Chapter 2-Acclimation

In retrospect 'Shadow' might have been a better name, I was thinking as I eased myself out of bed in the middle of the night, shrugging off a cold sweat and a shivver from yet another nightmare to go fetch myself a glass of water.

It had been two weeks since I'd first awoken on the Ring above the Lost Earth, and though I inwardly felt I'd never get used to seeing it up there, I was starting to get to grips with my new life after the great Groupmind revolution and being transplanted 1500 years into a future only the sci-fi greats might have imagined.

“Three.....two.....one.....” I muttered, half under my breath. as I added some ice from the fridge door to my water, quite nonplussed to see a pair of yellow feline eyes looking back at me from the darkness, followed by a concerned murr of “Brendan, are you all right?” right on cue.

At least she isn't calling me 'sir' anymore, I thought wryly as I waved a nonchalant gesture in the direction of my tiger-morph minder, Stripes, and replied softly, “Yes, yes, I'm good. Just need a drink and some air for a minute.”

I shuffled off towards the back porch to forestall any further conversation in my night shirt and boxers, resisting the impulse to shut the door in Stripes' face, not that it would've done any good as her artificial limbs artfully disguised by the synthflesh and fur were many times stronger than I could ever hope to be despite her smaller stature, so she could've wrenched the thing clean off its hinges with me hanging on if she so chose.

Right now though, she was effecting a sort of groggy poutyness as she padded silently after me, a shirt and some pajama bottoms covering her curvy feline figure, not that it didn't stop me cursing Groupmind for the umpteenth time for giving me a lifelong companion that was sexy....and knew it. Darn thing just wasn't playing fair.

To say our present relationship was complicated was putting it mildly. Having a morph around all the time was like having a roommate you could never be rid of, coupled with a watchful guardian, a helper, and a servant rolled all into one. To her credit, though I wasn't about to admit it just yet, it was easy to like Stripes, which my more cynical side quipped was surely was how she had been designed in the first place, to be my ideal companion.

Though she had started out quite formal, and the ever-helpul and eager to please nature still remained, I'd noticed her personality grow more casual, and dare I say it, more lifelike as the days passed and we got used to each other, for better or worse.

Lately, we'd hit a helluva speedbump as I'd asked two days previously about what had happened to my parents, and I can still recall Stripe's face as her ears drooped and her expresssion became crestfallen as she dropped a bombshell squarely in my lap.

My pop's underlying health conditions and my mom's age meant they wouldn't have survived the nano-stasis procedure, she had explained patiently, and they had remained back on Earth.

It was right about then I'd lost my collective shit again. I'd ignored her pleas for calm and her hurried explanations that a lot of people had been under the same circumstances and had been looked after with the utmost care until they'd passed away naturally. In the moment, I hadn't cared a whit, all I felt was rage, white-hot rage and I was going to smash this infernal machine and everything else that had taken my loved ones away from me if it was the last thing I ever did!

I had moved fast, but Stripes was much faster. Before I could get my hands on the nearest blunt object, a table lamp, she was on me, grabbing me from behind and restraining me with a bearhug that would've made a grizzly proud, overpowering my thrashing muscles and easing us both down so we were both on the floor in a sitting position as I struggled in vain to try to throw her off, tears streaming down my face even I cursed up a blue streak. Rational thought just wasn't there, just anger and the heavy weight of heartbreak. It was too much, just too goddamn much and I just couldn't take it anymore...

As my strength left me from all the struggling and my curses died away to sobs, Stripes just held me in her arms there on the floor, her grip easing into a gentle hug as I lost the strength to fight and just kept on sobbing like a little child.

Time just seemed to hang, it might've been minutes, it may have been an hour or two, but eventually the white heat dimmed and I came back from the abyss, my breathing slowing down and I started to think again. I was still pissed and grief-stricken beyond belief, but a fragile clarity had come back to me and I was thinking again.

“Let me up,” I croaked, my voice hoarse from all the shouting I'd done. “If I do, do you promise not to do anything rash?” Stripes replied softly in my ear, her grip on me gentle but still firm.

“No, I promise nothing ,” I growled back, a little of the heat flaring up again in my chest, and I pulled against her grip weakly, for all the good it did. Stripes gave a small sigh and said back, “Then we will wait a little longer. I know it hurts, but I can't let you harm yourself.”

I settled for silently seething in contempt for my minder as just focused on breathing for the time being, the implications starting to make themselves known to me in Stripes' statement. This was never going to change, never with a capital “N”. I would never be rid of Stripes, no matter what I did, and I was never going to be truly free ever again...

After a few more moments had past and the fire in my core had died down to a low smolder, Stripes eased us both back to our feet again, though my refusal had apparently earned some sort of suicide watch, as she refused to leave my side for even a moment as I cleaned myself up. She didn't actually restrain me again, but I could tell by her watchful gaze as she sat next to me as I swapped my tear-sodden shirt for a clean one in my bedroom that she was ready to do it all over again if I even tried to do something stupid. I wasn't going to be given the slightest chance until I could proven to be trusted again, and I was still way too pissed for that right then.

Ultimately I didn't know what to do as I hovered between bitter resentment and cold fury for the rest of the day, so I settled for wandering, first around the house, and then heading outside, all while Stripes was right alongside. She tried to speak to me a few times, but the glare I'd shot back each time put paid to that in a right hurry, though each time her expression fell, looking like I'd burned her ball of yarn or something, and even through my low simmer of anger I felt a bit worse for it.

Eventually, as evening fell and I still hadn't eaten anything, she finally broached the subject with a low murr of, “You need to eat something, you know.”

“Suppose I don't,” I grunted back, still feeling a little petulant even though I had cooled off a great deal, “You going to stuff an IV in my arm to keep me alive?”

“If it comes to it, but I don't think you want that,” she replied, puffing up a little defensively, her yellow eyes boring into mine as we looked each other in the face, “You're upset, and you have every right to be. But being angry and violent isn't going to bring them back.”

This stung, and my first impulse was to go full hell-fire all over again, but the earnest way Stripes had said it and the look she was giving me now brought me up short. I didn't like it, but it also didn't stop it from being true.

“I don't know what to do....” I finally answered honestly, “I....I just don't know how to take all of this right now....” “Then let's start with step one,” Stripes replied, offering up a handpaw and a small reassuring smile, “Dinner.”

I didn't know what to say, but I found my hand slipping into hers...

In the here and now of the still night, sitting on the back porch in a lawn chair, I reflected on the rest of how that day had gone as I sipped on my water and did my best to put the nightmare I'd just had out of mind, reliving my escape attempt when Groupmind had taken over for the umpteenth time.

Dinner had been good, Stripes had called in for some Chinese to be delivered and I'd mostly just sat and thought some more as she set the table for me and dished everything out. Though the subject of my parents was still a sore one between us and I was still upset with Stripes at my core, not to mention this new world of the Ring, we had at least opened up a dialog.

Things got a little awkward again as I was getting ready to turn in, pulling off my shirt and turning on the water to get hot for a shower. I was just settling into the warm stream and letting it roll over me when I heard a soft rustle, and when I peeked out from behind the shower curtain, I saw Stripes settling down on the floor beside it with a towel and my nightclothes, apparently still on watch to make sure I wasn't going to do something stupid.

Seeing the terse look on my face, she just smiled and said, “Don't worry, I won't peek.” What seemed to be left unsaid was “unless you want me to...”

Don't get me wrong, I was still mad at her, but right then I think I turned redder than a stop sign as I slid the curtain closed again. That was the thing about Stripes, I knew she was a morph, knew it for an absolute certainty that underneath all the fur and curves she was synthetic, a robot with motors and circuits and all the rest, but sometimes she seemed all too real, and...into me...and that was unnerving.

Back in the here and now again, my expression wasn't quite so embarrased as I glanced back over the head of the lawnchair into those big yellow eyes and the long strands of snow-white and silver hair almost seeming to glow in the light of the moon and Earthlight above.

She had a somewhat sleepy look mixed with a touch of concern, the former a little bit of theater on her part as Morphs didn't need to sleep. Pre-uprising, they'd needed to go into charging slots sort of like Seven of Nine had used in Star Trek Voyager every so many hours of operation, but if there was one of those around the house or in the shop, I hadn't found it yet, not for lack of trying.

“Penny for your thoughts, kitty?” I quipped softly, getting an eyebrow raise in reply as Stripes murred back as she hugged against the back of my chair in her pajama-clad form, “I was going to ask you the same question. Another nightmare?

“Can't get anything past you,” I said with a sigh, sipping on the water I'd gotten from the kitchen to stall for a little time.

“Want to talk about it?”

“Nope. You gonna quit being a mother hen and let me enjoy a little fresh air and let my grey matter suss itself out?”

“Sleep's important.”

“So's my sanity. If I can't convince you to stop hovering like a zeppelin, why don't you sit here next to me and we can talk?”

Stripes appeared to consider this for a moment, one of her feline ears going up and the other going down as her muzzle scrunched up a little before she relaxed and murred “M'kay..”.

Dragging over one of the other lawn chairs and setting it right next to mine, Stripes curled up in it like an overgrown housecat and rested her head next to my arm, nuzzling against it. Ordinarily I would've shied away from such close contact, but for whatever reason I found my free hand wandering over in between my Morph minder's fuzzy ears and giving a soft scritch, earning a low rumbling purr and more nuzzling.

Positive reinforcement, my inner-cynic chimed in, another bit of clever programming, but again, just didn't care right then as I mulled over my glass of water and my thoughts.

“Why do you care?” I asked at last after a long silence, the question coming almost of its own accord to my lips, “Groupmind told me its big master plan before knocking me out for the Big Sleep. But why you, specifically? I know all morphs are technically a part of Groupmind and you do as it tells you, but when it's not in the driver's seat you're you, an individual as much as any morph can be. So why do you give a damn about me so much?”

Stripes furrowed her brow at this, her purring falling away to silence as she sat up slowly in her seat, one ear going up and the other down as she softly chewed her lower lip, apparently thinking over how best to answer, maybe worried I'd blow up at her again.

“You're my Designated Focus, Brendan,” Stripes replied softly, her voice barely above a whisper as her eyes sought mine, “It's my purpose to give a damn about you.”

Designated Focus, I'd come across the term a few times while roaming through some of the forums discussing Morphs on what went for the internet these days on the Ring, familiar but different as was the way of humanity's new gilded cage. The gist of it was simple enough, every human must have a morph in this new life, that morph was your companion and minder 'till the day you died. In purely basic terms, it was a matter of programming, I supposed, like so much else about Morphs, but for apparently sentient personalities programming only went so far to explain the non-conditional devotion each Morph showed their charges.

“Can you explain that a little better?” I asked in the here and now with a slight tilt of my head. Apparently this wasn't the response Stripes was expecting, but she seemed a bit relieved as she thought about it again for a minute, her muzzle screwing up a little as she said,

“Well, it's a little difficult to put into human terms, I guess, but a Designated Focus is everything to us. Everything. Without you, I wouldn't have a purpose to exist, and I exist for you, only you. It's my purpose to see to it you have what you need.”

“You make it sound like love,” I said, my face falling a bit as I thought of my parents and the love they had shown me as I had grown up, the hurt panging against my chest again.

“We do love you,” Stripes said, smiling a little even as I shot her a dubious look, “All of you. That's why we had to save you.”

I was half tempted to utter a scathing retort about the f-all Groupmind's love had done for me and the rest of the human race, but I bit it back and considered. The admission had been, for lack of better terms, heartfelt, maybe even a little hopeful, and my silly monkey-brain was trying to get to grips with the notion of a machine feeling love.

As my little gray cells wrestled with the philosophy, I found myself asking, perhaps a little shyly, “And the.....um....flirty stuff? And...um...well, how you look?”

Stripes giggled a little, actually giggled , darn her, and said, “Well, Groupmind did have access to all your personal files, so it was thought best that I have a form that would be pleasing to you to help. As for being flirty...well, guilty, just a little bit.”

“So the big A.I. overlord looked through my furry porn stash...” I groaned, feeling humiliated and not for the first time wishing I could logic bomb Groupming into a pocket calculator for all the trouble, not helped as Stripes giggled again. It was a pleasant sound, and despite any protestations I might've voiced, I felt my mouth going a bit dry as I then said, “So, what about...you know...?”

Stripes looked like the proverbial cat that ate the canary for a moment, though to her credit she toned down her big grin and her tone was gentle and she was taking it seriously as she raised an eyebrow and said, “Well, strictly speaking it would be best for you to have a human partner, but given my source material, the need was....anticipated...”

She'd trailed off there, was she chewing her lower lip again? I think I could've died of pure shame right then and there, and I think my face was glowing like a lantern as I hastily gulped down some more water to keep from spluttering out nonsense as my mouth would be outrunning my brain (currently undergoing a BSOD and trying to reboot), and by the time I worked up enough gumption to face Stripes again, she was looking at me with a kind and gentle smile.

The unspoken message was clear. She might be a flirty kitty with sexy to spare, but she wasn't going to do anything if I didn't want her to, and ultimately she was here for me, should would always be there for me. That did fuck-all for my wildly swinging emotions and general embarrasment right there at that minute, but at the back of my mind this was oddly a comforting notion.

A few more long moments of silence, and the red eventually left my face as we looked at each other, and I spoke again at length, “So what am I to do now? I'm going to be honest with you, Stripes, I don't know what to do. I'm in a strange place straight out of a science-fiction novella, I'm hurting beyond words from the loss of my planet and those that I love...and now there's well...you...”

Stripes just smiled kindly, rising up from her lawnchair and offering up her handpaw as she had done earlier as she said, “We take it one step at a time. Come back inside with me?”

I hesitated, unsure of myself, but I eventually took her hand and let her help me up, and my arm went around her middle as she leaned her head on my shoulder and purred contentedly as we padded through the screen door and back through the kitchen.

There was some reservation on my part as we reached my bedroom, but ultimately I didn't resist as Stripes sat down on the cushions beside me, gently nuzzling into my shoulder and strill thrumming like a well-oiled outboard motor, helping me pull of my shirt and scooching up behind me as I lay my head down on the pillows.

Inwardly I was glad I still had my boxers on and she had her pajamas, but I'm not gonna deny it, it was nice as she gently put her arms around me in a soft hug, gently pressing up against my back as she pulled the covers up over us. I idly wondered how she could be so warm, but the technical thoughts only resided briefly in my mind as I was soon sawing logs well enough to make Paul Bunyan take notice, joined by a low purring as a soft counterpoint.

No more nightmares that night, and for the first time on the Ring, I slept peacefully and restfully.