Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Fifteen - I'm Not Wiser, Just Older

"Oldmaxxing is the fashion trend, inspired by men of the 80s and 90s. It includes a focus on browns and earth-tones, belts and simple walking shoes, and most eye-catchingly, the fashion often includes a particular Oldmax hairstyle where the front of the scalp is shaved back along the crown to give the impression that that oldmaxer is losing hair, while the rest of their hair is left to grow longer than usual and is combed back.

Oldmaxers often combine this with the habit of smoking traditional paper cigarettes and listening to vintage early-2000s music.

-Excerpt from 'Styles of the 2030s', Second Ed. 2044

***

Wake up, Catherine.

I winced, then blinked my eyes open. It was dark, but I still recognized that I was in my bedroom. Lucy was pressed up next to me, and I'd recognize the feel of her anywhere.

I tilted my head up and tried to scan the room. My organic eye was adjusted to the dark, but I still couldn't see much, which made it weird as my cybernetic eye could pick things out much better.

There wasn't anyone in the room. Which... why had I woken up, then? I was definitely still tired.

I'm the one that woke you up.

"Oh," I said as I let my head fall back. I had asked Myalis to wake me up the night before at around seven-ish. I'd even gone to bed yesterday, as opposed to early this morning. "God, I'm so fucking stupid," I muttered.

"Mm," Lucy said as she rolled over so that she was back to me. I didn't know if that was agreement or not, but her cold toes against the side of my leg almost did more to wake me up than Myalis talking in my head.

"Myalis?" I asked.

Yes, Catherine?

"Do you have a snooze function?"

No. Wake up.

"Urgh," I groaned, but without Lucy holding onto me, I didn't have any real excuse to stay in bed. So I rolled over, then untangled myself from the blankets until I was sitting on the edge. I rubbed my face, then gave in and stood up. Technically I'd gotten enough sleep. I was probably going to wake up on my own soon enough.

The problem was, I'd kinda gotten used to just... Cuddling with Lucy for an hour or so in the morning while scrolling through my media feed and overdosing my early-morning brain with brain-rot slop. Sometimes we'd even fuck.

But no, I just had to insist on being responsible on my first day off after the whole school thing. What was I even thinking?

Complaining about it wouldn't help any, so I got up and got going.

Morning stuff, then breakfast, then getting dressed properly. By the time seven-thirty or so rolled around, I was ready to face the day. Then Lucy ambled out of the bedroom, looking a little lost, with her hair all poofed up on one side and squished in on the other. "Why did you leave?" she asked. It was a bit whiny. "It's cold."

"Sorry," I said before folding her into a hug. "I've got a busy morning. Trust me, I'd much rather spend it with you. Even if your feet are cold."

"My feet aren't cold," Lucy lied.

"Sure they aren't," I pretended to agree, because I am a model girlfriend. "Anyway, you have classes this morning, right?"

"Yeah," Lucy said. She yawned cutely, then reached her fingers into her hair to scratch at her scalp. "Oh... you don't, right? I guess I can use a taxi, or call in a favour or something."

"I'll drive you over," I decided. "And I think the Bastion's auto-pilot is good enough to get you to the school and back. Usually I'd let you just go with that, but I might need it. We need to get you a car."

"Sure?" Lucy said. "I'll go take a shower. I'll be ready in a bit."

I nodded, then watched her go. Once she disappeared back into our room, I let out a sigh and wandered back to the kitchen. I found a can of coffee in the fridge and popped the tab. It tasted like ass, but it had 400% of my daily caffeine in it, and I needed that at the moment.

"So, first plan is getting into contact with the Nachtwächternetzwerk and the Keiretsu, right?" I asked aloud. I was impressed that I was able to say that without stumbling. "Can you send a message to the Doc and... crap, what was his name... Susano? Yeah, him. Send them both a message telling them that I'm down for a meeting in like, an hour or so. Whenever I'm back from dropping Lucy off."

Message sent.

"Thanks," I said.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

At this rate, you're going to need to purchase a secretary AI catalogue.

"Would it be better than you?" I asked.

Don't try to be cute.

I grinned and took another sip of my canned coffee. Lucy came in a few minutes later, hair still wet, but wearing a fresh school uniform. She tossed a piece of bread into the toaster, then started making a quick and easy breakfast. "Gonna be ready in five," she said. "Oh! The school's sending someone over today."

"Wait, here?" I asked.

"Yeah. A teacher, for the kittens. Uh, I told Daniel to take care of greeting them and all that, so don't worry. And I told Myalis, so the turrets probably won't blow them up." She started to butter her toast, very unconcerned about that last bit. Lucy looked up, then blinked. "Oh fuck! It's almost eight!"

"Yeah?"

"My class starts at eight this morning! I gotta go!" As soon as Lucy was done buttering her toast, she scooped up a bag from the side in a hurry, then was out the door, toast hanging from her mouth.

I shrugged, then followed after her at a more sedate pace, though I did send the order through my augs to open the Bastion up for her.

Lucy was pretty quiet on the flight over, not that it was a very long one. When we landed, she hopped to her feet, gave me a quick kiss, then a slower kiss, and then she was off.

"Well, that's one thing handled," I said. "Hey, Secretary Myalis?"

I can render your homeworld down into its individual atomic elements and sort them by mass and there's nothing you could do to stop me.

"Nice threat, but I'm too stupid to know what that means, so can you set an alarm for me to remind me to pick Lucy up?"

Only because I like Lucy more than you sometimes.

I laughed. "Hey, same."

By the way, Keiretsu have replied to my message. They will be unable to attend your meeting this morning, but they did send a memo that a member of their group is on their way to North America. Vanguard Radikal, however, is ready to speak to you at your convenience, as long as it's convenient within the next hour and forty minutes.

"Huh, alright," I said. "Let's get back home and park this thing. There's a camera setup in the garage, right? Next to the hologram projector thing?"

Yes. There is a camera next to the hologram projector thing.

"Cool!" I said. It wasn't long that I was carefully pulling into the parking garage under my massive cat-shaped home. Once the Bastion was settled in, I sat back and gave myself a few seconds to decompress before standing up and heading out.

Setting up the camera in the main workshop part of the garage-within-the-garage wasn't too hard. The UI for stuff I bought through Myalis was always super easy to figure out. A literal kid could stare at it for a few minutes and know how it worked.

Once I had an image of myself up and tested it by waving a bit, I placed the call to the doc.

It took three rings for him to answer, and that was with a, "Forgive me, but wait just one moment please," spoken in a thick German accent.

"No probs, Doc," I said.

A few moments later, I had the doc in front of me in miniature as a projected hologram. There was some 3d fuckery going on that made what was behind him appear as well, though in a sort of compressed way. It looked like he was in some sort of... lab, maybe? Like, a really high-tech one, but a lab all the same.

"Ah! Stray Cat! It's a pleasure to see you again."

"Yeah, likewise, Radikal," I said. "You doing alright over there?"

"Things are well," he replied with a smile. "The last of the mop-up for the Phobos incident went according to plan, and the remains of the moon are now hurtling through space and a trajectory which will have them intercepted by Jupiter in... about three hundred and twenty years."

"Uh, that's not for a minute," I said.

"Space is quite large, and orbits quite complex," he said. "How about you? How are things on your end? The Phobos incursion was quite sudden, but you seem to have handled it well."

"Yeah, surprisingly, things... went alright," I said. I pulled over a wheeled stool that was parked next to that mech leg I was working on, then sat down on it. "We... lived. Got a lot of locals to help, and things worked out. I mean, there were losses, but..."

"But the efforts we took prevented these from being disastrous," he said with a nod.

"Yeah," I said. "I guess we did alright."

***