Chelen City: Interlude: Catie

 Notes: Ah, kids. Sometimes they just need to be told no. And sometimes they're smart enough to figure out ways around it...

Title: Chelen City: Interlude: Catie

***

Interlude: Catie

 

Everything was dark, dark, dark. No light pixels, only dark ones. That’s all she got to see, all she wanted to see. That was what fit her mood, so that was what Catie saw. Darkness. Boring. Stupid, just like Daddy. Stupid like Lizzie and her stupid friend. Stupid like Kieron because he didn’t stop Daddy from taking away her access to the house system.

Stupid. Mean. So mean to me.

The house system had all her songs! All her plays and dances and fun! How was she supposed to be happy without them?

“Don’t pout like that, it’s not like you’re disconnected from everything,” Daddy had said, very rudely. “I’ll give you access back in the morning after we have another conversation with Pol and his mother. One that you can’t interrupt.”

“But he—”

“He what?”

How did she say she didn’t like him because he knew things she didn’t know? How did she say she hated the fact that he’d experienced something with her sister that Catie hadn’t, and that made her feel sad? She couldn’t just say it—surely Daddy knew! Yet he made Catie watch it all anyway! How was Catie supposed to stop herself from cutting him off when the sadness was so much?

Sure, she didn’t have to watch, but how was she supposed to resist, either? Lizzie should have told the boy that she didn’t want to see him, then come to play with Catie.

And now Catie was alone in her network, because she couldn’t access the house and Lizzie wasn’t answering her prods, and unlike most networks, she couldn’t force her way into Lizzie’s.

Absently, lost in her grump, Catie scanned over the data copies she’d downloaded most recently. This one from the house, that one from the entertainment network, this one from Kieron’s therapist’s office which she knew she wasn’t supposed to have but she had anyway because who was going to stop her, this one from Daddy’s work, this one from Daddy’s network that she also wasn’t supposed to access but who was going to stop her…

Actually, there was some interesting overlap there. Not the usual stuff that came out of Daddy’s work, boring oversight reports and information on safety measures and stupid useless datadatadata, this was…puzzling. Like it really was a puzzle. The layers of encryption were multifaceted and woven together enough to be a challenge, even for Catie.

Her first impulse was to ask Daddy about it, but noooo, she wasn’t going to do that because he would just scold her again and she didn’t want to put up with that because it wouldn’t be nice and she didn’t answer to him, after all, she was a big girl! Her second impulse was to share it with Lizzie, but Lizzie still wasn’t talking to her.

[Liiizziiiie?] Catie knocked one more time. [Lizziiiiiieee! Let me in!]

There was nothing but stoic silence from her sister.

[Leet me iiiin and we can plaaaay,] Catie whined. [I’ve gooot something new to shooooow you!] She flashed a shot of it at Lizzie, trying to entice her.

[Go away.]

A response, at last. [Lizziiiiiie!] She must have forgiven her. [Let’s plaaaay! I’ll start, weeee’re going to—]

[GO AWAY!] Lizzie screamed. She shut her network off with such finality that Catie was left completely flustered for a moment with nothing to latch onto. She tried a few more tentative attempts to reach out, but Lizzie gave off an impression of a black box—utterly closed off, even to the house network.

Well, fine. If Lizzie didn’t want to play with her, she would just work on this puzzle all by herself! She didn’t need them, she didn’t need anyone else to play with, she was fine being alone.

No, I’m not. But no one wanted to play with her, so Catie’s only option was to play by herself.

She lost hours to the puzzling encryptions. It was so interesting that she stopped paying attention to the passage of time; she was even able to ignore the nagging sensation of missing her daddy and her sister and Kieron.

It was Kieron who finally broke her out of her concentration, just before she got to the last layer of encryptions. “Catie?” His voice rang out in her hangar.

She kind of didn’t want to stop, but if she ignored him, he might not come back. No, don’t leave! Catie pulled the lights up and put on her pinkest skin. “Hiiiiii,” she said quietly.

“Hi.” Kieron sat down beside her right front hull and leaned against her. His skin was warm, and that heat transferred over and left her feeling warm too. Kieron was good about touch—even Daddy forgot to do more than use machines on her sometimes. “How are you this morning?”

Morning? It was morning already? “Fiiine,” she said. Wait, that wasn’t what he was looking for, was it? “I’m sooooorry for yesterday,” she went on.

He smiled, and Catie knew she’d gotten it right. Ha. I’m so smart. I’m the smartest ever.

“It’s all right. You’ll need to apologize to Lizzie and Elanus, though.”

“I triiiiied to with Lizziiiiie and she wouldn’t let meeeeee!”

“Try again later,” Kieron advised. “And definitely don’t forget your daddy. Now…” He accessed his network, and a moment later Catie’s mind overflowed with fresh connections to all the local networks she’d been missing. Yaaaaay!

“Thank youuuuu!”

“You’re welcome.” Kieron patted her hull. “Want to sing a song with me?”

“Yes pleeeease!” Sadness forgotten, Catie also forgot about the puzzle that had engaged her for so long, shoving it off to the side to contemplate later. It could wait for a while.

She’d get back to it…someday.

Chelen City: Chapter Six, Part Two

 Notes: Hey darlins! Here we have children behaving like, well, children, but not in the cute and fun way. Hoo-boy.

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Six, Part Two

***

Chapter Six, Part Two

 

By the time Kieron got back that evening, Elanus had retreated from brain work after a headache threatened to knock him flat. If there was one thing he despised more than the broken bones and ruptured organs he got from Elfshot Disease, it was the migraines. As a child, he’d had to be left in sensory-deprivation spaces hooked up to nutrition lines for hours, sometimes days on end before the side effects were under control. The pain was controllable, but the ways it affected his vision and balance were much less so. Aging had helped bring them under control, but days like today threatened to bring those headaches roaring back.

Luckily for him, he’d made good progress on the encryptions. He ought to be able to break through by the end of the week if he kept at it—another five days or so. Of course, he couldn’t work like this every day—he needed to show up at the office now that he was here, not to mention make some other public appearances and give his brain a break, so…

Ten days. Ten days, conservatively, until he had access to Deysan’s research. Ten days without involving anyone else, keeping the girls safe, keeping everything on an even keel and giving nothing away…he could do that.

“I would really like to kill that fucker.”

Apparently, he also needed to keep his lover from committing murder. “Really? How would you do it?”

Kieron stopped in the process of taking off his boots to stare at Elanus. Eventually he raised one eyebrow. “Really? That’s what you want to say right now?”

“It sure is.” Kieron scowled harder. Gods, he was just too fun to play with sometimes. “Because I know you actually won’t kill him,” he clarified. “You just want to imagine it in full and unsettling detail, and I want you to be happy, so this is me engaging with your interests. How would you do it? You’d never stoop to poisoning him, you’re more of a ‘mano a mano’ kind of guy, but you also aren’t likely the kind of person to indulge in repeats. So no stabbing, not shooting…hmm, choking maybe? Nah, too intimate for you, you don’t care about him one way or the other that much.”

Elanus snapped his fingers. “Blunt force trauma! A nice blow to the head in the right place, which might even be cover-uppable because of his recent stroke, you could—oh, hey now—”

“You are fucked in the head,” Kieron said as he straddled Elanus’s lap. “Do you know that?”

“Mmm, maybe.” Elanus grinned up at him. “Do you mind?”

“Mmm, maybe.”

“Liar.” Kieron’s lips found his ear, and Elanus tilted his head and practically purred as the attentions continued down his neck. “You love me in all my perversities, admit it.”

Kieron kissed his way around to Elanus’s face and pressed their lips together, then whispered, “Never.”

Holy shit, Elanus was so hard now. All he wanted to do was pick Kieron up, take him to their bedroom, and fuck him so hard neither of them woke up until tomorrow morning.

Unfortunately…

“We have to stop.”

Kieron shook his head. “I’d rather not.”

“You’ll miss the call with Xilinn if we don’t stop now.”

All of a sudden he sat straight. Elanus mourned the loss of contact and tried to pull him back down, but Kieron’s brain was already on another path. “She got permission to call? I thought I was supposed to have at least one more therapy session before that was allowed.”

“Apparently you impressed your therapist, because the go-ahead came through a few hours ago.” Elanus sighed remorsefully as Kieron got to his feet. “She and Pol should call in about two minutes.”

“We ought to loop the girls in,” Kieron said. “At least Lizzie, because she and Pol are friends.”

Awww, their baby had made a friend! “We can do that. I’m sure Catie will want to be part of the conversation to.”

Kieron reached out and pulled Elanus to his feet. “Let’s go join them, then.”

They ended up in Lizzie’s hangar, which Elanus could tell pissed Catie off if the sharp, staticky feelings she emitted were any indicator. “I said you could listen!” he defended himself.

“I waaaant to see!”

“You can look, too!”

“Do iit heeeeere!”

“No, this is Lizzie’s friend, so we’re taking the call in Lizzie’s room.”

“Noooot faaaair!”

Gods, he needed to renovate and get them into the same hangar before sibling rivalry drove him insane. “It’s completely fair,” he snapped, “and you know it. Stop acting like a spoiled brat.”

“Iiiii’m not a braaaaat! You’re a braaaaat!”

The second the call signal lit up their implants, Kieron connected almost desperately. “Xilinn!”

“Kieron!”

Elanus did a few things with the house camera system, and a second later the image of Xilinn and Pol was displayed in front of them—and in front of Catie, not that she was acknowledging that in the middle of her huff.

“Look, Mama, it’s Lizzie!” Pol pointed at the ship excitedly. “Hi, Lizzie!”

Lizzie’s skin turned a pale pink with pleasure. “Hi, Pol.”

“I want to come see you!”

“Quarantine won’t last much longer,” Kieron assured them. “And then we’ll all be together again.”

[No,] Catie grumped. Thankfully Elanus had her muted. [I don’t want them here.]

[Catie,] he thought warningly.

[I don’t! I don’t knoooow them!]

[You’ll get to know them.]

[I don’t waaaant to. They’re stuuupid.]

Oh, for fuck’s sake. The migraine was coming in full swing. So much for picking up where he and Kieron had left off once this call was over. [You don’t always get what you want,] Elanus snapped.

[Lizzie is my friend!]

[She can have more than one friend!]

[No!] There was an immense surge of power, and all of a sudden the house went dark.

The call cut off.

And Lizzie began to cry.

Aaaand now we’ve reached the un-fun part of parenting.

Discipline.

Chelen City: Chapter Six, Part One

Notes: On time, yay! Have some pensive but proactive Elanus.

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Six, Part One

***

Chapter Six, Part One

 

There were few things Elanus disliked more than seeing the people he loved disconcerted. He didn’t love many people—he never had, not even as a child. To see them discomfited by people who weren’t him was not enjoyable.

It was the strange, liminal emotions that he hated to see them endure, too. Hatred was hot and bright and passionate—even when Kieron had loathed Elanus, Elanus hadn’t exactly felt bad about inspiring that emotion in him because, well, at least it was a strong one. Same with love. Catie’s love for him was immense, intense, and all-encompassing, and that was how he liked it. Kieron’s love was subtler but so strong, and Lizzie, sweet Lizzie, was coming around to something very like the love of the person she held first.

Those were the sorts of things he was comfortable with, but seeing Kieron off by half a step, or half a second’s worth of reaction, slightly slow with meeting Elanus’s eyes after coming back from his “therapy” session…that enraged him. Kieron didn’t deserve to be made to doubt like that—to doubt himself, most likely. He deserved to be firm in his moorings, to know where he stood, and to feel supported that way. And now that security had been breached, over and over again, thanks to Kieron coming here to Gania.

If Elanus didn’t have far too many credits tied up in this fucking economy, he would leave it all behind and take the people he loved somewhere less judgmental. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option right now. The best cure for the kind of distraction Kieron was enduring right now, one that couldn’t be fixed by letting him meet with the refugees yet or distracting him with their daughter ships, was making sure he was doing something that gave him a sense of purpose. Something concrete with a measurable outcome.

Something like being put in charge of Ryu as he recovered.

“I know what you’re doing,” Kieron said right after Elanus made the offer that afternoon.

“Of course you do, you’re not an idiot.”

“You don’t need to manage me.”

“I would never dare.”

“You’re doing it right now, jackass.”

Elanus had smiled as charmingly as he knew how. “But you don’t mind it so terribly much, do you?”

It was a testament to just how tired of everything Kieron was that he didn’t react by pulling away. He just sighed and looked down at their joined hands, and for a moment it was all Elanus could do to hold his implant in check and not go hunting through Gania’s web for a way to infiltrate everything in Delilah Farraday’s life and start taking it over. Preemptive vengeance is nothing but being a bully. That didn’t mean he didn’t want to do it, though.

“You win,” Kieron said, and as he leaned in for a kiss, Elanus was acutely aware of just how intensely fortunate he was to be winning. He’d won a hell of a lot lately, and it was down to this man. Kieron had nearly liquified himself from radiation to save Catie, Elanus’s heart, and Elanus wasn’t going to forget that.

He would make it up to Kieron. He would make this better. And he was going to start by putting him in charge of the man who’d caused him so much consternation recently. Whether Kieron wanted to admit it or not, he would feel better knowing that Ryu was safely under his thumb. He would probably be able to get a fair amount of information out of him when it came to the way Gania worked as well, and Kieron—who liked his independence—would love having someone else to extract data from.

Now Kieron was gone, Elanus had decided to forward all his company’s work to home, and once he’d gone through the bulk of it, he dedicated himself to his newest puzzle—Deysan’s data. It was…

Well. It was complicated. It took a huge amount of mental power to even begin scratching the surface of it. Deysan had encrypted everything in at least a hundred different ways, and Elanus ended up having to divert a huge number of his company’s computational resources into breaking that down. It was going to reduce his overall efficiency by almost twelve percent for as long as this ridiculousness lasted, but it would be worth it if he got through to the data in the end.

Fucker. How Deysan had gotten this kind of quantum access in so many dimensions in the first place was infuriating. He had to have borrowed government resources to do it, and Elanus really needed to look into that more deeply…

[Daddee?]

Elanus smiled. “Hi, Catie.”

[What are youuuu doing?]

“Working, baby. Just working.”

[This iiiisn’t like your wooork.]

“This is special work.”

[Can I heeelp?]

“No!” Elanus sat straight upright out of the chair where he usually settled for his heavy thinking. Abso-fucking-lutely no—“No, baby,” he said, pulling all his calm together. “I’ve got this.”

[It looks haaaard.]

“It is, but that’s part of the fun,” Elanus insisted.

[I want to have fuuuuun!] Catie whined.

[I-I would like to have some fun too,] Lizzie put in, and fantastic, now he’d done it.

“Girls. I promise we’ll do something fun a little later, okay?” He just had a few more relays to set up before he could let the computations run. “We can go for a flight, I’ve got special clearance to spend some time darting in and out of the atmosphere if you want to get some Gs, but for now I need you girls to focus on your art and not worry about this, all right?”

Catie made a suspicious-sounding hum. [You don’t waaaant our help?]

“I love getting your help with things,” Elanus said in perfect honesty. “But in this particular instance, I don’t need it. I’ve got this, okay? I’ve got this.” I’d better have this. God, it would go so much faster with Catie and Lizzie’s help…but he had to keep his word to Kieron.

[If you say so, Elanus.]

[Okay, Daddeeee…]

“Thank you, girls.” Phew. Disaster averted.

Probably.

Hopefully.