtypes have their spinnerets in their wrists. Animal spiders have ‘em in their butts.

“Woah, huh, didn’t know that,” Ursula said. “Okay, ew withdrawn.”

“Well, regardless of your power, you’re more than welcome in our home,” Erin said with a smile that was, to her credit, only slightly strained. “So long as you behave yourself.”

“Yeah, uh. Yeah. No more starting fights.”

“Well, we weren’t exactly innocent in that regard,” Vienna said sheepishly. “I definitely coulda worked a bit harder to diffuse things.”

“Yes. We’re all working to improve ourselves,” Erin said, taking a sip of her tea. “You’re not alone in that regard, and it would be hypocritical of us to judge you for not being perfectly socially adept.”

“Right, right.” Miranda shuffled awkwardly, suddenly extremely aware of being the centre of attention. “So. Um. What now?”

“Well,” Viola said, before cringing as all attention moved from Miranda to her. The spider felt a little relieved, only to immediately feel bad about feeling relief. “Um. First off we should probably make sure your family are okay with you moving in with us. And, um, that they’re aware of the arrangement at all. So they don’t get worried and declare you a missing person or something.”

“Okay yeah that’d be bad,” Vienna said. “You should also probably take the opportunity to grab your stuff and move it here?”

“How much shit do you even got?” Ursula interjected. “We can make a group project outta it if there’s too much for just you.”

“I think I can probably handle it on my own,” Miranda replied with a shrug. “Don’t, uh, you know, don’t really need an extra pair of hands to help when I’ve got two of my own built in. Ha ha.”

“One of us should probably come with you anyway,” Vienna said. “I don’t know how your parents would react to you just announcing that you’re moving in with a bunch of people they’ve never even seen, but ours would freak the fuck out.”

“... Yeah, okay, that’s probably a good point. I also probably can’t move furniture on my own. Do you guys have any spare beds?”

“That’s a good question,” Ursula said with a shrug. “The house came with a bunch of furniture already installed and shit. I never bothered to check how many beds there are.”

“Yes, well, I’m certain that we have enough spare rooms to expand our pack significantly considering that someone insisted that if we were going to take an empty house anyway we might as well take the biggest available empty house even though there’s only four of us.”

“Listen. It’s called future proofing.”

Erin rolled her eyes. “Future proofing what, darling?”

“Clearly it was necessary,” Ursula retorted, gesturing her head at Miranda.

Erin sighed. “Fine, fine, that’s a valid point. I still think that this is far more space than we will ever need, so we might as well get to work on filling it as best as possible. One more person is welcome.”

“Well, regardless of what you guys decide, I’m going with her.” Vienna stood up. “We only really need one person to go with her and I’m generally the best possible first impression.”

“Fair enough,” Ursula said, accompanied by another shrug. “Viola’s way too timid, I’m too intimidating, Erin’s still working on her social skills.”

“Yeah. Just need to, y’know, get myself into a ‘make a good first impression’ state of mind. Don’t want Miranda’s family thinking she’s fallen in with the wrong crowd.”

“She kinda has though.”

“We’re not that bad,” Vienna said, rolling her eyes. “C’mon, let’s get going. You lead the way.”

“Right!” That made sense, Miranda supposed – obviously, Vienna didn’t know where her house was. Or former house, she supposed, technically. So of course she had to lead the way, that just made sense. Although, on the other hand, that also didn’t change the fact that she could feel Vienna’s eyes on her rear. “Uh. Maybe we can... You know? If you’re okay with it? We’ve got plenty of time and-”

“Maybe later,” Vienna replied tersely, pointedly averting her eyes. “It’s... You know, it’s not a problem, it’s not like I’m against it or anything. But I feel like Viola probably wants first dibs.”

“... Does she?”

“I’m like, ninety percent sure that most of why she wanted you to join was because of your ass.”

“Oh. Yeah. She, uh, she was staring. A lot.”

“She has a very healthy libido.” Vienna shrugged. “You get used to it.”

“It’s not like I mind or anything. I, uh, I kinda don’t have any experience on that front.”

“Understandable. Feel free to ask Viola when we get you settled in, she’s definitely down to have you sit on her face or something. After we get you settled in.”

“Gotcha, gotcha. Anyway, uh, home’s this way?”

“Right.” With that, the two girls turned and walked down the cold, empty streets of Esterwood. “I guess it’s prolly getting to be the time of year when you’ve gotta break out the Undersuit,” Vienna muttered.

“Has there been any snow yet?”

“Nope, but any day now.” Generally, Esterwood’s weather control systems were a lot more finicky than other, newer domes’ were. Between that, and the age of the dome itself, the weather inside generally much more closely matched the weather outside. Which made it just that little bit more unpredictable. “I hear that Travers are planning on updating all that outdated tech at some point.

“That makes sense. This place isn’t really big enough to fit a Fabricatory, and if they’re gonna be expanding it anyway they might as well update things that could use updating.”

“They’ve been arguing about it with the Arbitrators at basically every town meet since they got here.” Vienna furrowed her brow and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Ugh, right, I completely forgot that there’s a Town Meet today, isn’t there? God dammit, we probably shouldn’t skip this one. Even if I really fucking wanna skip this one.”

“Well, we’ve got a lot going on as it is. I don’t think anyone would judge you if you decided to stay home.”

“Ha. Trust me, this is Esterwood. People are going to find reasons to judge us anyway.”

“... Oh.”

That well and truly killed any semblance of conversation between the two girls. Vienna clearly wasn’t in the most talkative mood to begin with, while Miranda was mostly concerned with the implications.

Suddenly, she found her earlier optimism about living in Esterwood beginning to evaporate.

~~~~~~

“Hit me.”

“Ursula, you’re at 20.”

“Hit me.”

“Okay, well, a five. You bust.”

“Hit me!”

“Ursula you’ve already lost.”

“Oh. Is that what bust means?”

“Yes.”

“I thought it was an old-fashioned term for tits.”

Viola buried her face in her hands. This wasn’t the first time she’d tried to teach Ursula Blackjack, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. She did not, it seemed, have a head for card games. She had similar problems with Poker, Bridge, War, Old Maid, and Go Fish. Still, Poker had been a fairly big hit with the others (even if Ursula was fucking awful at it), and so Viola had asked Bob to teach her more card games. Mostly poker variants, a few of the simpler games, and Blackjack. Viola liked Blackjack in particular because it was simple, didn’t really require too much strategy, and you could do like five rounds in as many minutes, maybe even more. Great for wasting time whenever they needed to waste time. No chance of not finishing the game. The one downside, Viola supposed, was that you needed at least two people. So in situations where she was alone she was stuck with solitaire.

Of course, it was only really good as a time waster. Apparently pre-splicers took it a lot more seriously. There had even been people who played Blackjack for a living. Viola couldn’t really understand that. Maybe poker? There was at least an element of skill to poker. With blackjack, if the dealer draws into a 21 immediately then that’s it, you lose. No bluffing your way out of that. And people would bet money on this, back in a time when money was more than just a luxury. Viola still hadn’t quite wrapped her head around gambling, but there was a part of her that kind of understood the appeal. There was a certain thrill to running the risk of losing everything for the chance to win big. But not on Blackjack.

Honestly, Viola found herself talking to Bob quite a lot. And not just about card games, either. He gave... surprisingly good advice, so long as you were willing to pick through the bullshit to see what he was actually getting at. She was pretty sure that was the intended effect. He never just told her what to do, except in the most roundabout of ways. No, he expected her to work it out herself. All he’d do is point her in the right direction. Which, she supposed, in a weird sort of way, was why she kept finding herself going back to him. After all, what the fuck kind of leader would go to someone else every time she had to make a hard decision? A shitty one, that’s what.

“Hit me.”

“Ursula the game’s over, I literally just put the cards away.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry, darling, I’m sure you’ll understand it eventually if you just keep trying~” Erin interjected with a shit eating smirk on her face. Viola repressed the urge to cringe.

“Maybe Erin can give you some tips?”

“On the other hand, perhaps it would be wise to know when to give up and move on to a different game.”

“Eh, it’s fine. I’ve mostly got it down. You just keep on saying ‘hit me’ until you win, right?”

“Just remember to stop once you do win, darling.”

“I can wing it.”

“... It’s fine. It’s not like we’re taking this at all seriously.”

“Well, yeah, it’s just a game, right?”

“Exactly,” Viola replied, electing not to go into the whole ‘people playing this for a living’ thing.

Thankfully, any further blackjack talk was interrupted by the doorbell. Although it was something of a mixed blessing. Viola felt herself tensing up on instinct, and she could see that Erin and Ursula did the same. Just a little bit, not enough that you would see it if you didn’t know to look for it.

“... I’ll get it,” Ursula said after a moment. “Y’all make sure to stay de-inked, okay? And you in the peanut gallery, keep quiet for now.” One of the biggest reasons they had elected to live on their own was that they were much less likely to have someone barge in on them when they were doing Inkling stuff. They could be inked around the house or have casual conversations with their Inklings with significantly less risk of being outed. But they still occasionally got visitors, and not all of those visitors were in on the secret.

Lars rarely bothered with the doorbell because... well, why should he? There was no need to warn everyone that he was going to be coming in because he was always alone and he knew everyone inside was inked anyway so fuck it. Vicky was more of a tossup. If she was alone, she took the Lars route of just barging in, but she was much more likely to not be alone – sometimes she had to look after her sister’s pack, after all. Ami, meanwhile, always rang the doorbell. Mostly because, according to her, ringing the doorbell was fun. Apparently. Viola couldn’t understand it and kind of wish she’d not do that unless it was necessary because the doorbell was stressful. They couldn’t ever let their guards down when they had guests, after all. You never knew for sure who else was a closet inked.

“Hey, guys, I brought a friend,” Vicky loudly announced. Normally she’d not bother with that, but it was important to make absolutely sure everyone knew they had a guest.

“Hi, Vicky,” Ursula said, not particularly enthused. “Who’s this?”

“She’s lost,” Vicky explained tersely.

“... Lost.”

“Yes.”

“She’s gotta be, like, our age.”

“You’re one to talk, miss gets lost in the woods for a week.”

“That-” Ursula bit her lip. “Okay fine, fair enough.”

“Anyway, she’s gonna be crashing here with me until the town meet. I figure that’s our best bet if we wanna find her parents.”

“S-sorry. Um. I’ll be real quiet.”

The girl, another rabbit, attempted to hide behind Vicky. It didn’t work, because Vicky wasn’t exactly very tall. Neither was the new girl, but between the two of them she was decidedly the taller. All of her clothes were bright, pastel colours that clashed with her brown fur. Pink shoes, yellow-green pants, yellow shirt with a cartoon character that Viola didn’t recognize on it, and a translucent blue jacket with pink pockets. All of it was slightly undersized on her figure. Her hair was long and unkempt, a fact that drew an irritated click of the tongue from Erin.

“Girls, this is Lilly. Lilly, this is Viola, Erin, and Ursula. They’re nicer than they look.”

“It’s, um, nice to meet you?” Lilly cringed further behind Vicky in response.

“You can watch cartoons in the living room for now. I’ll be with you in a bit but I’ve got some stuff to talk about with the others first. Erin, can you supervise her?”

“Yes,” Erin replied tersely, eyes focused on Lilly’s messy mane. “I need to deal with that rat’s nest anyway.”

“Um?”

“... Don’t go too hard on the kid, okay?”

“I’ll be gentle, but it’s best to deal with that now, before it gets unsalvageable.” She crossed her arms and frowned – more concern than annoyance, now that Viola took the time to really properly parse her reaction. “Long hair is hard to deal with, but you need to deal with it. Letting it get this bad is unhealthy.”

“S-sorry.”

Erin sighed. “No need to apologize. Sometimes you just need a little help. It might be a good idea to consider getting it cut sho-”

“No!”

Even Lilly herself seemed to be startled at her sudden outburst. “Um. I- I mean, um. I, um, I don’t like haircuts.”

“That’s fine. Short hair is easier, but if that’s not an option then we’ll just have to teach you how to manage long hair.”

“O-okay.”

“This way, darling,” Erin said gently, gesturing with her head towards the living room. “You can watch cartoons while I comb.”

Lilly shyly hid behind Vicky for a few more moments before swallowing nervously and nodding. “Okay.” She shakily stepped forward and followed Erin. “I wanna watch Laney.”

“You can watch whatever you want, Darling.”

As soon as Lilly and Erin were out of the way, Vicky moved in the opposite direction, into the kitchen.

“Vicky what the fuck.”

“I don’t know. I think she’s, like, special needs or something? I found her in the Burger Dictator on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”

“Did you get any specifics?”

“Apparently she wanted to ‘splore’ but she got lost. Exact words. And, like, I couldn’t just fucking leave her there, you know?”

“... Yeah, that sounds pretty special needs to me. How old is she?”

Vicky shrugged. “All I really managed to get out of her was her name.”

“Full name?” Ursula said, holding up her PET. “Maybe we can find something about her on the internet. It’s a long shot, but-”

“No, no, you’re right, that’s a good idea. I’d like to avoid taking her to the Town Meet if possible. I don’t relish the possibility of her getting lost again.” Vicky nodded. “Apparently her full name is Lilly Travers?”

Ursula promptly dropped her PET.

“... What?”

“Like as in the fucking company?”

“What company?”

“Oh my god how the fuck do you not know what company I’m talking about. You know, the fucking company, the big one that literally just set up shop in Esterwood and moved a whole bunch of people in and is gonna be building a big fuck-off Factory at some point? Travers Innovations? That company?”

Vicky stared blankly for a moment before her eyes slowly widened. “Oh my god. Oh my god.”

“Did you seriously just accidentally kidnap the daughter of one of the most powerful people on the planet?”

“I might not have! She could be a different Travers, maybe?”

“That’d be one hell of a fucking coincidence!”

“Guys don’t shout,” Viola interjected. “She’ll hear us.”

“Right, right, just...” Ursula pinched the bridge of her nose. “God dammit we’re probably gonna get arrested for this.”

“It’s fine! It’s fine! She’ll vouch for us. Probably.”

“Look,” Ursula said. “I just want to clarify exactly the situation you’ve gotten us into. Imagine you’re the head of Travers Innovations and you wake up one day to find your daughter is missing. And, like, she’s also special needs, like you said. Like really bad Social Disassociation Disorder or something. How exactly are you gonna feel?”

“You don’t need to rub it in Ursula I fucking get it.”

“Well,” Viola interjected again. “It’s a little too late now. She’s here, we’ve got to deal with that. Besides, it’s like Vicky said, should she have just left her in the Burger Dictator?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s just-”

“It’s fine. We’ll keep an eye on her here for now and then when Vienna gets back we can have her call up the company and try and let them know we’ve got her.”

“Ideally without making them think we’re holding her ransom.”

“That’s why we’re having Vienna call them.”

“Right. Right.” Vicky clutched her head. “Sorry, I just- I was so fucking tired and I didn’t think-”

“It’s fine,” Ursula interrupted. “Viola’s right. Bringing her here was better than leaving her at the Burger Dictator. I’m pretty sure her parents will agree so long as we explain the situation tactfully.”

“We should probably go keep an eye on her,” Viola said. That was the final word on the matter. The three girls turned and apprehensively made their way into the living room.

~~~~~~

Miranda’s house was not particularly unique, or at least not by Esterwood’s standards. It was a very, very old town, dating back to the Neo-Victorian era. And most buildings had been around for about as long. Anything that didn’t was typically a prefab, like the school. Miranda hadn’t had to get used to the layout because it was almost indistinguishable from her schools at Locksmouth. Her house, though, was an old and slightly ramshackle Neo-Victorian cottage, overgrown with vines and with modern conveniences awkwardly slapped on at some point. Just about big enough for three people.

Miranda awkwardly knocked on the door before equally awkwardly standing around, waiting for someone to answer. “Can you not just... like, go in?”

“I could,” Miranda said, knocking on the door again. “But it’d feel weird, you know?”

“... To go into your own home?”

“With some random stranger in tow, yes.”

“Okay yeah that makes sense. Try the doorbell?”

“What if they heard me knocking? I don’t wanna be a bother-”

“I’m sure it’s fine. Here, let me-”

“Ah! W-wait!”

Vienna did not wait, instead gently but firmly pushing Miranda aside and ringing the doorbell. There was the sound of a small commotion inside, footsteps thudding their way over to the door before it abruptly opened. “Ah, yes, sorry for the delay. I’m doing some cleaning so-”

Miranda’s father paused as he realized that it was, in fact, Miranda at the door. “Oh! Welcome home, honey! I see you’ve brought a friend.”

“Uh. Yeah, kinda. There’s actually-”

“Oh, let’s not talk out here, it’s far too cold. Come in, come in!”

“Um. Right, yeah, okay.” Miranda shuffled awkwardly. “You go first,” she whispered to Vienna.

“I do?”

“You’re the guest. You go first.”

“Okay.” Vienna shrugged before entering, followed shortly by Miranda. Once he was satisfied that both girls were inside, Miranda’s father closed the door.

“So! Um. This is Vienna. Vienna, this is my dad.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Lockheart.”

“Please, call me David. Mr. Lockheart just makes me feel old.” He dismissively waved one of his hands, using several of the others to adjust his frilly pink apron. “Besides, we’re all adults here, no?”

“Right.” Vienna was not particularly comfortable being on a first-name basis with Miranda’s father just yet, but she wasn’t going to say that out loud.

“Anyway! It’s very nice to see that Miranda’s already making friends on her first day.”

“Um. A pack, actually. Sort of.”

Mr. Lockheart’s eyes widened, sparkling with almost childlike enthusiasm. “Goodness! Well, this is certainly cause for celebration!”

“Well, um. Actually, on that subject. Uh.” Miranda shuffled awkwardly. “It, uh, it kinda seems like packs are a much bigger deal here than in Locksmouth?”

“Oh.” And, just like that, the enthusiasm was gone, replaced with trepidation. “How big of a deal.”

Vienna decided that now was the correct time to interject. “It’s only a provisional thing for now. Just, you know, to see how she works with the dynamic we’ve got going. I promise she’s not just jumping headfirst into a relationship with people she’s barely known for a day.”

“Well, that certainly does help with my concerns.”

“She is gonna be moving into the pack house, though. That was her idea.” It was a bit of a white lie – it had been something of a group decision. “So long as you’re okay with it, that is.”

“Well,” Mr. Lockheart said, his lips pursed. “Miranda is an adult. I’m not going to stop her. But... that’s a very big decision to be making, honey. Are you sure you can handle it?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Vienna replied. Miranda had, by this point, faded into the background. Clearly intentionally so. Viola did the same thing all the time when she got involved in conversations with more than one other person involved. Speaking up on her own terms and leaving most of the talking to other people, and especially to Vienna. This felt a bit more awkward than that, though. Vienna wasn’t quite as comfortable speaking for someone she barely knew as she did about speaking for her twin sister.

And, while Mr. Lockheart didn’t say anything, it was clear he didn’t particularly appreciate some stranger speaking for his daughter either. “Miranda, maybe you should-”

“No, dad,” Miranda interjected. “I’ll be fine without it.”

“Are you sure. There’s no downsides and no shame, it’s just there to help you.”

“Dad,” Miranda snapped. “Please not in front of my friends. Please.”

“You haven’t told them?”

“Dad.”

“Okay. It’s your decision to make, honey.”

“I’ll be fine,” Miranda snapped, her tone of voice making Vienna thoroughly question if Miranda was going to be fine. “Come on, let’s get my stuff.”

Vienna waited until she was pretty sure Mr. Lockheart was out of earshot. “So, uh... what the fuck was up with that?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Vienna sighed. “Look, Miranda, I get it, really I do. But... if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past few months it’s that relationships tend to do a lot better when you actually lay all the potential complications on the table and work together as a group to deal with them instead of, you know, vehemently and obsessively hiding them away until everything explodes in your face. Just saying.”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“You don’t need to go into excruciating detail, just, like... I’m intersex and Erin’s got something called Intermittent Empathetic Disconnection Disorder that basically makes her impulsively cause problems and both of us kept those things secret and both of us have learned that was a bad idea. I promise that sharing will make things better, not worse.”

Miranda blushed. “Um. Okay. Fine. I’ve got SDD. And there’s this... stupid fucking app that’s supposed to tell you all the social cues you’re missing and it’s so fucking condescending. I’ve spent my entire life working really hard to get by without it because it’s just so... insulting. Like I need my phone to hold my hand and tell me when people are being sarcastic because I’m a fucking idiot who can’t tell on her own.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? Is that seriously all you’ve got to say on the subject?”

Vienna shrugged. “You’d be surprised how little of a shit people can give about things that should be a really big deal. Trust me. I speak from experience.”

“Okay...”

“It’s a long story.”

“Right.” Miranda frowned. “Just so you know, I’m still not entirely sold on just baring my soul to you guys.”

“You’ve already done plenty of soul baring today. I’d think that the stuff with Cedric would be much more deeply personal.”

“Yeah well you’d think wrong.”

Vienna could feel herself tensing up. She immediately shoved her mounting anger right back down, of course. Now was absolutely not the time to be getting into a fight with Miranda. Ideally, the time to get in a fight with Miranda was never, but... Well. The air needed to be cleared on certain things, and she couldn’t do that with the others present. Not really. Not without rocking the boat more than she was comfortable with. No, this was a conversation that had to occur one-on-one. Not as a group, not with the possibility of Mr. Lockheart just popping up and listening in. “Look,” she said instead, doing her best to be diplomatic. “I get where you’re coming from, but...”

Vienna trailed off there, struggling to properly articulate what she wanted to say. Or even to figure out what she wanted to say at all, and came up blank.

Well, no, that wasn’t entirely true. She absolutely had some choice words in mind, but they trended less towards the diplomatic and more towards the ‘start a fight’, the exact thing she was trying to avoid.

Although, perhaps, maybe that was the wrong way of going about it? There was some merit to waiting for the right moment, but if she kept on waiting then that right moment might never come up. Which would be bad, duh.

“I just don’t see why I should have to share every single little private detail of my life with you. It’s not like I’m actually a member of your pack yet-”

That was the final straw. “Yeah, you’re not a member of the pack,” Vienna snapped, tersely but also softly so as to not draw Mr. Lockheart’s attention. “Which is exactly why you need to do everything you can in order to make sure this works. If you end up not fitting in, it’s gonna be your fault.”

“I-”

“No talking back. I want to make this extremely, unambiguously clear. No room for misinterpretations or for you not catching exactly what I’m getting at because your SDD gets in the way. I don’t like you.” Miranda recoiled visibly – it was clear that Vienna wasn’t the only one getting mad. To be expected, not ideal, but still salvageable. “Ursula is extremely easy to please, Erin doesn’t give a fuck, and Viola mostly just cares about your ass. If you want to join this group, I’m the one you need to impress. Do you understand?”

“... Fine. I get it.” Miranda sighed. “I don’t like it. But I get it.”

“Good.” Vienna sighed. It looked like she’d successfully gotten her point across without escalating things to a fight. “I don’t like you, but I’m not averse to changing my mind,” she said, notably more gently. “I’m not gonna say that you’ve gotta do everything I tell you to do because I’m not that big of an asshole. But if I give you advice, you should really seriously consider taking it. That’s all. Just, like, consider it.”

“... Right. Okay.” Miranda sighed, and the tension mostly evaporated. Mostly. “Let’s just... go get my shit, okay?”

“Yeah, I think we both need the distraction.” Miranda opened the door to her room and entered, followed shortly by Vienna.

Vienna wasn’t really sure what she’d been expecting Miranda’s room to be like. Ironically, she was kind of difficult to get a read on. Probably a mixture of factors. The fact that she’d been intentionally putting on a tough front. The fact that she’d recently moved from the place she’d lived her whole life to some backwater. The fact that she knew she’d not made the best first impression, and also the fact that frankly neither had they. And, of course, there was the fact that they’d barely known each other for a day. So of course Vienna didn’t really know what to expect Miranda’s room to be like.

And yet, somehow, it still managed to catch her off guard.

The first thing she noticed was the sheer volume of stuff. It was strewn about all over the place, with little rhyme or reason. Toys, figurines, books and comics, all generally stuff that was aimed at children rather than adults. There were also balls of yarn and knitting needles and half-finished scarves and sweaters strewn about. To say nothing of the large boxes. Some were opened, some weren’t. It almost looked more like a little kid’s room than an adult’s. “Sorry for the mess. I’ve, uh, not really finished unpacking yet.”

“There’s more?”

“Normally I’m better organized than this, I swear. Right now I’ve only taken out the important stuff. Ongoing projects, stuff that I’m actually reading. That kinda thing. I also wanted to get a start on moving my figures into their display cases but, uh, I’ve not gotten to that yet. The upshot is that most of my stuff’s still packed.”

“Right. Okay, no, it’s fine. We can handle this. Grab some grav skiff pads – do you have any leftover grav skiff pads?”

“I’d hafta ask and we’d have to give ‘em back, but yeah, probably.”

“That makes it a lot easier, then. Worse comes to worst, we’ll make multiple trips if we’ve gotta.” It was also a good distraction. She still didn’t entirely trust Miranda, but now she felt kinda bad about it. Not that she was going to say that out loud. “Step one is gonna be packing things up. You mind if I let you handle that?”

“No, no, that makes sense. It shouldn’t take too long. Just putting stuff back where it was this morning. Should only take a few hours.”

“... Right.” Vienna sighed as she struggled to look on the bright side. At least she had a legitimate excuse to skip out on the Town Meet after all.

And yet, somehow, she couldn’t manage to work up any enthusiasm.

~~~~~~

The Locksmouth Incidents had, collectively, significant impact well beyond Locksmouth itself. Post-Splice domes were, as a rule, independent from other domes – at least in theory. In practice it was much more complicated, and that fact had caught a lot of people off guard. Smaller communities like Esterwood that relied on Locksmouth’s industry no longer had that crutch.

And, of course, there were the various factions that had sprung forth as a result of the Locksmouth shenanigans. First there were the Inklings, then PSYCOs and Automa. Aliens and psychics and robots. Ellen wasn’t really sure which was worse. All three were very good at pretending to be normal people – hell, most of them had been normal people until very recently. But, much like normal people, you couldn’t really tell who the bad seeds were just by looking at ‘em. There was a sizable faction of Inklings who viewed humans as food. A PSYCO, if they really wanted to and were sufficiently powerful, could seriously fuck you up without lifting a finger. And, well, it was something of an open secret that the Automa had all, at one point in the past, been deathbots in the employ of an actual real life supervillain.

Most relevantly for Ellen was the sheer bodycount both incidents had collectively incurred. The first incident had already decimated their supply chain, and the second incident had only reinforced the urgency of getting the Esterwood Fabricatory up and running as soon as possible. They needed more redundancy. And, more pertinently for Ellen, they needed to replace the dead. She hated to think of it like that. These were people, after all. Real human beings who had lived and who were now not living. But, well, it was an ugly necessity of her job. She was the head of Human Resources, after all. The company needed workers, and securing them was her job.

“The frustrating thing is that Locksmouth is still the biggest nearby job market.”

“Is that a problem?”

“In less than half a year, Locksmouth has been the epicentre of two separate alien invasions and a robot uprising. That’s enough of a trend that I want to avoid Locksmouth if I can help it.”

“Well, one Alien invasion,” Linda clarified. “The other was, as I recall, more focused on Harbington.”

“Does that make things better?”

“To say nothing of the various incidents that have occurred elsewhere,” Linda continued. “I’m afraid that this isn’t something that can be dealt with by just avoiding Locksmouth.”

Ellen sighed. “You’re right, of course.” She always was. “But I would still like to try and source as many employees from Esterwood as possible. It’s easier and safer.”

“Of course. Just make sure you don’t forget our long-term goals.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Linda, of course, left said long-term goals unspoken. Eventually, they were going to reach a point where Travers Innovations was... no longer going to be a priority. But, until then, they had to keep up appearances. And honestly, even if Linda felt she could get away with throwing her company and employees to the wayside, she likely wouldn’t. Throwing Travers Innovations away would hurt too many people. And, more than anything else, Linda cared about people.

“Ah, yes, speaking of which. You asked us to spy on a certain group of students?”

“I asked you to keep an eye on them.”

“You asked us to spy on them, Linda. Let’s not mince words.”

“I very specifically asked you not to spy on them, Ellen,” Linda replied patiently. “You’ll recall they recently vanished for about a week. I’m simply curious as to where they went during that time period.”

“I would assume the answer to that is ‘general teenage mischief’.”

“I have several working theories. General teenage mischief is one of them. Which is why I don’t want them outright under surveillance until I’m more certain one way or the other.”

“Right, of course. I keep forgetting you have the answer to every question.”

“Not every question,” Linda replied, not rising to the playful jab. “Just most of them.”

“Anyway, the point is that I’ve been looking into them. And one in particular has caught my interest.”

“Oh?”

“Not for, you know, the thing. I still haven’t seen enough to make any calls one way or the other on that. Honestly, you’ll probably have to leave that to Hyde. I only have access to what’s public record. Like their performance in school.”

“Ah. I see. One of them is a promising candidate for internship, then?”

“Yes.” Ellen pressed a few buttons on her PET and summoned a holographic display. “Erin Leroux. Performs excellently in school in all areas, strong work ethic, and a good attitude for business. She’s executive material, for sure. She’s not the only viable candidate, of course, but she’s certainly a frontrunner.”

“Good. I’ll leave the exact decision in your capable hands.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I’ll relay that she’s in the running to her at the Town Meet.”

“Good. Speaking of which,” Linda said as she slowly stood up. “I have preparations to make. I’ll leave you to your work.”

~~~~~~

Ultimately, Miranda and Vienna had reluctantly agreed that going back and forth to bring every single box to the pack house now would be a waste of time. Miranda didn’t have a pressing need for her figurine collection, or her toys, or her knitting projects, much as she protested to the contrary. And they had the weekend ahead of them; they could easily dedicate a whole day to moving her stuff as a group.

“This wouldn’t be an issue if any of us had a car. Do any of us have a car?”

“Do you have a car?”

“No.”

“Then no.” Vienna shrugged. “Honestly, it’s fine. What would we use a car for aside from this specific situation?”

“To drive places?”

“Drive where, nowhere in Esterwood takes more than an hour to walk to.”

Miranda winced. “Do- do you not have, like, public transportation at least?”

“We’ve got some inter-city trans-lines to, like, Locksmouth. That’s about it. Like I said, why have buslines when there’s nowhere for them to go?”

Miranda winced again. “That’s... gonna take some getting used to.”

“Is it?”

“Locksmouth has very robust public transit systems. I’m not really used to having to... you know. Walk places.”

“Well, hey, look on the bright side, walking is healthy.”

“Right. Maybe I can, like, buy a hoverboard or something.” Miranda seemed dubious, but they’d already gotten back to the pack house so thankfully she had an excuse to drop the conversation. They had elected, much to Miranda’s chagrin, to focus on just bringing over what she’d need for one night’s stay today and then tomorrow they could do the real moving in. Neither of them really wanted to – Miranda didn’t want to leave any of her things behind, and Vienna wanted the excuse to skip out on the Town Meet. But, at the end of the day, it was a flimsy justification and they both knew it. As much as Vienna really wanted to skip out on the fucking Town Meet, they were all eighteen now and so getting to be more politically active was an unfortunate reality they’d have to deal with.

“I mean, if you wanna do that, I ain’t stopping you.” Vienna opened the door. “Yo, we’re back.”

“Hey! We’ve got a guest.”

“... We do?”

“It’s, um, kind of a long story.”

“Blame Vicky.”

“Hey!”

Vienna sighed. “Okay. Miranda, you can bring in your own stuff. I’m gonna be busy getting caught up to speed on what the fuck you guys did this time.”

“Right,” Miranda replied. “What room’s mine?”

“Whichever one you want that’s not already occupied, babe,” Ursula interjected. “Just pick one and if there’s shit in it already then pick a different one.”

“Right. Okay, sure.” That was one thing about being in a pack that Miranda was going to have to deal with, she supposed. Less privacy overall. Yet another item on the ever expanding list of things she was going to have to get used to. She once again cringed at the thought of people walking in on her working – or worse, not working. She already dreaded the prospect of her parents catching her watching cartoons. She couldn’t handle the possibility of her friends doing the same. Even if, intellectually, she knew that was a stupid thing to be concerned with. Not every worry needed to be perfectly rational, dammit. She’d spent enough time being made fun of for liking cartoons for kids that she figured a little anxiety was understandable.

Anxiety that almost immediately evaporated on hearing familiar music coming from the living room. “Ah!” Miranda immediately abandoned her boxes and made her way over to the television. She could pick a room later – this was more important, at least to her.

She entered the living room just in time for the theme song to finish and the actual episode to start up. Which was a shame, because she kind of liked the theme song – even if it was a bit cheesy, that was part of the charm. It was season one, episode 5. An early one, back when the show was still focused on episodic monster-of-the-week shenanigans. But that was fine, and in some ways worked to its advantage. They had a lot more freedom to just do things. No need to worry about staying consistent with the established lore, because they were in the process of establishing the lore.

And anyway, Miranda had always preferred the more episodic content to the big arcs. Not that she disliked the arcs, of course. Everyone loved the arcs. But a lot of people, especially among her fellow older fans, dismissed the stuff that wasn’t arcs as filler and that just wasn’t right at all. Where other people saw filler, she saw a chance for the writers to just have Laney do things. Spend time with her friends, establish dynamics, have a status quo that made those big storylines where the status quo got upset matter. Lilith turning out to be the queen of the demons wouldn’t have had as much impact if she’d not spent three seasons’ worth of ‘filler’ as Laney’s best friend, after all. Plus there was the fact that it was a kids’ show. Miranda couldn’t help but respect how well the writers balanced all the lore and continuity with also making it really easy for a child to just jump in at any point – even if the best way to watch the show was still to start at season one episode one and watch from there.

Miranda had, at some point, sat on the couch. She honestly hadn’t really been paying attention to what she was doing, instead focusing on the cartoon. There were a lot of cartoons that she was into, but Laney was still her favourite after all these years. She was absorbed, and only snapped out of it when Erin decided to speak to her.

“How was the move?” The mouse spoke softly, in order to not disturb the third person in the room, who was somehow even more enraptured by the cartoon. Presumably she was the guest that had been mentioned.

“We decided to put it off ‘til tomorrow. Turns out I underestimated how much there was to move.”

“Mmm, understandable.” Erin sighed. “I suppose getting you moved in was always going to be more than a few hours’ of work. It’s best to have an entire day to do it.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine, darling. It’s not like you’re going to be sleeping in your own room tonight.”

“... I’m not?”

“Trust me. Viola’s going to want to... Sample the merchandise.”

“Oh.”

Erin smirked. “Fair warning, she’s very enthusiastic.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that it’s a very good thing that the weekend is coming up because you’re likely not getting a particularly good sleep tonight. And possibly not tomorrow either, if you’re very lucky.”

“Oh.”

“Shhhh,” the bunny on the floor hissed.

“Ah, sorry, darling,” Erin replied, her voice softening once more. “Although, we might have to change venues for a bit anyway,” she continued, her face contorting into a frown. “Progress has undeniably been made, but sadly I don’t think that a mere hairbrush is going to cut it. It might behoove us to take this into the shower and see if a fog cycle or two helps.”

The girl winced, clearly not particularly enthused by the prospect. “B-but the episode just started...”

“Hey,” Miranda interjected. “Better now then when things get going.”

“Mnehhhhh.”

“Besides, this is still season one, which says to me that either this is your first time watching it in which case you’ll prolly wanna watch it without distractions, or you’re rewatching the series in which case it’s a lot less big of a deal to take a break or two. ‘specially early on.”

“Mnehhhhh.”

“Well, it is a bit much to ask of the poor girl,” Erin interjected warily. “Perhaps we should leave this kind of thing to her family, once she gets back to them.”

“No, no, her hair’s pretty bad. I don’t think she’d want to have to deal with having to shave it all off.”

“No!”

“See? Anyway, don’t worry we can talk about Laney while you’re in the shower, it’s fine.”

The girl still didn’t seem convinced, squirming in place uncomfortably. “Perhaps once we’re done, Vicky will be done in the kitchen.”

“Oh!” That got her attention. “She promised we’d watch together! Oh, b-but then we’re going to have to start over...”

“You’re only a few episodes in, that’s not too bad.”

“Yeah.” Lilly smiled awkwardly, blushing. “I’ve watched them all a bajillion times. One more isn’t gonna hurt, I guess.”

“Oooh, does someone happen to have a bit of a crush?” Erin gave a catlike smirk as Lilly’s blush deepened. “Well, in that case, perhaps we can convince her to come and give us a hand with bathing you~”

“Ah! Um. Th-that’s- ah, um...” The girl was reduced to a blushing stammering mess.

“Hey, don’t tease her too hard.”

“That’s not the intent,” Erin clarified. “Not teasing, just playing matchmaker. I’m sure she would enjoy Vicky’s presence, but if it really makes her uncomfortable then we can-”

“Ah, no! No, um. It’s, um. It’s f-fine. Vicky is nice.”

“Nice is certainly not a word I’ve heard used to describe Vicky before,” Erin said, prompting a frown from the rabbit. “That’s good! Vicky has... a problematic history. But she’s trying her best to get better. Perhaps you can be a good influence on her?”

“She’s nice,” the girl repeated more firmly.

“Exactly. But she didn’t used to be. And it’s your job to make sure she keeps being nice. Do you understand?”

The girl frowned. “I think so...”

“All you have to do is keep doing what you’ve been doing.”

“I haven’t done anything, though...”

“Come on, let’s go to the kitchen and ask Vicky if she’d like to help you shower.”

“Okay...” Erin stood up, gently lifting the girl off the floor along the way.

“Oh, yes, introductions. Lilly, this is Miranda. Miranda, this is Lilly.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Lilly.”

“Mnn.” Lilly shuffled awkwardly. “I, um. It’s n-nice to meet you too, M-Mir.... um...” Lilly furrowed her brow deeply before trying again, much slower. “Mir-an-da.”

“We can come up with a nickname if you’d like.”

“Ah. Um. Y-yes, please. Sorry...”

“It’s fine, Miranda’s kind of a mouthful anyway.”

“Mnf.” Lilly didn’t seem convinced. Normally, this would be exactly the kind of situation that Miranda would struggle with, but Lilly’s emotional state seemed to be a bit more... obvious than most. Now would be a good time to change the subject.

“I like your jacket?” There was, she supposed, a certain amount of irony to her using that particular line. “It’s a limited edition, right?”

Lilly’s eyes lit up, and all her awkwardness melted away into childlike enthusiasm. “Yeah! My mom bought it for me!”

“Lucky. I couldn’t get one because they didn’t make a six-armed version.”

“Oh...”

“But it’s okay because I kinda sorta...” She turned around and pointed at the embroidered wings on the back of her jacket. “Made my own? It’s not perfect, I kinda didn’t get the wings right, but-”

“You made that yourself?!”

“Well, uh, I sewed the wings and I added the extra sleeves, but-”

“That’s so cool!!!!!”

It was Miranda’s turn to blush and smile awkwardly. “Thanks.”

“Come on, let’s not keep Vicky waiting.”

“Right.” Erin led the way, with Lilly behind her and Miranda taking up the rear.

“Hey, guys. We’re having parmigiana di melanzane for dinner.”

“We’re having what?” Miranda said.

“It’s sort of like lasagne but you use eggplant instead of the noodles,” Vienna clarified. “It’ll be a while, Viola’s only just started cutting the eggplant and I’ve barely gotten started on the sauce. Shouldn’t be more than an hour, though. Just about in time to head off to the Town Meet.”

“That’s fine, darling. We’re going to be, ah, bringing out the big guns for dealing with Lilly’s hair problem, as it were.”

“The what?” Vicky said, frowning slightly.

“We’re going to see if a fog cycle or three helps loosen the more stubborn knots,” Erin clarified. “Speaking of which, Lilly wanted to ask if you’d like to help?”

“Yeah sure,” Vicky said with a shrug. “It’s better than sitting in the kitchen watching the twins make dinner. I’m hungry enough as it is without food I can’t fucking eat sitting in front of me.”

“Don’t swear!”

“Sorry.”

“Hey speaking of which,” Miranda interjected. “Are you guys using real knives?”

“Yeah, all our cookware is physical. Momma hates field cookware so she insisted we take a bunch of her stuff.”

“Mnf.”

“Hm? You okay, Lilly?” Vicky said.

“I don’t like knives.” She shuffled back, half-hiding behind Erin.

“Okay. In that case, let’s get you outta here pronto.” Vicky gave Erin a meaningful glance.

“Hm. Yes, that sounds like a good idea. Come on, darling, let’s see if we can fix your hair.”

“Okay...” Lilly clung tightly to Erin’s shoulder from behind. “Sorry.”

“Hey, it’s fine to be kinda freaked out by knives,” Ursula said with a shrug. “They’re kinda dangerous.”

“Um. If it seems like Lilly’s going to be coming over a lot, then we can replace them with field knives. Momma will get mad but it’s not like we live in her house anymore.”

“Um. Y-you don’t have to-”

“It’s fine. In the meantime, you know where the kitchen is now so you can just stay out of it.”

“Th-thanks.”

“Come on,” Vicky said. “Let’s go get your hair dealt with.”

Unfortunately, before they could actually leave, the doorbell rang again. “Oh for fuck’s- who is it now?” Ursula grumbled, earning herself a dirty look from Lilly.

“I’ll get it. Ursula, stir the tomato sauce every few minutes so it doesn’t burn.”

“Man, why do I gotta stir the tomato sauce. Can’t you keep focusing on that while I go answer the door? The last time I got left in charge of anything cooking related I nearly burned the house down.”

“I’m sure you can handle stirring the tomato sauce once. Just make sure to not be too vigorous with it.”

“I make no promises.”

“Lilly, make sure she’s not too vigorous with it.”

“Wh-hey!” Lilly nodded enthusiastically before turning her full attention to Ursula while Vienna headed over to the front door.

There were several possibilities of who could be at the door, and Vienna was pretty sure which one it was. Lars would absolutely have just come in without ceremony. Ami did ring the doorbell, but she generally spent most of her time back at the Eckstein house. After the group had collectively decided to move in together, Ami had usurped Ursula’s old bedroom. She didn’t visit often. Hell, Vienna’d been keeping an idle eye on her (because someone had to) and she didn’t really seem to do much of anything. She didn’t seem have any friends her own ostensible-age and she rarely left home. Considering the whole point of her creating a post-splice cover identity had been to socialize, Vienna felt it was reasonable to be kind of worried that she wasn’t doing that. But at least it meant she could mostly safely assume that it wasn’t Ami visiting. It might be some local adult checking on them. They had skipped out on their community service, after all. Vienna dismissed that possibility, though – Mr. Stefanowitz had made it clear he was going to cover for their absence this time. The whole bear thing was more than enough extenuating circumstances for him and anyway he’d always kind of come across as not really agreeing with their punishment.

Which unfortunately left the worst case scenario – that it was someone from Travers, who had tracked down Lilly and had come to collect her. Or, more pointedly, the lingering possibility that it was someone not from Travers who had tracked Lilly down and had come to collect her. It wasn’t too hard to imagine someone wanting something from Travers and deciding to use the poor kid as leverage. And Vienna wasn’t going to just sit down and let that happen.

When she opened the door, her fears were confirmed. It wasn’t Lars, it wasn’t Ami, it wasn’t anyone she immediately recognized. He was a rhino, stockily built and maybe slightly taller than Ursula. His tan suit indicated that he was, in fact, from TI (or wanted her to think he was from TI). It was fairly well tailored, in spite of him not exactly having a common build for a post splicer – he was sort of shaped like a fridge. That was a point in favour of him being a legit Travers employee (or maybe even an executive), but it could just as easily be an imposter trying a bit too hard. The completely neutral expression didn’t help, nor the fact that his eyes were hidden behind sunglasses. Vienna couldn’t get a read on him, which made her immediately want to not trust him.

The two stood in an impromptu staring contest for an uncomfortable amount of time before Vienna finally broke the silence. “May I help you?”

“I’m looking for someone. About your age. Rabbit. Brown fur, purple eyes, around this tall. Would be wearing a see-through jacket with wings on the back.”

“Uh huh,” Vienna replied. That absolutely confirmed it. Whoever he was, he was looking for Lilly. “And why are you askin’ us?”

“I’m good at tracking things down.” That was his way of saying that he definitely knew Lilly was here so there wasn’t any point in hiding it.

“Well, okay, I’ll keep an eye out,” Vienna responded. She wasn’t gonna hand him the victory quite that easily. “Who should I contact if I see her.”

If he was aware that she was lying to him, and Vienna was pretty sure he was, he didn’t react. His facial expression remained completely static. “Hyde. Sherman Hyde. Vice President of Travers Innovations and Modern Applied Technologies.”

Now that he said it, Vienna did in fact recognize him from Town Meets. He usually stood behind Linda Travers looking intimidating while she dominated the meetings. Still, she wasn’t going to let him win that easily. Because apparently this had turned into a contest? “And I should just take your word for that, then.”

That seemed to get to him, if only a little. He raised a single eyebrow, the slightest crack in his blank facade. “You know,” he said, after another brief period of silence. “Most people in this town would have just taken me at my word.”

“Not me.”

“Good.”

“Huh?”

Hyde idly adjusted his sunglasses. “I wouldn’t trust me either. As important as getting Lilly home is, I’m glad that she’s with people who won’t just hand her over to some random stranger.”

“Hmph.”

“That said, I would like to confirm that she’s safe.”

“She is.”

“You understand that I can’t just take your word for it. May I see her?”

“No.”

“I see.”

“Look, I don’t have any proof that you are who you say you are. And even if you are who you say you are...” Vienna stopped herself there.  Once again, the two stood in silence for a significant period of time. “Look. Lilly’s clearly got... something going on, okay? You’ve gotta be aware of it.”

“I am.”

“So you’ll forgive me if I’m a bit suspicious that she maybe doesn’t have the best home life.”

Once again, Hyde’s expression remained completely neutral. After another moment of silence, he crossed his arms. “It’s not my story to tell.”

“Alright then.”

“However,” he continued, uncrossing his arms. “Dr. Travers has been nothing short of an excellent mother to her, in spite of her unique circumstances. You have my word, whatever that might be worth.”

“It’s not worth much,” Vienna replied. “No offence, but you’re kinda shady.” Her eyes narrowed again as she steeled her resolve. “I mean, you’re just some guy in a suit claiming to be the vice president of a big company and you’re wearing sunglasses. The least you could do is look me in the god damn eye.”

Hyde sighed. “Well, if it would make you more comfortable...” Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he slowly reached up and removed his sunglasses.

Vienna’s heart practically stopped when faced with the completely empty sockets beneath.

“It’s going to be difficult to look you in the eye without my STOP, though.”

“... Oh.”

“May I put them back on?”

“Yes. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. You didn’t know, and I don’t make a point of advertising it.” Moving slowly and carefully, he slid his sunglasses back into place. “Besides. Like I said, I wouldn’t trust me either.”

“Right.” God, this whole situation had suddenly gotten so fucking awkward. She should have just let him see Lilly when she realized he was telling the truth. But no, she’d turned it into a weird contest thing that only she was participating in and now she’d just demanded a blind person remove their STOP. Like some kind of psychopath. She felt like she was going to just melt into a mortified puddle and die right then and there.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to dwell on it for too long. “Hey, Vienna. Miranda’s handling the sauce, we’re gonna go help Lilly with the show-ack!”

Lilly broke away from Vicky, roughly shoving her way past Vienna and practically throwing herself at Hyde. “Mister Sherman!!!!!” she cried, firmly hugging the larger Rhino.

“There you are. Your mother was worried sick.”

“‘m sorry...” she said, voice muffled by his suit. “I got lost.”

“So long as you’re safe. That’s the important thing.” Once again, his stoic facade was broken, this time by an affectionate smile. “Now, what’s this I hear about a shower?”

“O-oh, um...” Lilly awkwardly pulled away from Hyde and cringed into herself. “I. Um. Th-that’s, um.”

“We were attempting to deal with the rat’s nest in her hair, but it’s shaping up to be a bit too stubborn for just a comb. We were about to see if a fog cycle or two could help loosen things up.”

“I see,” Hyde replied tersely. He did not sound particularly impressed, which Lilly clearly picked up on. She fidgeted awkwardly, twiddling her thumbs with an intense nervous energy.

“Um. Th-they’re nice,” she muttered. “They’re my friends. Erin is nice a-and there was a mean girl and Vicky made her go away and, um, and Mir-an-da likes Laney and-and-and she made a jacket and Vienna let me stir the sauce and. Um. I, um, I haven’t really talked to the others yet, b-but they’re nice too.”

Hyde took a moment to process things. It was hard to get a read on what he was thinking – even not factoring in the lack of eyes, he had an excellent poker face when he wanted to. “Well,” he said after a moment. “I’m sure that your mother won’t mind if you sleep over.”

“Okay! Thank you!”

“But,” Hyde continued, cutting off Lilly’s celebration. “You should really ask her yourself. In person.”

“Oh. Um... Oh. Okay.”

“Which means you’re going to have to go to the Town Meet.” Hyde gently placed his hands on Lilly’s shoulders. “It might be a bit boring, but I need you to be a good girl and sit through it, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Besides, I’m sure that your mother will want to meet all your new friends.”

“O-oh! Okay!”

“I’m going to go let your mother know we’ve found you. In the meantime, you be a good girl and behave, okay?”

“Yes, Mister Sherman! I’ll be super extra good!” Lilly turned around and ran back into the house, grabbing Vicky by the arm and dragging her upstairs.

“Ack!”

“Come on! We hafta get the shower done so we can get ready for the Town Thingie!”

“Ah! Darling, wait, you don’t know where the shower is!” Erin ran off upstairs after the other two, leaving Vienna once again alone with Hyde.

“So like... Seriously, what’s her deal?”

“As I said, it isn’t my story to tell,” Hyde replied simply. “You’ll have to ask Dr. Travers when you meet her. I expect all of you to be present at the Town Meet for that. Understand?”

“Yeah, we were gonna go anyway,” Vienna replied with a shrug. If he was gonna be terse, so was she.

“Good.” With that Hyde just sort of wordlessly turned and left, without even saying goodbye.

“Weirdo,” Vienna grumbled to herself, closing the door as she headed back to the kitchen.

And, meanwhile, Hyde frowned as he walked away. With a gesture, he brought up a holographic display that only he could see. “Dr. Travers?”

“Ah, Sherman. Good to hear from you. Have you found Lilly?”

“We have a problem.”

“How urgent a problem is it? I do have quite a lot of work to do before the Town Meet.”

“Lilly has made some friends.”

Linda frowned. “I see. Well, I don’t want to be too overprotective. And a more active social life could help her progress, and possibly deal with that wanderlust. But I can’t help but think that it’s still too early.”

“That isn’t the problem.”

“Oh dear. Has she fallen in with the wrong crowd?”

“Something like that, ma’am. Do you recall those girls you wanted us to keep an eye on?”

“Oh. That is a problem.”

“Yes. Lilly wants to have a sleepover. I’ve instructed her to ask your permission after the town meet. The girls will be with her.”

Linda’s frown deepened. “Well. That’s also earlier than I would have preferred, but I suppose it can’t be helped. Thank you for making sure that Lilly is alright, Sherman.”

“I couldn’t get inside, unfortunately. But for what it’s worth, the girls I did manage to talk to seem to have good heads on their shoulders. One of the Coniglios, I believe it was Vienna, was especially impressive.”

“That’s high praise coming from you,” Linda said with a smirk. “I need you to get back here as quickly as possible, Sherman. It seems like I have a lot more preparation to do than I anticipated.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Hyde replied before ending the call.

Their stay in Esterwood had just gotten a lot more complicated.