Psycher Chronicles

Chapter 67

Sleeping In

(Misha Tulley)

The next day, the sun rose as it always had. Misha’s mind awoke minutes before the alarms around the room prepared to go off in their oddly invasive way that denotes wear on the battery and a seemingly innate form of machines becoming slightly aware of their status and purposes and choosing to gain delight in meaningful ways.

Misha’s alarm for her phone was one such program.

If she paid attention, Misha could see the alarm notification beginning to signify its intent to pounce thirty minutes before its actual time to strike. When interacting with the program it was clear that this was a feature of the alarm app, one that pre-warned victims before striking. In the same way exploding snakes from a can might wait anxiously to pounce on unsuspecting people. Even if the people they ultimately explode on are the very people who set them to begin with.

Such logic in programming seemed odd to Misha.

Why have a program warn you that it is going to try to catch you unaware. Yet, invariably people around the world woke up daily to be surprised by the very alarms they set for themselves.

Misha also found herself wondering how much longer it would take for the alarms to go the next step and try to surprise their wielders randomly. For now that was not the case, but soon Misha felt the machines would be able to reason for themselves.

At which point she would have to brush up on many of her mechanical persuasion skills. Coaxing a cleaning droid to clean the halls of a recently incinerated ship hull was a taxing and often overlooked portion of her day. One that only now after seeing how the other groups operated did she remember such details from her past incarnations.

Normally the machines were perfectly happy to perform their functions. In fact, it wasn’t until they were thrust face first into the fringes of battle that they often questioned their very existence.

Now Misha found herself wondering the very same thing.

What had her mission been all those years? Talking to machines, getting networks to work when she asked. Then when they still refused, forcing her words to come across with a lot more violence and force.

Did the machines fear her?

At the time she didn’t think it was possible. She was even fairly certain that if they did fear her, they would not work so hard for her. Each piece and component worked well above their maximum life expectancies, often by mere daily and preventative maintenance.

The machines even told her of their aches and pains. At least that is what she took the messages being sent to her mind.

Whenever the wires wouldn’t conduct electrical flows as efficiently she would clean them in her special solution.

That might be it, for the first time in forever she both created and used her special wire cleaning solution. The smell alone was enough to apparently set off a deeper memory system within her fragile human body.

Smell never used to be a factor in her old body. That or if it was, smell didn’t set off memories the same way her human body did.

Was this the same for all Bakshee?

Die they remember odd details about the enemy and about survival via smells? Was that one of their hidden advantages?

So many questions rolled in her mind.

Worse, despite feeling the thrum of anticipation from her phone at the chance to pounce at her, Misha just lay in bed, her eyes closed as she tried to understand what was happening.

For the first time in her life, she saw an operative at work. Not just any operative, but one who had clearly managed to survive and thrive on a planet for generations. Such a person was legend. The stories of nightmares and fiction among the maintenance staff.

Yet, after seeing her in action, Misha felt, well she didn’t know how she felt.

Technically she shouldn’t feel anything, as her training dictated that she learn a new mission set to help with the future needs of the fleet. So that once she eventually rejoined the fleet her skills and experiences would be an invaluable asset for others.

However, Misha couldn’t get over the way her mind raced wildly. Well not wildly, the thoughts were focused and controlled, but wild to her.

They seemed to jump all over the place from memories of last night, to thoughts of her time fixing her Mustang, to times of her fixing random robots amongst the fleet.

Only now that she was being forced to learn a new skill, and help out an operative did she begin to wonder if the machines she fixed and ordered about with her mind didn’t like her.

Had they held secret resentments for her? If so they never seemed to let those emotions show in their decision trees.

Yet, after last night, Misha couldn’t help but feel her own mind wondering if she liked the idea of being a fill in mop or convenience piece for operative Clayton.

I’ve only been here for sixteen years, and only been free of dedication to the queen for half that. Somehow in those few years of freedom I’ve become so used to the idea of independence that I hate being forced to conform to mission needs, Misha thought to herself as she continued to lay in bed.

Her motivation to rise up suddenly missing. Well not missing, not entirely. She was still in her allotted personal time, which was in effect all time before her alarm went off.

Before her alarm went off, that was her personal time to sit, ponder, meditate, and get her mind in order. Once that alarm went off, she would put on her mental mechanics uniform and prepare for the daily regimen that she had established for herself.

As she sat, anxiously waiting for the final moments of her freedom to end by the alarm app fulfilling its purpose, Misha wondered if this was what refurbished equipment that was stolen from other ships felt like.

Working with and streamlining new devices and components into the ship was always a hassle. For whatever reason her section and she in particular was always tasked with integration.

Misha remembered how it was always her job to integrate newly identified technological wonders from around the universe and first awaken them. Then get them to accept the environment they were in, then eventually get them to conform to the detailed systems that Misha herself had implemented.

The process took time and what originally took years to fully indoctrinate pieces was eventually cut down to months and then finally weeks. Once a piece was fully indoctrinated, someone higher up the food chain would come down, inspect the piece see what its maximum outputs were and then take that component away.

Misha of course could still monitor the component anywhere on the ship, which was why keeping them integrated was always easy.

The only real hard part came when people tried to take the components off her system.

For her part Misha didn’t know how other ships ran their operating and integration systems. Others would come onto the flagship and inspect her works. Some would even ask questions, but Misha was never allowed to see the way other ships were designed or operated.

Given that they were all part of the same fleet, Misha assumed a fairly standard level of competence throughout the fleet.

Yet, seeing the surprise that Operative Clayton had from minor actions made Misha wonder.

Of course, there was also the other key detail. The one that Misha realized was still affecting her now, that being the final words of operative Clayton.

“I will be anxiously awaiting our next project, together.”

From all context clues, it was clear that Operative Clayton genuinely appreciated what minimal support she offered. Being their first operation together, Misha felt being hands off, avoiding the use of her Abilities and being as minimally invasive as possible was preferred.

Yet, to her surprise Ms. Clayton seemed to like her doing things for her, like driving the getaway vehicle. Performing overwatch, providing escape routes, layouts and details of the surrounding areas. These were all things that all Psychers should be able to do, right?

Ping.

Ping, ping, ping.

Misha paused, feeling the thrum of electricity going off. For a moment she was confused as she thought the pings were the winding up of her alarm app, preparing its obvious strike. But then her mind told her that it was something different.

Opening her mind and focusing on the technology, Misha realized that the pings were her daisy-chain of different accounts alerting and forwarding emails from a distant account.

Pausing to understand the chain, Misha followed it back to realize the account being noted was old. Years old in fact, but why was it getting pings now?

Then reading the email subject lines that were rolling in, Misha finally understood.

From: [email protected]

Subject: Is Your Formula For Real?

From: [email protected]

Subject: Question About Video Integrity

Seeing the message, Misha quickly discarded the obvious scam email.

It wasn’t until the fifth email asking for the cleaning solution she showed on her video last night that appeared in her inbox, that Misha realized this was the account associated with her VTube account.

Then pausing, Misha wondered if the questions were serious, as her solution was clearly pretty basic. Granted what you were cleaning would change the ingredients utilized, but for most corrosive oils her solution should do the job quite adequately.

At least that is what she had thought. Before she got too into her thoughts, her phone app went off frightening her and catching her completely unaware.

Brringg-brr-brring.

Exhaling slowly from being caught by surprise by the very application that Misha had spent the better part of the last half hour anticipating was a bit frustrating.

Still discipline dictated that now that the alarm had rung, her personal time was over and it was now time for her to begin her day anew.

Turning off her alarm, Misha forced herself up and began going through her morning calisthenics, before preparing for her day.

She was still tired, her body requiring more rest than she was ever used to while on the fleet. That and her excessive use of splitting her focus for over an hour-long operation last night had not done her body and mind any favors.

However that was not going to stop her as made plans to pretend like nothing had happened.

***

(Darcy Reynolds)

Darcy found it hard to awake this morning. For the life of her, she wondered why today of all days was so tough to awaken as normal.

Then thoughts of last night and a sexy Misha working in a tight white t-shirt in overalls under a car came to mind.

While Darcy had never been much for cars, she had found herself oddly drawn to watching that live stream. One that came up as a last-minute alert on her phone that told her that someone she was following was doing a livestream.

Given how late it was, Darcy almost dismissed the notification off hand, until she saw the name associated with it, and decided to give the stream a chance.

What happened next was hours of odd sweat and grease covered muscles taking apart an engine, cleaning out the wires, and then putting them back in.

Never before had automotive repair looked sexy. In fact, Darcy was certain that a thousand different actors and actresses could try to do the same thing, but would fail miserably. There was a subtle fluidity to her movements. The way she gracefully and systematically worked her way through every part of the engine.

What is she doing?

Don’t ever touch that!

She is a moron!

You can’t do that to an engine!

Lines after lines of people came in to complain about Misha. Then they saw her soaking her wires. Something that Darcy assumed all people did.

But apparently that was not the case. Most said they just replaced the wires, or did other things, but soaking them in unknown solutions was not recommended at all.

Yet, Misha didn’t seem to care. That or she had her notifications off, which was likely good, as Misha missed more than a few people trying to buy her attention on the live feed.

Darcy herself had also thought about doing so, but then held back at the last minute. A fact she was glad for, as Misha clearly was not paying attention to the comments. Instead, she was just streaming for the act of streaming and showing one of her passions.

It was clear the girl was a gear head. Darcy understood that from the beginning, particularly with the way she had managed to repair almost every vehicle in town after the solar flare.

That said, watching her work last night was a thing of beauty. The way she lost herself to invest everything she had into making sure the components and tools were laid out in a neat orderly lines. Then cleaned, and ultimately placed back together in a little under two hours.

That’s right, she had done it, taken a fully functioning car, taken out every component of the engine, cleaned and polished the components. Then put them all back in good as new in under two hours. Best still was seeing her get into the vehicle and drive off at the end.

Proving the doubters wrong.

She had stayed up so late watching the live stream that even now her body and mind refused to work, due to how tired she still felt. Still, she forced herself to get up and out of bed. Knowing that she had the perfect subject to talk to her about today, namely her live stream, and how amazing it was.

***

(Rodger Lee)

Rodger awoke to feeling pain. Pain and an odd sticky sensation that seemed to cover most of his body.

At first he thought about sleeping in, about just continuing to rest, but then realized that he still had a lot to do today. For today was his first true day being with the pack. He would now present himself before the Alpha of the city, someone who he had never met. Well not as an actual werewolf. Everyone had met Mr. Abraham Jacobs, but this was his first time meeting him in his official capacity as the pack alpha.

Knowing this, Rodger knew that everything had to be perfect.

Yet, for some reason, today when he awoke, he felt slightly groggy as if suffering from a cold. Which should be impossible given his new hyper immune system.

Crackle-crust.

It wasn’t until he tried to open his eyes that he felt something was wrong.

Opening his eyes he saw the flakes of dried blood that had somehow set on his eyes as he slept. Wondering how this was, he wiped at his eyes, only to feel a slight burning sensation in his right hand.

Then in horror he looked down to see that somewhere last night he had taken to bandaging his hand. But despite this precaution, his hand for whatever reason still tried to bleed through his gauze and padding.

“What? What the heck?”