Chapter 2: Claire de Lune

Wuh. I came to a few hours later with no headache, but a splitting weirdness all over my body. A simultaneous over and under-stimulation of my nerves, I think? It was difficult to tell, especially because everywhere I looked was fucking yellow.

I bonked my head a few times with the palm of my hand, and it was immediately obvious that my body felt weird because it was weird. My hair felt longer, at least down to my back, and... yeah, no, I was in a girl's body. Weird! Very, very weird! Uh, I was gonna ignore the feelings that put into my godforsaken head for a good long while. At least until I got to know why I was in this body more. My eyesight felt a lot better, though, so at least there was that!

That's right, Colin, always look on the bright side. It's what Dad would have wanted you to do! 

...eugh, who was I kidding. Probably the only reason I wasn't freaking out more from my suddenly-sailor uniformed, anime-looking, kitted-out self was that I was clearly in the middle of some fucking woods or something. And not just any woods — ones that clearly bore the mark of humanity on them. Not as simple trail markers, though. As a lack of wildlife and an artificial-looking bacterial film covering the top of everything. Which meant that I was either in a highly immoral and illegal forest in the middle of the temperate midwest, apparently, or in a wholly different world.

I scratched at my chin, noting my softer, more sensitive skin. Different world, probably? Did I just get isekaied? God, I hoped I wasn't gonna be the center of a harem. Never wanted that sort of thing with someone in my past life.

It was relaxing, a little, to be in the wilderness. Most of the cities back home were cities through and through, stopping suddenly where we'd drawn artificial borders so that wildlife could spread more effectively. It meant there were green areas in cities, as humanity had finally figured that that was a good thing for morale, but true wilderness was usually a good hour or so away. This was more of a fake wilderness — eerie without the noises of wildlife — but it was still trees stretching relatively-untamed and thick as far as the eye can see.

First thing to do in any situation was search for civilization. Regardless of whether or not it was likely these people would accept me (or even be physically safe — woman's body and all), civilization meant water and food and electricity, most likely. And shelter. The smell of wet dirt and rain was still a little present in the air.

Didn't know I was able to smell that. New body, or something similar. But right now, what could I do but pick a direction and wander?

Actually... clouds may help. There were a few clouds high in the sky, but what I was looking for were the clouds seeded by airplane contrails. Given that these woods seemed highly, uh... inefficient, we'll say, I kind of assumed there were still gonna be jet aircraft. Follow the direction of those contrails and you're likely to eventually stumble upon a city, right?

It was then that I saw the smoke. Not a lot, not even a little — a minuscule amount just barely shadowing the moon. My eyes just barely picked it out.

But it was a direction. It was possible humanity — and, honestly? Anyone who could build a fire here probably worked harder for it than the bigoted wealthy people back on Earth. Eugh, back on Earth. I joked about wanting to be abducted by aliens sometimes, but come on!

Ha. Here I was, probably abducted and mind-wiped or some shit. Pew went the Colin, up into that UFO! At least it'd be an explanation. As of right now I was just hoping the strangers I met here would be nice.

My feet padded silently through the underbrush, as if I'd known how to stalk there since birth. I hadn't, of course. But it allowed me to get real, real close to what seemed like an obviously-occupied campsite. It wasn't very high tech — in fact, there was mostly stone or iron-age tech, it seemed. A real fixer-upper, with a thatched roof and smoke drifting out from a chimney, with rudimentary planter boxes full of weird-looking fruit. It was in a bit of a clearing; not a ton of space around, certainly not enough for fire safety, but enough of a barrier between the hut and the trees to see the moon if it was right above you.

This was strange. Survival skills and the like can come with study, but this required hands-on experience. Plus, stone-age tech wasn't simple to make — even if in concept it was easy to comprehend, you needed a decent amount of skill and know-how to work your way around a given area and scrounge the materials on your own.

Also, there were a few fired-clay bins of what looked like plastic around the area. So that set us beyond the stone age for sure. As if the weird lack of animals pointed to anything else... but that then pointed me towards a different question. Was this person a faker, or were they a hermit?

Well, the structure looked sturdy enough. Some people on earth had faked a ton of these buildings, leaving dirty and crumbling ruins in their wakes. Horrible for the environment. But those were large, impractical buildings — and this was a simple, thatched dirt hut with bricked-up walls.

Ah hell, why agonize over this? I carefully looked myself over for any tears or dirt on my clothes or body (nothing beyond some mud on my shoes), then made my way to the entrance. There was a door there, carefully hewn from wood and hinged with joints made of what I could only assume to be re-forged plastics. And noise was coming from inside, a crackling fire — but also the sound of muted, quiet humming.

Someone was in! Great! After briefly considering if this was a good idea — obviously, it was! — I knocked lightly on the door.

The humming stopped.

There was an agonizing few moments where I wasn't sure what'd happened, or whether I'd simply hallucinated the sound of humming in the crackling of fire or rustling of leaves. It was a quiet unlike any where I was from, a quiet without animals or humans or traffic: silence, apart from the wind and the forces of nature. My skin began to feel cold.

"Er," I tried, then coughed when I realized my voice was now different, tomboyish and with an undertone of energy I'd never been able to achieve back on Earth, "I, uh, I'm not a night-monster or anything. Just very very lost."

Soft rustling of fabric and the clinking of what sounded like metal sounded from inside, muffled poorly by the walls. My voice cracked, and I coughed again. "Sorry for the intrusion."

I was just about under the door's eaves when it suddenly swung inward — with a figure standing in the frame. Some kind of weapon was at their side, and they seemed to be wearing some kind of bomber jacket with rolled up sleeves and an exaggerated collar, like one of a trench coat. Jeans and some combat boots completed the thoroughly-appealing outfit.

However, the more important thing to me in the moment was the fact that this figure had fucking cat ears and a tail. I gaped a little. Maybe a little more than a little. "You have fucking cat ears?" I said, the words slipping from my mouth even as I realized how that could come off wrong.

And they, predictably, did. The stranger flushed and a stormy expression grew on their face. Their really, really pretty face. Wait. No. Uh, focus on what they were saying! 

"Yes, I do, thank you very much for noticing." Their ear twitched. Adorably. Probably with anger, though, so maybe don't quantify it as adorable for someone you've just met. "And you're not much better, what with the anime-ass look and all. Hell, are those tattoos on your cheeks? At least I committed, you look like you've got the world's most dismally incompetent face pattern."

"Ah! Uh, sorry! I didn't mean any harm!" I said, holding my hands up just for emphasis. "Really, I don't, uh... I haven't met anyone with cat ears before? And, well, things are weird for me right now, and I wasn't expecting to be, um. I didn't expect this. I apologize?"

Wait, face patterns? I— "You know, you knocked on my door," she says, cutting me off. "Did you not do your research? Just a courier or something for good ol' dad?"

The catgirl spits the last few words out with venom. "I can sympathize, but, uh, no! I just. Well it's a long story. Uh, I was hoping you could point me towards civilization, was all! Or like, a library would also work? Or a city that would maybe contain a library?"

"Huh?" She gives me a strange look. "Libraries were closed down decades ago. Were you living under a rock or something?" Unknown Catgirl looks around a bit. "More than I have been?"

"I'm like, 24, so. No. Just very, very confused on a lot of things. Not least of which is where here is. Also, why were the libraries closed down?"

"God, you're gonna give me a headache. Because of the corporate-funded politicians, numbnuts! Just like everything else!" My pulse quickened slightly. Was this..?

"So," I asked, "politicians are horribly corrupt here and corporations have a lot of sway over the laws?"

She gives me a distasteful look. "No, politicians answer directly to CEOs and have practically no choice in it beyond their market value as stock. The whole thing's a sham. Why, you gonna rip me a new one about leaving?"

Ah. Good! So it was worse than I'd thought. Probably. Her comment about "leaving" was one I'd revisit later, assuming I got more information on her, but for right now I took a step back and rubbed my forehead in an effort to make myself feel just a little more normal. "No, and I have no idea who you are. How about we just... introduce ourselves, and we'll go from there."

"Sure," the catgirl shrugs. "My name's Alice. Daughter of Holden Chance."

"Colin." Alice gave me a pointed once-over. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Who's Holden Chance?"

"CEO of a gigacorp. I'm estranged."

"Ah, uh. I'm sorry?"

"Nah."

Man. So, different history? I guess? And did she want any more from me? Gigacorps? Gah, I was getting preoccupied! "Alright, uh... so. Happen to know where civilization is?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Because, uh..." I didn't really have an answer to that one, actually. Why did I want to go find society again? Electricity would be nice, but... there were a lot of unknowns. Like whether or not I would be accepted. Also, whether I could get a job...

With a huff, Alice rolled her eyes and grabbed my hand. She started pulling me off towards the edge of her clearing, grumbling all the while, and then when she passed through the trees I started suspecting that she wasn't just going to tell me where it was. Wait, she was holding my hand! What the fuck!

"H-Hey, I can keep up on my own, you don't have to—"

"Yes, I do," she interrupts. "You're some kind of amnesiac, right? Or some shit? If I just pointed you towards a Tower, you'd get kidnapped in fifteen seconds flat. I'm going to go get you a bike and a merc license, and you're going to leave me alone. It's only the right thing to do."

Stunned, I just barely kept up with her pace. "Huh??? I'm— I'm not a fighter, I'm not a mercenary? And, uh, I'd much prefer?" No, Colin, you couldn't tell her you'd rather stay with her! "Um, I'd prefer to not do that?? Thank you for the offer?"

Alice turned to look back at me, and a queer — uh, a strange look settled on her face. "Why are your eyes glowing yellow?"

"HUH???" My eyes were what? I guess everywhere I looked did look the tiniest bit more well-lit than normal, but. Glowing??? "I—No, what do you? I probably just have moonlight in my eyes or something, it's, I! Don't!"

Sighing — this time seeming to be out of exhaustion than irritation — Alice pulled a small hand mirror from a pocket of her jacket. She pointed it at me, mirror side facing my face, and gesticulated vaguely towards the image reflected therein.

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My face was different. My hair was definitely styled like an anime girl (as I'd been told — with hair vents to boot), but my face gave off the look of a goofy, cheery girl, with surprise and a little confusion plastered all over her expression. My eyebrows were thin, but still very present; my nose and lips and eyes looking feminine to an extent I'd never thought would be possible on my face. Thin black triangles streaked up from my chin, not beard hair but some kind of tattoo — four of them were there, two on each cheek. It made me feel like I was just a little bit other, just a little off from the rest of the world, but in a sort of really attractive way. Like magnetism, where I'd be just off the norm enough to be interesting without looking just like an animal.

Oh, and my pupils were, in fact, glowing. In fact, looking head on made it a little difficult to see in the glare from my reflected eyeball light.

Alice's voice shook me out of my reverie. "Finished ogling yourself and wanna explain why you've got glowing eyes yet?" she said, one hand on her hip. God. Cute.

To answer her question, though, I didn't really know. Letting my eyes drift from their self-staring contest and over to her, I shrugged in a way which I hoped would suggest confusion and nonchalance. "Dunno? I've never had this b—er, I've never had glowing eyes before."

A calculating expression grew on Alice's face again, and a shiver went down my spine at the way she was staring into my eyes. Quick as a flash, she pressed me against a nearby tree — my heart pounding in my chest, she kept me there with a hand while squeezing down on my wrist. Hard. I felt a flush rising in my cheeks. Alice's crimson eyes stared into the area she was grabbing intensely, and my breath quickened at the physical intimacy I'd just been thrown into. It wasn't like I was, uh, enjoying this, though! She caught me off guard, was all, and now I couldn't move for fear of my jelly-like legs crumbling to dust! Dear lord, was everyone here like this? 

She intensified her grip, and my heart fluttered once more. Another thing that fluttered was my arm. Or what looked like my arm. Ish? 

Where she was squeezing, glitchy bits of flesh-colored squares and chromatically-aberrant polygons floated in a haze around the point of pressure. Underneath it, I could just about see something looking like midnight-blue metal plates over joints of a jet-black substance maybe similar to rubber.

Wait shit. That was my arm! That was my arm, and also apparently it was made of metal! What the fuck??? A scream came from my voicebox, and I recoiled as much as I could — back to a wall and all — before Alice let go of my arm and clamped it over my mouth. "Shut up!" she hissed angrily, "You're a fucking android??? Why didn't you tell me that!?"

I shook my head under her furious gaze, trying to signal that I was just as in the dark as her. Blushing and muffled by her hand, I tried to speak. "I-I didn't know! I promise! I'm sorry!"

"Ughhhh." Alice backed up a bit, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Alright, then. Deactivate your disguise."

Huh? "What do you mean, uh... disguise? How do?"

"I dunno! Do you think I look like a robot to you? It's probably part of your HUD or some shit, or maybe you just tap your heels together three times and think about looking like a metal idiot!"

"Wouldn't 'metal moron' be better?" I quipped, earning me a baleful look and a shake of the head. "Alright, alright, I get it! Let me try, uh..."

Deep breaths. I mean, it was an idea I'd thought of a lot. What if I was a robot, or something? Well, what if? Where would one put the controls to a robot's self-controls? If it was another muscle, I'd find it difficult to control consciously. And robots would want the control to be conscious and intuitive.

Okay, so that probably did mean I had a HUD trigger somewhere. I closed my eyes on a whim, just in case there was anything on the inside of my— oh shit, wait, there was. A gray, featureless button. Probably a button. Actually, I wasn't sure why I was so convinced it was a button, given that it was just a square of gray which faded into the void of my closed eyes. But it was probably a button.

I couldn't just reach out and touch it, because it was a button on the inside of my eyelids. Probably. So what would a robot do in this scenario? Think about pressing it really hard? No, that doesn't make sense.

If my instincts led me this far, they'd lead me to the finish. I opened my eyes, and the button hovered in the air a few feet away. Now that it was real, I could definitely press it! I reached my arm out, just in front of Alice's face, and pressed the button. And tapped her nose at the same time.

Oh fuck shit wait. I tapped her nose — and my HUD button, importantly — which, uh, was a breach of protocol, probably? I mean, for, um, someone like me? My hurried thoughts and blushing cheeks were interrupted by a Heads-Up Display flickering to life in front of my eyes, a swirl of blue and yellow and pink. And there was a pretty obvious "decloak" button, with a half-crosshatched face on it, sitting below my line of vision. Maybe that was..?

My previous trepidation forgotten, I reached down and clicked the button. A haze of artifacts glazed my vision for a second, and then a yellow glow lit Alice's face in an especially-flattering way. Like the soft glow of a lamp on a cozy night! Uh, oh, I should probably have apologized. "Uh—" I cough into my hand, my voice suddenly different from before again. This time it sounds like synthesized text to speech from the early 1990s. Ew. "Sorry. Voice caught me off guard. The toggle thing was a button that happened to be on your..."

I only noticed at that point in my apology that Alice was looking at me, equal parts trepidation, fear, and anger showing on her face. She'd backed up a foot or two more, as well. Fuck. Was this a social faux pas? "Ali-Alice, I'm sorry?"

"You're a fucking combat android, probably a prototype from the looks of it. From my dad's fucking company, too. Why are you here? Really?"

Oh, wow! I grimaced. That made things a lot more complicated. Also, I didn't like this look, so I pressed the button to go back to being an anime girl cosplayer. A flash of yellow light materialized the form around me again, and I spoke as soon as I felt I'd actually sound like a person and not a machine. "Yeah, uh, I dunno either. I'll be honest, I was a guy up until like an hour ago, that's why I said my name was, uh, that. I don't wanna hurt you at all. Promise. Um, and I also wasn't a robot until like an hour ago. If you want me to I can just leave or something? I'm sorry."

"It's not ABOUT you wanting to hurt me, moron!" she spits, shoving me back against the tree. "Your very existence here means my dad's going back on some shit! He's probably getting his ass eaten out by his rich friends or whatever, and wants a trophy child back on the mantelpiece so that he can brag about it! So he sends you, with a stupid fucking backstory, no idea what you're subconsciously trying to do, and a desire to drag me back to a kidnappable area, because he knows I'll need to take the bait for another gir-person."

Alice was heaving by the time she was done with her speech, her ears pinned backwards. This whole situation was sending my apparently-metal heart racing, if it even existed. My throat felt tight. Eugh. I was probably gonna have a panic attack if I wasn't careful. Which, as I was likely already leading up to the attack, was unlikely! Good job, Colin. 

I closed my eyes again, clearing useless elements from my view and sighing. "Is there anything I could do to convince you? Anything. Name it."

I'm prepared for the inevitable no, the obvious "what the hell, of course not, you're dangerous." But there was just silence. Which was easier, by a little bit.

But no, it couldn't have been infinite. Alice breathed in, and I tensed up. "God," she scoffed, "stop fucking tensing. I was just thinking that if you gave me root access I could prevent you from spying on me or any shit. Make it safe for myself."

I blinked my eyes open. It was that simple? "Oh. Okay. How do we do that?"

"Huh?" Alice asked, incredulous.

"I mean like. That seems simple. You have reason to distrust me and that's a way to make it impossible for the distrust to be founded. Plus, you don't seem like the kind of person to seriously fuck with my head? Like, you probably would have just taken advantage of me or something as soon as you figured out I was a robot if that was the case. Or hell, even just taken advantage of me in the woods?"

The words rushed from my lips like hurricane-force winds. "And, I mean, it's not like it'd be too bad? I bet that if you put anything in place I'd eventually be able to undo it? Probably? Also again you don't seem like the kind of person to do that. And I've met a lot of people who try to fake that kind of thing. So—"

"Dear lord. Shut up, you inhuman idiot." Alice's ears flicked to and fro, alert for any threats around us in the woods. Still nothing. "I get it. You didn't really think all of that through and you probably would be more protective of your root if you were actually not amnesiac. So I guess you are telling the truth, at least about being new to being a robot."

I slumped back against the tree, fully unexpecting the flick she gave my forehead a second later. "Hey!?" Groaning, she rolled her eyes and started dragging me back towards the house she'd made. Her hands were soft. Wait. Think about something else.

"I'm not calling you Colin."

"Huh?" I said, flinching. "Why?"

Alice looked over her shoulder pointedly, then continued to storm ahead. "I'm tired, it sounds stupid, and it's not an android name. Also, you don't seem to like it. Plus it doesn't fit. I'll call you Chamber."

Her voice wavers. "...if, uh, if you're okay with that."

I'm thoroughly confused, but Chamber isn't so bad! Better than Colin, for sure. "Sure? Can we call me Berry, for short? It's a pretty cu— uh, cool. Name. I think at least!"

I could almost hear the eye-roll she gave me. "Sure, sure. I'm going to keep coding inside. You can sleep or something outside. Start a fire. Who cares. We'll talk more in the morning."

Once more, I'm confused. "So, uh, you're not gonna jailbreak me or whatever?"

"Nah," she states. "No reason. You seem to be telling the truth, and anyone who's enacting such a stupid plan will get a bullet for a Christmas Day present sooner or later. And if you are telling the truth, this is at least a step towards the right thing to do."

"Even if I hate it," Alice grumbled a second later.

"I'll, uh. Thank you in the morning, then."

We made our way back to her base camp quickly, and I took up a spot near the entrance to her hut. Not on top of it, but leaning against the wall. I'd probably be able to get a decent amount of sleep, assuming I needed it, and Alice's humming was actually really nice. She seemed to be a genuinely good person. Someone I could look up to (if a bit abrasive).

I guess in this world you kinda had to be abrasive to survive, if she was to be trusted. And she was probably trustworthy. Also very very pretty. In both cute and, uh, seductive ways. 

Probably don't think about that, though. She might not be into you, and it'd be a huge breach of social protocol. Also, I had bigger issues. Like what I ran off of. I didn't know a lot of critical information like that.

But, metaphorically, the moon was in the sky like a big pizza pie. The stars here weren't as visible as back home, but I could still pick out Polaris, and a few more. It was quiet. There was the sound of a cute girl humming and the now-audible sound of imperceptible keytaps in the background. And a fire crackling.

I went to sleep thinking about the morning. What we'd get up to. And a little hope. Just a spark. But it was enough! I was enough to hold on another day.

Just another day.