Sometimes this story is just a lot of fun to write. Thanks for supporting me.
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Zero gravity is weird.
Also not real, technically. I understand that gravity doesn’t actually ever hit ‘zero’, really. I am, if you want to get pedantic, actually just falling toward the planet and failing to hit anything. So is everything else up here.
Except for the debris that deorbits fairly regularly, leaving red and green streaks of light across the p...
2022-02-07 19:51:56 +0000 UTC
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Once again, I'm not sure I like where this one goes. But it's here now, so let's see how people like it.
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“When I am weaker than you, I ask for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.” - Frank Herbert, Children of Dune -
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The Lair welcomed James back in the way that was becoming traditional for the Order; with basically...
2022-02-04 16:59:08 +0000 UTC
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My teeth are in perfect condition.
Okay, this instantly sounds defensive. Let me rephrase.
All of me is in technically perfect condition, and not just because I am a cat. There’s actually a lot of different reasons keeping my biological form at peak performance, some dumber than others.
The immortality thing, for example, is a pretty dumb one. I don’t want to talk about that one.
But past that, the station still has scores of different medical dev...
2022-02-01 05:27:58 +0000 UTC
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Not sure I like this chapter, but it is certainly here.
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“Alone in its orbit, the Blue, the Empyrean Parasite, the ineffable creature of secret inner fire that had been first among all of Life, saw. The results of its work were painted across eons, and this latest thread it had woven into the grand tapestry pleased it to no end. There had been such potential here, and now it was realized in full.” - Apotheosis, Thrive -
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James’ car, which was a...
2022-01-29 06:57:51 +0000 UTC
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“Ennos, where’s the door?” I ask in a pained meowing tone.
I have been dragging what feels like several dozen moons worth of cabling behind me, and while I understand that my concept of weight is both wrong and highly fluid due to the number of low gravity points on the station, it’s still actually kind of a pain to carry loose cable when you don’t have hands.
I know I bring this up a lot. I know I’ve brought up that I bring this up a lot. I know that...
2022-01-26 08:35:18 +0000 UTC
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I have written way more of this story than I ever thought I would.
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The days crept by, and in a twisted inverse of how I could sometimes lose myself in a project, it felt like time itself gelled around me.
It was a trick of perspective, really. When I was alone, silent, and despairing, I had a million things to do and nothing to really think about. Now, though, there are at least two other entities living with me. Constant questions to ask or answer, o...
2022-01-24 05:24:58 +0000 UTC
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This one got away from me in length. Again.
2022-01-22 02:12:50 +0000 UTC
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You might think that after sharing something I felt was a deeply personal secret, my AI friends would have some kind of followup questions. Perhaps something about the nature of the station, or the unsettling alien machine at its heart, or maybe even just if I was doing okay.
They didn’t.
It wasn’t personal. Machine intellects, I think I’ve mentioned before, can have a hard time being temporally bound to conversations the same way someone with an easily fallible ...
2022-01-15 01:48:36 +0000 UTC
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“Because when you’re a millennial, you promise to do extravagant yet trivial things, to bring a sense of narrative purpose to your life.” - Harry Brewis, XOXO Festival 2019 -
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When Deb looked back at the trajectory of her life, she got this weird sense of perspective. Because in retrospect, she could see clearly where every decision had spiraled out of control into some kind of twisting mess of consequences and outcomes. But at the time, none ...
2022-01-15 01:47:38 +0000 UTC
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Even the exposition is depressing!
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“Lily, why is this station so impossibly large?” Ennos asks with a put upon sigh.
I should never have connected that last grid node with the level four through ten cameras wired in. They’ve got a sense of scale now, and its made Ennos even more concerned.
Which means that I get to know about those concerns. Even if they’re for silly things, like how much relative space exists within the boundary of the ...
2022-01-07 19:19:08 +0000 UTC
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There is no such thing as the status quo for me.
No sense of stability, nothing I can really take for granted, no emotional bedrock or historical precedent that lets me know everything will be okay.
Oh, sure, I live on the station. But that’s like a feathermorph living on Earth. That, at least, is something to count on. But Earth has volcanos and tsunamis and the milele isiphepho, and sometimes cities just… go away. And my home, sometimes, has chunks ca...
2022-01-06 17:15:37 +0000 UTC
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“Okay! Three, two, one…!”
I drop my forepaws onto a switch plate, engaging the magnetic couplers behind the hull plates of the station’s walls. It’s taken a lot of time - and a creative and possibly illegal use of a cleaner bot - to get the things into position without disassembling large chunks of the hallway.
Which I really didn’t want to do. Like, more than I really didn’t want to arrange a series of couplers without being able to see them proper...
2022-01-03 09:56:30 +0000 UTC
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I'm *probably* gonna take next week off from The Daily Grind. Might be a short chapter. But I just need a break. Probably should have taken a break for Christmas! Didn't have foresight on that! Whoops!
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“Art is where what we survive survives.” -The Palace, Kavah Akbar-
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The last weekend of November had been, for as long as Alanna could remember, a long weekend. Thanksgiving in her country was one of those holid...
2021-12-31 06:31:07 +0000 UTC
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More of this.
Thank you to all of you, again.
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Of all the things I expected to hear today and be excited about, “Your bloodwork came back.” was not one of them. Mostly because I had forgotten how long the medical analyzer could take on some things.
Sometimes, I think the machine is calibrated to go slower so that whatever people installed it didn’t get freaked out by how rapidly technology had outpaced their frail meat brains. I… have a lot of ...
2021-12-28 05:13:53 +0000 UTC
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I'm also posting a chapter for normal readers today as a holiday bonus. So you lot aren't gaining any more lead on this one. But you're still six chapters ahead, and I intend to grow that up to ten over the next few months! More cat in space!
Seriously, though. Thank you all for being patrons, and letting me get away with writing a manic depressive cat as something approaching a job.
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Four hundred years has done a great amount of work ...
2021-12-27 03:27:58 +0000 UTC
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This was originally going to be two segments longer. But also the segments were originally going to be half as long. And also this holiday happened and I had to drive through snow and it was just a whole *thing*. Anyway, here's a chapter!
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“Hence I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.” -Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X -
<...
2021-12-26 03:05:16 +0000 UTC
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Due to a minor snowstorm, I may be late getting home to actually post this week’s chapter. At the latest, it’ll be up tomorrow though.
Happy fourth quarter holiday!
2021-12-25 18:19:52 +0000 UTC
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And now, the conclusion.
Conclusion-esque. Conclusion adjacent thing. Whatever.
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Have I mentioned, before, that I am shockingly unmodified?
My body rejects most augments, in all their various forms. I can’t install any wetware, host a native nanoswarm, implant backup organs, or graft new limbs on. It’s all very pedestrian, and I’ve just had to learn to live with the normal number of cat parts.
That said, I am still stronger, hea...
2021-12-20 23:53:42 +0000 UTC
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In an effort to make writing this a little less stressful than my usual thing, I'm trying to keep chapter length to *around* 2k words. To that end, this is sort of a 'part one of two' chapter. It is also the first chapter where Lily doesn't shoot something, either literally or metaphorically!
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The exact nature of the station’s haunting still eluded me.
Hello. It is time to talk about ghosts.
Or at least, it will be, after a brief update-based ta...
2021-12-18 18:59:03 +0000 UTC
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This one is longer than I expected for what I thought would be filler but is actually an excuse for me to expand on the actual thoughts behind some character actions. Hope it's enjoyable.
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“Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much, and feel too little! More than machinery, we need humanity; more that cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities life will be violent, and al...
2021-12-18 02:01:23 +0000 UTC
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The mood in the station was entirely too somber for me.
I have, effectively, one reality warping power. And that is to chaotically forget whatever has been bothering me, dial into a new project or crisis, and lose track of how depressed I am in the ensuing mess. It’s kept me alive for centuries, and I like to think I’m pretty skilled at channeling this energy for good.
The problem I’m running into is that the people around me don’t do that.
Ennos and Glit...
2021-12-11 19:49:28 +0000 UTC
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We're back!
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“Do no harm, but take no shit.” - Moira Fowley-Doyle, Spellbook of Lost and Found -
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“How are they?” James asked.
He was standing in a space that had once been, and still technically was, a containment and quarantine facility for people who were either under the effects of unknown memetic agents, host to novel infectious diseases, or who just wanted to kill James in some way. It was all clean white tile and ...
2021-12-10 19:29:39 +0000 UTC
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For once, in my long, long, long long long - and I mean *long* long - life, I was busy with something that wasn’t frantically trying to stop a hull breach, or vaporizing surface targets.
Also for once in my life, I had friends. No longer was I consigned to spend year after year, floating alone on an erratic, vaguely intentional course over the planet.
It is *almost* amusing that those things are trampling over each other.
“Okay, this part. Here.” Enno...
2021-12-06 06:44:42 +0000 UTC
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You know what’s weird, is that I don’t actually have any memories of being dirty?
Not really, I mean. I’ve recently gotten a taste of what it’s like to be covered in matted fur that has absorbed a lot of my own blood and crystallized into something that sticks and pulls when I move. But, like, that lasted for a few days at most and then I was back where the cleaner nanos could do that one really impressive trick they do.
I still remember it, obviously. Be...
2021-12-06 06:43:49 +0000 UTC
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I will be taking a short break this week, for both my stories. I will return to the regular schedule for TDG next Saturday, and KCKS as more writing happens (at least one chapter next week though).
I’m not disappearing, just taking some time for personal stuff.
2021-11-30 03:56:08 +0000 UTC
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There will be another post, for everyone, later today, but in brief; I'm taking a short break after this one, for personal health reasons. Didn't wanna leave anyone on a cliff hanger though. So, here ya go!
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“You’re all clear, kid! Now let’s blow this thing and go home!” - Han Solo, Star Wars Episode IV -
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“Hey.” A soft voice whispered to James, as his brain spun itself out of sleep. It was accompanied by a s...
2021-11-27 02:06:31 +0000 UTC
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I am, once again, drifting through the condensed nothing of hard vacuum.
My AR link is cut off as soon as I’m outside the station. How, exactly, the station has decided what is and is not inside itself seems arbitrary. But I also don’t have the position to complain about it; after all, it’s not like I plan on rustling around in root code that I can’t even read to try to tamper with the directives that keep my air going.
I’m in communication with Ennos this ti...
2021-11-22 23:18:13 +0000 UTC
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In case anyone was curious, if this were a TV show, the theme song would just be Still Feel, by Half Alive.
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I am, at this point, wholly prepared to believe that the ration replicator is haunted.
Or possessed? Maybe just generically ‘influenced’. I’m not sure what the proper terminology is. I don’t care.
For all I know, it’s Ennos having figured out how to modify its routines, and I’m being subjected to a month long prank. But that doesn’...
2021-11-19 20:23:12 +0000 UTC
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There was supposed to be something clever here but I've forgotten what I was going to say. I'm sure it's fine. Enjoy the chapter!
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“I’ve been playing at // I’ve been playing at self worth again // ain’t it nice to play pretend?” - The Seattle Garages, Needs Of The Many -
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James cautiously tested the mound of snow in front of them with a pole, eyeing the pile with suspicious thoughts. So far, this area around the lake had been em...
2021-11-19 13:48:09 +0000 UTC
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The radio contact from Glitter caught me slightly by surprise. Ennos and I had taken some time to set the station’s comm system to basically auto-answer whenever she pinged us, along with tying the station’s internal camera network into the feed. It was kind of… uh… slapped together? Look, getting video compression that could work over radio wasn’t easy. She’d need to do some legwork to make it work, but at least she could keep an eye on us without burning ...
2021-11-18 18:27:56 +0000 UTC
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