Town Meets in Esterwood were a special kind of hell. Politics in general were a miserable slog, but Viola was convinced that politics in Esterwood were exceptionally miserable. At least in a bigger city like Locksmouth or Anchorsway there were actual issues to discuss. For years, Town Meets in Esterwood had just consisted of everyone sitting on their asses for an hour talking about how everything was going to remain the same. Occasionally you’d get someone talking about some minor issue or other, like a civic improvement project or whatever. The dome needed repairs an awful lot – which made sense, because the Esterwood dome dated all the way back to the fucking Stockweight era, back when domes were first becoming a Thing. It was something like two hundred and fifty years old, of course it needed regular maintenance. But none of that really solved the key problem that Town Meets were interminably dull. There was rarely anything interesting to talk about and so you just went, stood around for a bit, and tried not to die of boredom.

Then, not long after the Locksmouth incident, Travers had come along. And, somehow, through some absolute fucking miracle, the Town Meets had gotten worse.

At least before they’d been short. Now, not only were they still dull, they were dull for much longer. What had been an hour at most back before the Locksmouth incident was now on average closer to hours, plural. Which wouldn’t be so bad if the actual contents of the Meets had gotten more interesting, but they hadn’t. At first, there had been some amount of novelty in some representative of Travers or another standing on the stage and talking about the company’s various plans to Revitalize The Community and Update The Infrastructure and Bring In New Jobs and so on. But then it turned out that a lot of their plans were easier said than done.

Building a new Fabricatory just consisted of slapping down a prefab shell, but where, was the question? Here they were, months later, and it was a question that still didn’t have an answer. Obviously, almost everywhere in the town proper was already spoken for. There was a lot of empty residential space, but they couldn’t use the empty residential space because they needed people to work in the Fabricatory and those people needed somewhere to live. The Woods would be a much more convenient place to put the thing. Which, obviously, would probably not turn out well for Ami. Thus far, they’d managed to keep her facility a secret from everyone aside from Lars and Vicky, but there was absolutely no fucking way that was going to continue if they tore down the Woods.

Thankfully, they hadn’t really needed to do anything to stop them from doing that so far. Every time a Travers representative suggested the Woods, it was mostly unanimously shot down. Superstition and tradition alike ran deep in Esterwood, and the locals all agreed it was best to leave well enough alone with the stated reasoning that they weren’t going to tear down the big nature preserve on a whim. And enough of the new people agreed with that stated reasoning that, for now, they were probably safe to not worry about it. For now.

“But then where are we going to put it?” That was Veronica Castle. Early on, it had been decided (by Travers) that three Arbitrators weren’t going to be enough, especially as the town’s population expanded. And so Travers had graciously imported an Arbitrator rather than bullying some apathetic local into politics. She was originally from an underwater dome to the south, which had supposedly been in a similar condition to Esterwood before Travers had made it a part of its supply chain. Built a big factory, imported a bunch of workers, revitalized it. She seemed nice enough, honestly. Beyond the obvious bias towards Travers Innovations, she did her job well, Viola supposed. Maybe she was a bit biased because it was very clear that the octopus had spent her entire life so far underwater. She didn’t really entirely understand the details of the why, but apparently one of the quirks of post-splicer biology was that being underwater made certain parts of the body get bigger than other parts. It was called the Soak, and it was real and it was glorious. She was about six feet tall and almost as wide, with a soft tum, boobs that rivalled Erin’s and an ass that rivalled Miranda’s. She also had four tentacles that were longer than she was tall, thicker around than her arms, and prehensile, which gave Viola some Ideas that she decided not to dwell on.

“To be blunt, the onus is on Travers Innovations to find an acceptable location. Not Esterwood.” Beth Baas-Smith’s response was characteristically terse. Like Veronica, she originally came from outside of Esterwood, though she’d been around for as long as Viola could remember and had apparently become an Arbitrator almost immediately after she arrived. Also like Veronica, she was fairly tall, but unlike Veronica she was very thin, with harsh features. Much like her wife, she was capable of being extremely intimidating when she wanted to be. The big difference was that Dr. Baas was, at least, a king cobra. The animal was known as the longest venomous snake in the world, and that size absolutely carried over to the cobra subtype humans. Arbitrator Baas-Smith, meanwhile, was a goat. More known for being cute and cuddly and willing to eat just about anything than for being intimidating. Which made it all the more impressive that she almost managed to be scarier than her wife.

“And yet every suggestion put forward, you find a flimsy excuse to shoot down.”

“It’s hardly my fault that you fixate on inviable options.”

“Ladies,” Mike Luo interjected. “Please keep things civil. We’ve had enough shouting matches to last a lifetime and it’s unprofessional.”

“This is not a shouting match, Michael,” Arbitrator Baas-Smith replied tersely. “This is civilized debate. As politics should be.”

“Hmph.” Arbitrator Castle crossed her tentacles and glowered. “If this is how you think politics should be then perhaps you’re not as qualified to be an Arbitrator as you think you are.”

“Excuse you?” Arbitrator Baas-Smith seemed a lot more laid back than one would expect considering the blatant insult.

“An Arbitrator’s goal should be to ensure harmony. Your intentionally adversarial attitude fosters a toxic environment.”

“I politely disagree. An Arbitrator’s goal should be to ensure the best possible outcome for the Dome. Without someone acting as a devil’s advocate for unpopular ideas then there are some ideas that we will simply never consider. Which is why we still allow you to speak.”

“Excuse you?!”

“Ladies,” Arbitrator Luo said, much more firmly.

“If, um. If I may interject?” That was Mindy, Ursula’s mother. She had been hit exceptionally hard by the change in scope of Esterwood’s Town Meets. She’d never really been a politician – just a socially active local parent. In a bigger town, she likely would at most have been a regular speaker at Town Meets, occasionally voicing her concerns relating to things like education and such. In Esterwood, though, she was one of the only people who had even passing interest in politics and so she’d become an Arbitrator. And now, suddenly, that was a much bigger deal and she was completely out of her depths and it was really obvious to even the most casual observer. “Perhaps we’re going about this in the wrong order?”

Still, one thing she was good at was defusing the constant bickering between Beth and Veronica. “How do you mean?” Arbitrator Baas-Smith asked, as though she’d not just been actively prodding at Arbitrator Castle’s temper.

“Well, um. The plan was to build the Fabricatory and then to expand the dome, right? We’ll need the extra residential space and it’s a good excuse to finally upgrade to a force dome. But if there’s no place for the Fabricatory now, perhaps we should upgrade the dome first?”

“That makes sense,” Arbitrator Baas-Smith replied with a nod. “If everywhere in the town is spoken for, expanding the town gives us much more space to work with.”

“Then we’re on the same page,” Arbitrator Castle added. “For once,” she appended, earning a dirty look from Arbitrator Luo.

“Very well. If we’re all in agreement, then we just need TI’s approval and then we can put it to a vote.” And, just like that, all attention turned to the poor Travers representative.

It was very rare for Linda Travers herself not to attend a Town Meet ever since the company had moved into Esterwood, but it was also rare for her to step onto stage herself. Instead, it was almost always a representative – someone who worked for the company who would dryly relay what Linda had told them to say. Today, it was a somewhat short poison dart frog who seemed to be maybe a few years older than Viola, tops. The poor thing was clearly thoroughly out of her depths and Viola couldn’t help but feel bad for her. “Uh...” she shot a pained glance into the audience. Presumably directed at Linda Travers. “... Look, I’m just a chemist. I don’t actually have the authority to say one way or another. I guess it sounds good? But you’re gonna have to ask the boss.”

“I’ll take things from here.” With that, Linda Travers herself stood up and made her way up to the stage, followed closely by the rhino from earlier. Viola had been in the kitchen at the time, so she didn’t get to encounter him, but the kitchen was close enough to the front door that she’d heard what happened. And anyway Vienna didn’t have the best impression of the man which meant Viola didn’t have the best impression of him either. “You can go now, Miss Denton.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Dr. Travers snapped her fingers and a holographic display of the town materialized on stage. She pulled out a thin extendable metal pointer from seemingly nowhere, like she’d planned for this exact scenario. “Obviously, we’d planned to hold off on upgrading the dome until it was absolutely necessary. It’s not a simple or easy process, and it’s certainly not going to be helped along by the time of year. But that’s fine. We can consider this future proofing.”

Dr. Travers generally did not take the stage at Town Meets, but on those occasions that she did, she invariably took complete control. It was like the Arbitrators weren’t there at all – just the Doctor and her audience, listening as she told them exactly what was going to be done. Viola honestly didn’t care all that much. It was kinda shady, but she had zero intentions of staying in Esterwood after graduation anyway. Maybe a few months ago this would have mattered to her more, but as far as she was aware Erin still intended to attend university in Locksmouth. A few months ago it had been more up in the air, but as of now it was an unstated assumption that obviously the rest of the pack were gonna be following her. So fuck it, this whole thing was none of her business. Might even be good for the town in the long run, who knew.

Of course, even as she thought that, her mind and eyes alike couldn’t help but wander over to Lilly. She’d not really gotten the chance to interact with her yet, but Vicky seemed to like her a lot – and, more importantly, so did Erin and Miranda. And... Well, Viola couldn’t deny that there was very obviously something wrong with her, though she didn’t know exactly what just yet. So obviously, as much as she’d really rather this not be her problem, she’d already gotten involved with Travers. Whether she liked it or not.

“This is stupid.”

“Shhh.”

Lars rolled his eyes. To his credit, though, he did in fact shush. But that didn’t mean Viola was particularly pleased at his presence. Especially if he was going to interrupt things while she was trying to pay attention. No matter how much she’d really rather not pay attention. Ideally Lars just wouldn’t be there. Somehow, Lars had wormed his way into their friend group without actually becoming their friend or even being at all tolerable and Viola hated it. The worst part was that it had been her idea, too. She had chosen this. The logic made sense; Lars and Vicky knew about their Inklings, so it was probably better to just integrate them into the pack than it was to just leave them to their own devices. She still stood by the decision. She just maybe kinda wished she could justify not standing by it.

Of course, she’d probably like it more if Lars made the bare minimum effort to not be a huge asshole? Vicky, at least, was clearly trying to improve. Of course, how much of that was just being too tired to be bitchy was up in the air. But, regardless of the cause, she appreciated the effect. Hopefully once whatever it was that was messing up her ability to sleep cleared up the improved personality would stick. Meanwhile, Lars’s personality hadn’t changed in the slightest. Which honestly made him harder to get a read on. If you had asked her four months ago, she would absolutely have assumed that he kept their secrets out of sheer apathy. Now, though, she wasn’t so sure.

“So the dimensions of the Dome will double, which gives us a lot more space to work with but it also means there’s going to be a lot of wilderness to clear out. That means that Esterwood is unfortunately going to be exposed to the elements for a few weeks at the minimum. December isn’t exactly the ideal time for this, but this winter has been fairly mild so far. Fingers crossed that things will go smoothly in that regard. Thankfully, that’s the biggest complication I can foresee, so-” Dr. Travers cut herself off at the sound of coughing from the audience. “Do you have an objection, Mr. Stefanowitz?”

“Takin’ down the dome ain’t an option right now,” the elderly cougar responded tersely, crossing his arms. He seemed completely unphased by the fact that the attention of the entire town and then some was concentrated on him. Viola couldn’t fathom how the fuck he managed that. Lord knows she’d not be able to deal with it in the slightest. “Was gonna wait to bring this up, but there’s a bear in the area. Big, aggressive sonovabitch.”

“Do bears not normally hibernate at this time of year?”

“That’d make things easier, but he’s wide awake and it’s doin’ wonders for his mood. He got into the dome earlier, ‘s a miracle he went back out again before anyone got hurt.”

“Excuse me, a bear got into the dome?” Arbitrator Castle stood up and took a few steps forward, though pointedly remained behind Dr. Travers. “Why didn’t you bring this up sooner, that’s a serious problem!”

Mr. Stefanowitz shrugged. “No one got hurt. Until you started talkin’ about taking the dome down I assumed it could stay on the backburner.”

“I believe we should count our blessings,” Dr. Travers interjected. “There are so many alien invasions and robot attacks in the news these days that it can be hard to sort out fact from rumour. I would much rather our biggest concern just be dealing with a very large wild animal.”

“Hrm.”

“Do you have something to add, Sherman?”

“Leave the bear to me,” the rhino (apparently named Sherman????) replied tersely.

“And we should just let you do that, then?” That was Arbitrator Baas-Smith, clearly unimpressed.

“I have ample experience dealing with wild animals,” was the only response she got.

“Well, that’s settled, then,” Dr. Travers said calmly, as though anything had actually been settled. She, at least, had accepted that the rhino could deal with things. And, apparently, as far as she was concerned, that meant everyone else had too. “It’s just one extra step to the process. Deal with the bear, take down the dome, clear out the surrounding area, put up the field dome. Simple.”

“Easier said than done, but fine. We’ll leave things to you, doctor.” Really, the only Arbitrator who actually seemed content to leave things to the doctor was Arbitrator Castle. But they all elected to not say anything.

“On to the next item on the docket, then.” Most other towns had a dedicated Town Meet Moderator. Someone whose job it was to act as a sort of MC for proceedings, keep things moving, encourage people to participate, that kind of thing. Until recently, Esterwood hadn’t really needed one – it was so small that the Arbitrators could handle it. But, well, as with everything else, the arrival of Travers had changed everything. Town Meets were more complicated and longer and more people had things to say.

So they’d roped Arbitrator Luo’s daughter Cym into acting as an interim Moderator until they could find someone to fill that role on a more permanent basis – which, knowing Esterwood, meant that no actually Cym was going to be the Moderator for the foreseeable future, until she literally physically left the town or died. Hopefully not the latter, considering she was only a year older than Viola and the others. No, Cym was probably in it for the long-haul, whether she liked it or not. Hopefully she’d get better at this as time went on, though, once again, Viola had no intention of sticking around to find out.

For now, Viola was content to just enjoy the view. Cym wasn’t exactly the most entertaining showperson, but she was at least nice to look at. Like her father, she was tall and slender – with the pointed exception of having just an absolutely enormous ass. She couldn’t get as good a look at it as if she were seeing it from behind, of course, and so she couldn’t judge its size relative to, say, Renee’s or Miranda’s. But the fact that she could see it at all from the front was more than enough for her.

“Homeshare is coming up in the next few weeks! As the holiday season approaches, please remember to be courteous to your other shoppers. There’s no need to rush things, you’ve still got plenty of time. Consider getting your shopping done in advance, or ordering online. And, um, consider avoiding Locksmouth or Harbington. Anchorsway is safe, as far as I’m aware. Ha ha.” Cym shuffled awkwardly. “Sorry, that was perhaps a bit tasteless. Um. Anyway! I’ve prepared a list of ideas for safe but fun celebrations that don’t require leaving your home, along with some general safety tips!”

“Oh, right, Homeshare. Uh, do you guys have any plans for that?”

Viola was a little more inclined to be charitable to Miranda interrupting. Maybe it was personal bias against Lars, or maybe it was just that she at least sort of cared about the new dome but she couldn’t even pretend to give a shit about Homeshare Safety Tips. “We decided we’re just going to hang out.”

“Even without factoring in you, our pack’s in a bit of an unusual position right now,” Erin added. “So we collectively decided we’re going to forgo doing a gift exchange this year.”

“Besides,” Ursula interjected with a shrug, “none of us have a job. Can’t do a gift exchange if you’re fuckin’ broke.” The swear earned her a dirty look from Lilly, but she didn’t say anything so Ursula ignored it.

“Weren’t you going to go back to working at Burger Dictator?”

“Eugh.” Ursula made a sour face. “I wanna replace my PET but man, fuck that.” Another dirty look from Lilly that Ursula ignored again. “If I do go back, I’m waiting until summer so I can get as many hours in as quickly as possible so I can work there for as little time as possible.”

“Aw, and I was so looking forward to seeing you in uniform, darling~”

“Eugh. I really don’t need you hitting on me every time I work. Again.”

“You love it, don’t lie to yourself.”

“Guys, this is fun and all, but it looks like the Meet’s going back to real topics.”

“Next on the docket, Travers Innovations head of human resources Ellen Maclean is going to briefly talk about the TI Internship Program. Ms. Maclean?”

“Please, just call me Ellen,” the shark said with a smile that would probably have come across as more friendly if she weren’t a shark. It was like there was a bear trap in her mouth.

“Uh, okay. Ellen?”

“Thank you.” Ellen turned to face the audience. “As I’m sure you’re all aware by now, Travers Innovations is currently looking to bulk up its local workforce. What you might not know is that we’re also looking for fresh blood for higher up in the company. So! Three candidates have been chosen from the local community for a potential internship, personally vetted by myself. Each of them will have a trial period of a month to prove themselves, after which they’ll be offered a more permanent position.”

There was excited murmuring from the crowd, specifically from the younger contingent. Viola supposed that it made sense for people to be excited, though she couldn’t really match their enthusiasm. Travers wasn’t exactly a small company, and a position higher up at the company effectively meant living at the wealth cap for the rest of your life. If you wanted a job specifically for lennots, a job at Travers and especially higher up was just about the best bang for your buck you could get.

It’s just that Viola absolutely didn’t stand a chance. There were only three positions and they’d been vetted. If it were a lottery or something then she’d have stood about as much chance as anyone else. But no, this was someone hand-picking candidates. Viola wasn’t stupid, but she’d never exactly stood out either. Her academic performance was middling at best, and the only reason people noticed her was because of that brief period when she’d insistently talked to mirrors and as a result everyone thought she was crazy. Likewise, no one she was close to really stood out for anything positive either. Definitely not Ursula or Lars, probably not Miranda because she was so new, maybe Vienna or Erin or Vicky. But, if gambling was still a thing that existed, the smart money would be on no one in her immediate circle of friends qualifying. The odds were just too stacked against them.

“The candidates are as follows; Cymthia Luo, Erin Leroux, Griselda Park.”

Oh well okay looks like Viola would have lost the shit out of that hypothetical bet then. Erin also seemed taken aback by her name being mentioned. “Oh, um-” Cym seemed even more taken aback than Viola at her name coming up, physically reeling. Ellen didn’t give her a chance to collect herself, immediately continuing without giving the lemur a chance to reply.

“We’ve already obtained your contact information, so expect a call from us sometime in the coming week to go over your duties and to work around your existing schedule. Don’t worry too much about things like work or school, we’ll be taking that into account when deciding whether or not to keep you on permanently.”

“Hey, awesome. Congrats, Erin,” Ursula said, gently jostling the mouse with her elbow.

“Yes. Right.” She frowned. “I already have quite a lot on my plate as it is, between school and community service...”

“Hey, it’ll be fiiiiine. They said they’re gonna account for that kinda shit, right? Just focus on playin’ your cards right and you’ve basically got a guaranteed job right outta high school.”

“I say we celebrate,” Vienna said. “Next time we get time off of school we should head out somewhere fancy.”

“Like where? Esterwood isn’t exactly known for its fine dining,” Lars interjected. “Besides, didn’t we literally just talk about how we’re all broke?”

“Then we’ll go out of town,” Vienna replied with a shrug. “Anchorsway seems nice.” Viola perked up.

“Ha, someone’s already sold,” Ursula said. “As for money, I’ll bet we can convince our parents to foot the bill. ‘s a special occasion, after all.”

“Right. Yes. Focus on the positives.” Still, Erin kept shuffling nervously before taking a deep breath. “I’m going to try not to think about it too hard.”

“Think of it as an excuse to see Anchorsway.”

“Yes. I’ve, um. Never actually been there before.”

“We went there for vacation a couple of times when we were a lot younger,” Vienna said. “I remember it being huge and full of stuff to do.”

“Boobs.”

“Thanks for your input, Viola. Yes, there were boobs.”

“Butts also.”

“Maybe we can get Renee to show us around? She used to live there, after all.”

“That would be nice. A guided tour of the big city, ending with a nice meal.” Erin leaned back. “To be honest, after, ah, the events of this summer, a vacation sounds nice.”

“Wish we coulda taken one sooner, to be honest.” Ursula leaned back against the wall the group was standing against, nearest the exit so they could leave as soon as possible.

“Well, now we’ve got an excuse. I’m pretty sure Mr. Stefanowitz will be cool with it, too.”

“If you guys asked nicely he’d probably be okay with you dropping the community service entirely and just saying you did it.”

“We’re not doing that, Nilsen,” Ursula shot back.

“Yeah, as much as I’d rather do literally anything else, you can’t deny that the guy kinda needs the helping hand.” Vienna crossed her arms behind her head. “He’s more than a hundred years old, he can’t do this alone.”

“And what happens when you’re not around? Erin intends to go out of Esterwood for her education and you all intend to follow her.”

“Yeah, but we’re still gonna keep helping out until then.”

“Suit yourself.”

“Right. Um. A-anyway. Thank you for your time, Ms. Maclean. Next, um. Next, for our last piece of business, we’ll be hearing a brief message from the Esterwood branch of the Mind’s Eye Society.”

There was a lot of grumbling from the audience. This always happened whenever the Mind’s Eye Society took the stage, which it did every Town Meet without fail. Viola didn’t really understand why people got so worked up about it? There were only two members and they both seemed completely harmless. And, unlike Inklings and Automa, Psycos hadn’t actually really been the source of any problems yet. She seemed to be in the minority in that regard, though. Most Esterwood natives seemed to be aggressively against the presence of anything supernatural, be it Inked or Automa or Psycos. The new blood were, on the whole, slightly more receptive, but that wasn’t saying much. The general consensus seemed to be that Phoebe’s time was best spent on her day job running the arcade.

Speaking of Phoebe, the squirrel made her way up to the stage. “Um. Yes. Thank you.” She coughed and adjusted her glasses, holding up her PET and reading off a pre-written script. “The Esterwood branch of the Mind’s Eye Society would like to once again remind every non-inked individual to stop by the Arcade for a free TEMP Aptitude Reading and Drive Awakening at their earliest possible convenience.”

That earned her some Looks from the Arbitrators. Arbitrator Baas-Smith was dispassionate, Arbitrator Castle was sympathetic, and Arbitrators Luo and Eckstein both expressed varying degrees of annoyance. “I think,” Ursula’s mom said coldly. “That we can all agree that Esterwood has enough problems right now without a bunch of... psychics running around.”

“That’s not-” Phoebe sighed. “As I have explained many times now, Arbitrator Eckstein, just because you’re not awakened doesn’t mean you’re not a Psyco. What awakening does do is give you more control of your powers. I don’t think I need to say that you want a bunch of psychics who can’t control their powers running around significantly less than ones who can.”

Arbitrator Luo sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yes, well, be that as it may, we can’t force people to undergo your procedure.”

“I’m not forcing people. Just strongly encouraging them.”

“There’s no harm in it,” Arbitrator Castle said. “Unlike the Inked, people can’t help being Psycos.”

“Every citizen of Esterwood has the right to speak at Town Meets. I see no problem with Miss Carolina doing the same,” Arbitrator Baas-Smith added. “Besides, she at least has the decency to get to the point quickly and then step down.”

“Speaking of which. That’s everything I had to say. I’ll hopefully see you all later.”

“And with that, um, That’s everything on the docket covered. Unless someone has something they want to bring up at the last minute, that brings today’s Town Meet to a close.”

“Finally,” Ursula groaned. “I don’t care if anyone’s got anything to say, we’re done. Time to go home, girls.”

“Nuh uh!” Lilly interjected. “First we gotta talk to mom, ‘member?”

“Oh yeah right. Ugh.” Ursula leaned back against the wall again. “We did say we’d do that, didn’t we.”

“You promised!”

“Yeah, we promised. Don’t worry, we’re gonna stay. Just... doesn’t mean I don’t wanna go home.”

“Hmph.”

“Don’t sulk.” Ursula reached down and gave Lilly’s hair a gentle tousle.

“H-hey! We just spent all afternoon combing!”

“Yeah well if you don’t want me messing with your hair maybe you shouldn’t be so cute.”

“Ah! Noooooooooo!” At this point, Ursula had transitioned into a full-on headlock noogie, though Lilly clearly didn’t actually mind that much considering how she was giggling and snorting even as she squirmed to break free. And Ursula, for her part, was being as gentle as she could manage.

“Well. It seems like someone’s enjoying herself.”

Ursula suddenly felt extremely conscious about the fact that she had Linda Travers’s daughter in a headlock, and sheepishly loosened her grip – just in time for Lilly to wrestle her way free, running over and tacklehugging her mother. “Mom!”

“There you are,” Linda said softly. She pulled the rabbit into a gentle hug with her lower set of arms, resting one of the upper pair on her shoulders and stroking her hair with the last. “You had us all worried sick.”

“‘m sorry,” Lilly muttered. “It’s just...”

“I know, I know. We’re all very busy, but it’s not fair to just leave you cooped up inside all the time. Especially considering how much you’ve improved in the past few years.” She pulled away from the hug, resting her hands on Lilly’s shoulders and looking her in the eye. “But you still shouldn’t have run away. What if something happened to you?”

“Mm.”

“Next time, I want you to just talk to me. You know I’ll always make time for you. Worst comes to worst, it’s not hard to arrange a babysitter.”

“Okay...”

“Especially now that you have some friends outside of the family. I’m sure they’d be more than happy to spend time with you.” Viola decided not to bring up the fact that school and community service meant that their free time was severely limited these days. Not that Linda Travers couldn’t get around that if she really wanted to. Honestly, just being here felt really weird and uncomfortable. Like she was witnessing something deeply private. “Speaking of which, I have you all to thank for finding and looking after my daughter.”

“Um.” Everyone stood sort of awkwardly. Viola couldn’t speak for the others, but it felt extremely intimidating for Linda fucking Travers to be giving them her full, direct attention. Even Lars seemed to be mildly uncomfortable, quietly averting his gaze. The only person who wasn’t reacting was Vicky, and that was mostly because she was struggling to stay awake.

“No need to say anything. You just did what anyone would do.”

“Right.”

“Thank you for keeping her safe.”

“You’re welcome?”

“Come now, no need to be so shy! We’re all adults here, Viola. May I call you Viola?”

Viola frowned slightly. “You know my name?”

“I make a point of knowing people’s names,” Dr. Travers replied simply. “Besides, you were in the news recently, no?”

“I guess...”

“Viola, Vienna, Ursula, Erin, Miranda, Victoria, Lars.”

No one actually seemed particularly comfortable with being called by their first names. Vicky, in particular, frowned. “Okay, that logic works for Viola and the others. But me and Lars and Miranda weren’t in the news.”

“Miranda’s mother is a Travers employee, of course.”

“Okay.” That, pointedly, did not actually answer Vicky’s question even slightly.

“Most people know my name, I’ve always felt it would be rude not to extend the same courtesy.” And that raised several more.

Linda didn’t actually bother to wait for any further responses on the subject before continuing. “Now, to business. I’m told that Lilly has something she wants to ask me?”

“Oh! Um... Can I sleep over?”

“Yes.”

“O-oh! Thank you!”

“But.”

“Oh...”

Dr. Travers turned her attention back to Viola. “Lilly has certain... special needs, in comparison to other people her age. I would like to have a private conversation with you on that subject. If that’s alright with you, of course?” Oh god. The answer, of course, was that no it really wasn’t okay at all. But, well, she got the impression that she didn’t actually have a choice. “Come with me, please.”

“Yes’m.”

It took Viola a moment to work up the courage to follow, which Linda didn’t seem all that interested in giving her. She moved quickly and purposefully, leaving the rabbit scrambling to catch up. “A-ah, sorry!” She stumbled awkwardly after Linda, leaving her pack behind.

“... Is she gonna be okay?”

“Mom’s nice,” Lilly said firmly.

“Mm. I think that, at least when it comes to Viola, that might actually make things worse, darling.”

Lilly frowned slightly. “She’s nice,” she repeated.

“She’s not the one we’re worried about,” Ursula replied, giving her hair another tousle. “Viola’s never been good with strangers. She’ll prolly be fine though. Prolly.”

“Hmph.” Lilly seemed determined to take objection regardless, so everyone collectively made the unspoken decision to change the subject.

“We should probably move,” Erin interjected. “We are right by the exit.”

“Yeah, prolly. Folks’re already startin’ to get ready to leave.” Really, folks were already leaving. There were still some last minute talks going on over by the stage, but Ursula wasn’t the only person too anxious to get home to be bothered. People were starting to filter towards the exit, and the group were almost directly in the way. Which normally wasn’t a problem, because normally they didn’t have any reason not to just leave immediately. Hence why they generally took up a spot right by the exit. This time, though, they found themselves suddenly in the way.

It wasn’t like this was the only exit, of course. Esterwood’s town Hall was, like every other building in Esterwood, very old. It hadn’t been built with the population crisis in mind, and so it was ironically one of the few parts of town that wasn’t buckling under the pressure of all the new people (yet). But it sure felt like every single person in town was filtering by them. Which, really, was the sticking point. They weren’t exactly well regarded, was the thing. As far as the locals were concerned, they were a gaggle of troublemakers and weirdos, which earned them some dirty looks from the people who passed by. Even a good number of the new faces gave them the side-eye. Lilly visibly rankled under all the negative attention, shrinking away behind Vicky.

“Hmph,” Ursula grunted, glaring right back as good as she got. She kept it at that, though – if there was gonna be any kind of public confrontation, she wasn’t gonna be the one who instigated. So, as much as she wanted to chew them out for being assholes, she wasn’t gonna stoop to that level. If they wanted to start shit, they could start shit.

God damned if she didn’t really want to tell them off, though. Or at least mutter ‘jackasses’ under her breath or something. Fuck ‘em.

“Ah, Vicky. Sophie’s at the Arcade with her pack.”

“Huh? Oh, uh. Thanks.” Vicky blinked blearily up at Phoebe. “Uh. It’s not just her pack there, right?”

“Kelly’s there too.”

“Okay cool. I’ll swing by to pick ‘em up and get ‘em home later.”

“Don’t feel rushed! Your parents are out of town again, right? I can keep an eye on ‘em for as long as necessary.”

“Wait, seriously? Again?” Vienna tilted her head quizzically. “Your parents sure are out of town a lot.”

“They like going on vacations,” Vicky muttered tersely in response. “Ugh, right, I’m still on babysitting duties. Hopefully she’s eaten because I don’t think I’m up to cooking tonight...”

“Hey, I’m serious when I say you don’t need to worry. You’re too young to be your little sister’s mom and I literally got into this line of work because I like looking after kids. I can babysit for you, it’s fine.”

“Well...” Vicky frowned. “... Okay. But not all night, alright?”

“Uh, actually?” Vienna interjected. “Vicky’s been having a hard time lately so I think any lightening of the load would be appreciated.”

“Hey-”

“I’m okay with looking after her tonight, at least,” Phoebe said with a smile. “Seriously, don’t be afraid to ask for help.”

“Ugh.” Vicky made a sour face. “... Fine.”

“We can look after her at the pack house tomorrow,” Ursula added nonchalantly. “Can’t be that fuckin’ hard.”

“Speaking of Sophie, I should get back to the Arcade,” Phoebe said with a nod. “Just... Remember that you don’t have to go it alone, okay?”

“I know, it’s just... I should be able to deal with looking after her alone. I used to be able to do it just fine.”

“Just take the time you need to recover from whatever’s going on with you, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just make sure she eats at least one vegetable. And don’t let her try to convince you that meat counts as a vegetable.”

“Ha! Don’t worry, the tomato sauce on the pizza has a bunch of blended up vegetables in it.”

“Genius.”

With that, Phoebe waved and left. “Was she your friend?”

“Eh, maybe?” Vicky shrugged. “It’s more like she’s someone I interact with a lot, you know?”

“I don’t get it...”

“You don’t gotta get it.”

That just seemed to make Lilly even more confused. She tilted her head back and forth a few times, and Miranda could practically see the smoke coming out of her ears. “It’s like... Like she’s someone that Vicky sees often enough and doesn’t have a bad relationship with but if she were to just suddenly no longer have any reason to see her she’s not close enough to her to make a reason? Izzat right?”

“Yeah,” Vicky replied. “You pretty much nailed it.”

“Oh.” Lilly frowned. “I still don’t get it.”

“... Well, you don’t have to get it,” Miranda replied sullenly.

“Okay...”

“Eh, it’s fine. Don’t think about it too hard.” Ursula shrugged. “Sometimes people just come in and out of your life, y’know?”

Lilly’s frown deepened. “I don’t like that.”

“Then don’t think about it. Just focus on the people who stay in your life.”

“Okay. Um. I think I get it now?”  She shyly looked over at the others. “Um. You’re gonna stay, right?”

“We don’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon, darling.”

That seemed to be enough to pacify Lilly for now. She returned to shyly hiding behind Vicky as people continued to pass them by. “Hey, Vicky! Remember to send Lola your notes!”

“I already did!”

“Okay, thanks.” Roxie passed by quickly, fading into the blur of the crowd like she’d not even been there.

“Hi, Vicky.”

“Oh for-” Vicky pinched the bridge of her nose firmly. “Hi, Diane! I am very tired so if it’s not important-”

“I just wanted to say hi.”

“Okay cool hi.”

“Um. Is she your friend?”

“I-”

“Yep!”

“Mrggg.” Vicky strongly considered contradicting that, but ultimately decided against it. She was way too tired for that particular conversation right now, and anyway it was probably best to stay on good terms with Sophie’s teacher. It was just...

Well, frankly, Diane was a bit pushy. A lot pushy. It wasn’t that she was a jerk, far from it – if anything the problem was that she was a bit too nice. During all three of the recent big local incidents she’d opened her home to all of the local children whose family were in Locksmouth or Harbington. And all three times she’d fucking roped Vicky into helping out. Thankfully with each incident there had been increasingly fewer children to worry about, but some people just couldn’t afford to cut out Locksmouth. Still, Vicky had repeatedly tried to make it clear that she wasn’t really up for group babysitting and Diane had repeatedly misinterpreted that as being up for group babysitting. Somehow. Maybe she should have been a bit clearer about her meaning, but again; this was Sophie’s teacher, she really didn’t want to burn that bridge. Especially considering it was very likely that Diane was going to be Sophie’s teacher until high school, for at least a few more years. There were only so many teachers in Esterwood, after all, and the last time they’d gotten a new one was when Mrs. Finch retired and Diane replaced her.

Besides which, she kinda felt bad for her.

“You’re a new face,” Diane said, completely ignoring Vicky’s increasingly obvious annoyance. “What’s your name?”

Lilly shrunk back behind Vicky, which seemed to be her default reaction to new people. “Um. I-it’s Lilly. Lilly Travers.”

“Ah, would you happen to be related to Doctor Travers?”

Lilly nodded slowly. “She’s my mom.”

Diane tilted her head slightly. It was subtle enough that Vicky was probably the only one who picked up on it, but she was pretty sure the duck had picked up on the fact that there was something up with Lilly. Though, if she had, she was pretty good at hiding it. “Hm. Out of curiosity, how old are you?”

“Ummm...” Lilly slowly shuffled out from behind Vicky and tentatively held her hands up, balled into fists, before splaying all of her fingers. “This many. But, um. Twice.” She closed her fists and then opened them again in demonstration. “Um. Twenty. I think. Sorry.”

Well okay then. Vicky was increasingly more desensitized to Lilly being just a complete enigma. If, a few hours ago, right after their encounter at the Burger Dictator, you’d told Vicky that Lilly was twenty years old, she would have called you a bullshit liar. Now, though not a lot had changed, she almost accepted it sight unseen. Almost. “what.”

“Wow, you’re a big girl, aren’t you?” Diane said, completely failing to even miss a beat.

Lilly nodded enthusiastically. “Mom’s letting me stay the night with my friends!”

“That must be very exciting for you! I should get going, don’t want to get in the way of your big day. Vicky, we can talk later.”

That was the first and only time she dropped the teacher persona to directly acknowledge that something was off. She was not saying that they could talk later, she was making it very clear that at her earliest convenience Vicky was going to call her and they were gonna discuss the fact that Lilly was Like That. Which, like, fair enough. Vicky didn’t blame her. “Yeah, okay, see you later.”

Vicky resisted the urge to feel relieved when Diane left without any further words. Or at least she tried, and mostly failed. She was very tired, and the purposeful way that Diane left kind of made her think she was going to cause a scene, which Vicky really wasn’t in the mood for. Lilly slipped right back behind her and she barely noticed. The others exchanged concerned looks

God, Viola couldn’t get back soon enough.

~~~~~~

Esterwood’s town hall wasn’t exactly the biggest place in the world. Until recently, a lot of it had just gone entirely unused because they didn’t need to use it. Most of the empty space was now dedicated to Travers employees, and there were a lot of them, swarming around like bees. Viola had to constantly keep aware of her surroundings because while they were all making conscious efforts to let Dr. Travers by, they didn’t seem to be extending that same courtesy to her. It was up to Viola herself to dodge and weave her way through the crowd, which she pointedly wasn’t very good at. There were no direct collisions, but there were a lot of close calls and quite a few dirty looks from people who almost bowled her over. Which, like, she wasn’t the one who wasn’t looking where she was going while running in a crowded building. As far as she was concerned, if they bumped into her then it was their fault. Though, on the other hand, she didn’t exactly have the courage to say that out loud if it happened.

“Gentlemen,” Linda said apropos of nothing. “The world won’t end if you take an extra thirty seconds to get to your destination. Please be a bit more careful.”

And, just like that, everyone slowed down. It was just a little weird and creepy that Viola had been worrying about crashing into someone and then Linda had told everyone to slow down. But only a little – Viola could kind of see how someone might intuit the problem. Maybe.

Either way, town hall being small worked to Viola’s advantage as much as her disadvantage. It didn’t take all that much longer to get to Linda’s appropriated office, where she wouldn’t have to worry about all the people milling about until their meeting was done. At which point she’d have to do it all over again, and probably without Linda around to tell people to slow down. Great. Oh well, she’d deal with that bridge when the time came to cross it.

Linda’s office had, at some point in the past, just been a regular office. Viola could almost see parts of it under the tools and metal and wires and circuit boards. Her desk had been turned into a makeshift workbench, with what appeared to be a couple of severed arms resting on top of it. Linda wordlessly slipped around to the other side and picked up some sort of multitool looking thing. “Please, have a seat,” she said, as though there were any chairs (there weren’t.) “And try not to look directly into the light.”

“The light?”

Linda once again didn’t respond to Viola, or at least not directly. She snapped her fingers and a pink mask emerged from seemingly nowhere, with big dark pink ovals over her eyes. A welding mask specifically, Viola realized, just in time that she looked away when the doctor began to poke at the arms with the multitool. Even not directly looking at it, it was so bright that it almost hurt her eyes.

“Sorry, I have to get these done.”

“It’s, um. It’s fine,” Viola replied, lifting an arm up to shield her eyes.

“I’m certain that you’ve noticed by now, but Lilly is... Different.”

She had, in fact, noticed that. “Um-”

“To be clear, Lilly is not my biological daughter. I adopted her four years after learning about her situation.”

“And, um-”

“It’s not really my place to say what that situation was, sorry. You’ll have to wait until Lilly is comfortable enough to share it with you.”

“Okay.”

“However, I do have some requests for you,” Linda continued, her tone of voice making it clear that they weren’t actually requests. “Most importantly, I would like for you to not press Lilly about her past. Let her open up at her own pace.”

“I wasn’t going to. Um. Press her, that is.”

Linda paused her work, lowering her welding mask to look directly at Viola. “It’s fine, I trust you.” Probably a bad call, though Viola obviously didn’t say that out loud. “There are some other requirements, but most of them are things you aren’t going to have to worry about.”

“Okay.”

Linda turned her attention back to the arms, though thankfully she seemed to be done with the welding for now. “Bedtime is ten, but just make sure she gets a solid eight hours of sleep.”

“Okay.”

“Do you have any knives in your house?”

“Um. Yes.”

“Field knives or metal?”

“Um. Metal.”

“You’ll have to get rid of them, then.”

“Oh.”

“Lilly is extremely phobic of sharp objects in general and knives in particular,” Linda explained. “It would be unreasonable to ask you to scour your home for anything pointy or sharp, of course. But no knives. I’ll supply you with some field-based replacements. The highest quality we have available, free of charge of course. I know it’s an imposition, but it’s an important one.”

“Um. Okay.” Honestly, she’d kind of seen this coming after Lilly had initially expressed discomfort. She’d been planning on getting a set of field knives anyway. And hey, Travers were a pretty good brand when it came to kitchenware, and you couldn’t get a better price than free. Besides, there was a certain allure to field-based cookware. Lightweight, easy to use, you never had to sharpen them, and you never had to clean them either. Just turn off the force field and all the food remains just fell off. That alone was more than worth the learning curve of dealing with a knife that had all the weight in the handle. They could otherwise do just about everything that physical cookware could do, for the most part. Momma would probably be annoyed, of course. She hated field cookware, which is why they had some of her hand-me-downs. Nothing particularly nice, though. Viola wouldn’t feel too bad about throwing them out because it wasn’t like there were any heirlooms in there or anything.

“And make sure you keep a close eye on her. She’s already wandered off once, I don’t want it to turn into a habit.”

“Okay.” Linda turned her full attention to her work, not saying anything further. “Um. Are- are we done?” No response. Okay then. Part of her felt like she was supposed to get up and leave. But also she kind of felt like it was a bad idea to just get up and leave without being told to do so.

“Tell me, have you ever heard of something called Stockholm Syndrome?”

“Um. No?”

“It’s a psychological phenomenon named after a pre-splice city. Most details of the actual incident that coined the term are unfortunately lost to time, but we do at least know the gist.”

“Oh. Um. What would that be?”

“A group of people were held hostage for a prolonged period of time. After the situation was resolved, they staunchly defended the actions of their captors. That’s what Stockholm Syndrome is at its most basic level; a captive developing positive feelings towards their captor.”

“oh.”

Linda once again stopped fiddling with the arms, looking Viola in the eye for what felt like an eternity but was really probably only barely a minute. “That will be all,” she said after a moment. “You can go home now.”

“Okay.” Viola didn’t need to be told twice. Fuck it, she didn’t need to be told once. She’d been wanting to go home literally since stepping out of the door to head to the stupid town meet in the first place. But she especially wanted to get away from Linda. The woman was, frankly well beyond overwhelming. Viola wasn’t exactly the most extroverted person at the best of times, but this wasn’t that. What it was, she was having a hard time putting into words. But the way she found herself completely reduced to single-word responses went well beyond normal shyness.

The real kicker, though, was when Linda brought up an old pre-splice psychological phenomenon where people felt sympathetic to people who held them captive out of the fucking blue. That set off just about every alarm bell there was to set off, and she could feel that Aubrey agreed profusely. She couldn’t know about Ami, could she? How would she know? Had someone told her? But who? It couldn’t have been Lars or Vicky, they were jerks but they both at least understood why it was so urgent to keep Ami’s true nature a secret. Had Miranda secretly been a mole the whole time, ingratiating herself with them so that she could learn their secrets? If so, she’d done a shit job of it. And anyway, that didn’t answer why Linda would even know they had any secrets to learn. Maybe Lilly? No. No, definitely not Lilly. If it was Lilly then she was the most convincing god damn actress in the history of humanity. And why didn’t she just out and say it? Why so obviously imply she knew something without just saying it? What the fuck kind of mindgames was she playing with them.

“I think,” Aubrey interjected as Viola leaned against the wall outside Linda’s office, “that for now you should keep this to yourself. At least until you can talk to the others about it in private. Without Lilly overhearing.” She was right, of course, though Viola decided not to say so out loud. They didn’t know that Linda knew, after all. It could honestly just have been some kind of... weird, fucked up non-sequitur? Or something? Honestly, she just didn’t want to even consider the fact that Linda fucking Travers might have it out for her. She really, really, really, really did not want to get into any kind of personal beef with the head of one of the biggest tech companies in the world right now.

Of course, on the other hand, she also didn’t want to just bury her head in the sand and pretend that wasn’t a possibility. “Okay,” she muttered to herself. “Have Lilly watch cartoons, talk with Ursula about it in her room. That’s the plan.” Hopefully that wasn’t the kind of talking to herself that would make the passing Travers employees think she was crazy. Though the looks she was getting kind of gave her the vibe that they’d think that even without her talking to herself at all.

“... Fuck it, let’s just go home.”