Chapter Text
Of all the planets in the Terran Accord-soon to be the Terran Protectorate-Hesat was certainly one of them. A planet, slightly too close to its star to be comfortable for three months of the year, but otherwise perfectly serviceable. Too close to Terra to be considered on the outskirts, but too far away to get regular supplies. The Techron-Wilburn Company’s governorship of the planet was decidedly worse than some, better than others. Like a dozen dozen planets before it, it had been an agricultural world before overfarming left it just barren enough for factories to replace fields. Overall, a perfectly average planet in the Accord.
Of course, it would have to be a perfectly average planet to create someone like Wayne Curtis. On a harsher world, he would have been chewed up and destroyed by the Accord’s labor machines, and on a better world Wayne might have become someone more interesting. He had managed to get a fairly simple job as a transport driver, spending his days transporting raw materials from one factory and finished products back from the second. The schedules were awful, the deadlines were strict, but Wayne had managed to keep his head above water for fourteen years until the Affini came.
The transition to Compact control had been a strange one. In the half a year since they arrived, Hesat had changed into what Wayne had thought to be a utopian version of itself. It had all new infrastructure, palatial housing towers in place of factories, public magrail shuttles in place of Wayne’s familiar rail networks. Even the depleted soil now held plants of a dozen dozen planets, all engineered to return life to the overfarmed land. In another half a year’s time, the thick hearty plants would give way to familiar wildflowers and real trees would be brought in to create forests. It should be paradise, but after speaking with some Affini Wayne found that these changes were fairly average for Affini-captured planets.
It’s amazing how normal things could feel after six months, Wayne thought as he checked the weather. Hesat was weeks away from its summer, when a year ago the public would be in the process of shifting to a nocturnal schedule to avoid going out in the heat. Yesterday the Affini announced that the temperature for the whole planet would never again surpass 29°C. A year ago, such an announcement would be a marvel of engineering on a monumental scale. Today, it was another average demonstration of god-like technology, just like the dozens of other such demonstrations over the past half year.
Wayne finished checking the weather, sending a quick outfit to the compiler as he went about his daily routine. Shower, teeth, spend a minute debating whether or not to shave his terrible goatee (maybe tomorrow?), try and tame his brown cowlick, consider taking scissors to it before realizing his hair was too short to do so, remember his vitamins for the third day in a row, get dressed. All in all, a quick thirty minutes and he’s out his door. He taps his pocket for keys, before remembering his door is keyed to his communicator. Even if it wasn’t, locked doors were wholly unnecessary now that scarcity was murdered and privacy became a ‘suggestion’ to some people. He still checks the door, like he usually did to assure himself. Then, he was off into the midday sun.
Shit I said people again, didn’t I, Wayne thought to himself in reprimand.
It was only a twenty minute walk to his destination, which meant he would probably see on average three floret-Affini pairs in some sort of… compromising position. Today wound up being five? At least, Wayne thought the man in the fake horse hooves counted, even if nothing especially sexual was going on. He did his best not to stare more than the average person (sophont, its sophont now), and always waved politely when an Affini caught his gaze. To the one Affini who gave him a beckoning vine, he very politely shook his head and continued walking as fast as was socially acceptable.
I should probably check if I get any new Notices tonight, Wayne thought. I’m glad they’re all happy, but it’s not for me. He gives a last pair a wave as he rounds the corner to an anachronistic brick building, pushing the door open.
The bell above the door jangled as Wayne walked into Brickoven, one of the dozen eateries that had sprung up in the area in the past few months. The owner, another independent named Charlie, normally liked to open the place around noon, and thankfully today Wayne didn’t arrive too early.
“Wayne,” the slightly older, incredibly broad-shouldered man lightly shouted from the kitchen window, “right on time. Just opened up orders and we should have a few ready to go out in a few.” He pointed to a pad sitting on a small stand where Wayne’s brain screamed that a register should have been. While most of Charlie’s “business” was walk-in, more than a few people-sophonts-enjoyed ordering in. That was where Wayne came in. “Special orders should be done in the next few minutes, but I’ve got some regular pies sitting in stasis. Want me to grab you a slice before you head out?”
Wayne tilted his head down just so as he worked on copying the order data to his own pad. “No thanks Charlie, I already ate something,” he lied easily, hoping his face was hidden enough. He didn’t especially like peop-sophonts looking at him on a good day, but he especially hated it when he lied to them. He was always certain they could see something in his face, could see some imperceptible tell he could never know about.
So instead of looking at Charlie he had the pad calculate an optimal delivery route. The orders should take him about an hour of walking to make the round trip. Not quite the ‘thirty minutes or less’ that always showed up in old movies, but then they probably didn’t have Affini-made stasis units to keep their pizzas as fresh as the moment it left the oven. Wayne scrunched up his face slightly, realizing he never understood exactly what that phrase meant, he’d probably do an overnet dive on it tonight, figure out where the phrase came from. It could be an interesting bit of trivia if he was going to keep working here.
There was a small noise of movement from the kitchen before Charlie responded. “Y’know Wayne, if you weren’t here almost every day I would swear you don’t like pizza,” he said, tone half joking. “Don’t think I’ve had anyone turn down my pizza as much as you, and that’s including back when I had to flatten cubes into my patented ‘synthcrust’ back in the bad old days.”
“Your pizza’s fine,” Wayne said, trying to sound cheerful enough to turn the conversation from ‘half-joking’ to something more casual. “I bet you somehow made synthcrust taste edible.” That anything could make synthcube edible was probably a stretch, but conversations were full of little lies like that. “I just like to eat a big breakfast is all. Just leave me a sausage and pepperoni at the end of the day for dinner, sound good?”
A pair of suspicious eyes peered up over the kitchen window.
“Alright, and some garlic knots,” Wayne said finally, making a playful soothing gesture with his hands. He’d lost that particular fight with the man after only working with him for two weeks, when Charlie had refused to stop trying to hide more food in his pizza box. Something about Wayne being ‘too skinny,’ which was a frankly ridiculous idea.
“Thatta boy,” Charlie said, loading up the five boxes onto the window counter for delivery. “Thanks again for helping out so much, I know people-“ Sophonts, Wayne mentally corrected. “-like delivery with a personal touch. But y’know, if you need some time I can always request some drones on standby.”
Wayne schooled his expression into as carefree a smile as he could, ignoring the alarm klaxon blaring in his head. “Sure, I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, grabbing the boxes and putting them into a carrier. “Alright, I should be back in an hour or so, feel free to ping me if anything happens.” With that, he turned and made his exit, bell clinking behind him.
Stars damn it, he thought the moment the door closed. Two and a half months with no issue, why did he have to bring it up now? He really loved working for Charlie, he liked the hours, he liked it let him be active, and he certainly enjoyed bringing a pizza home every few days. It was much better than his weekend gig at The Starliner. But if Charlie was going to start worrying after his schedule, it was only ever going to lead to trouble. Better to leave soon and find a new place, before questions were asked to the wrong peop-sophonts.
God you’re awful at this, he thought bitterly to himself. Just like when Heart transitioned, you misgendered them for weeks! Just stop saying the wrong word! Sophont sophont sophont sophont!
Wayne sighed, putting in his earpieces and letting his regular playlist of post-pre-industrial metal revival drown out his thoughts. He could get through work today, and then he could go home and plan his next actions. He couldn’t change anything now so why worry about it now? Today he could just make his deliveries like any other day, let the synths and the pad’s pathfinding AI direct him.
Soon enough he was walking down the street of Hesat’s residential center, keeping to himself as much as he could. Luckily for him, Affini always seemed to pay sophonts (yes!) less attention if they looked busy. Maybe the simple act of carrying something made him seem more independent than simply walking, or maybe his more blank, focused expression was less conducive to flirting. Either way, he always got less inviting gestures or random pets than he did walking to or from his hab. Instead they let him pass, tapping his fingers against his thigh in beat with the music, occasionally mouthing a word before catching himself.
His music dipped in volume slightly as a helpful voice chirped in his ear, “Right in fifty meters, petal.” He gave a small nod as he approached the intersection. He knew the pad’s AI, well really his hab AI but it was running through his pad at the moment, wasn’t sapient, but its conversational capabilities were still a way too close to natural for him to think of it like any old gps. He had asked if the pad could tell when he nodded, and it said that it could, so Wayne was always sure to nod his thanks when the AI helped him out. Partially because he got looks randomly thanking it out loud, but also because he knew he’d be utterly lost without it, so it deserved thanking.
Probably shouldn’t name it, though? Right? He’d avoided naming the AI this long, but over the last few days he’d been considering it… Though, now that he thought about it it all seemed extremely stupid to do. It was just his hab AI, after all. What would I even call it? I called my stuffed bear Bear as a kid, I’d be terrible at naming it. Maybe he would have found some famous fictional AI and just call it that, but those usually wound up being less than friendly. Or maybe-
“First delivery, building to the right. Fifth floor second door to the right,” the pad chimed in his ear, gostling him from his thoughts. Wayne blushed, thinking about how he had almost missed it, before nodding his thanks to the AI and heading inside. He didn’t have to bond to it to give his thanks, even if he felt oddly silly doing it today. He supposed it was just out of habit.
Hab units are always interesting to look at, Wayne thought as he made his way towards his delivery address. The doors were almost always decorated in some way, and he could usually tell a lot about the florets who lived there. Independents usually had a bit of flowers by the door, or a door made to look like fancy wood, which didn’t tell much, but floret doors? He’d seen doors painted in finger paint, doors that should be on a Disney-Hearst-Bertelsmann Princess’s castle, and a truly shocking amount of doors with oversized dog entrances.
Which is why Wayne froze when he saw the door he was supposed to deliver to; a familiar door painted in a swirl of lilacs and oranges. Mia’s door…
Immediately, he began to run a staggering amount of mental math, trying to see if turning around a leaving would be less trouble than knocking on that door. It took him more time than it should to decide that no, leaving would have only raised more questions than not. They would probably call Charlie, who would call the wrong people, who could see his pad’s position and realize he had left without doing his job.
Shaking his head, he knocked on the hab door. The door opened faster than Wayne would have liked, cutting off his attempts to collect himself or keep from blushing as Mia Perinnis, Second Floret, greeted him. She was taller than him, an overly-large shirt hanging perfectly on her frame, her long black hair pulled into a ponytail. Her freckles seemed to be accented by the studs in her nose, her small silver septum piercing, and Wayne knew he would see her silver tongue stud when she spoke. Her collar was a beautiful silver knot, all interwoven with itself in that natural-but-not style only Affini could manage. He did his best to keep his gaze steady, focusing slightly behind her head as he desperately tried not to remember that one time she answered the door and-
“Heya, Wayne,” Mia purred in that perfect voice, leaning against the doorframe. “Come here often?”
“I mean, as often as you order from Charlie’s,” he said, familiar with this part of the song and dance, letting himself breathe a little easier. The two had this exchange just about every time he’d come here, which had been at least once a week. This is fine, this is normal, just another delivery to Mia’s. Except… “Don’t you guys normally order on Friday,” he asked, pulling out their barbecue chicken pizza from his bag.
“That would be my fault,” a multi-tonal voice called from just out of view. Flowing on whirling vines, Mia’s Affini, Borea Perinnis, came into view. She was slightly more squat than most Affini, but still towering over both terrans, her five-eyed mask flanked by flowing hair of lilac and orange petals. Wayne never liked those eyes, never knowing where to look at them. “I have plans tomorrow and we’d be out of the hab, so I thought we’d get our little treat a day early.”
Her dual-toned voice grated on Wayne slightly, a minor side effect of the anti-bonding vitamins, but it wasn’t any worse than conversation with other terrans half the time. “Right, right well here you go,” he said lamely, not quite sure how to respond to the answer to his own question. Stupid, that was none of your business in the first place.
Mia took the pizza box from him, giving a gentle smile as she did. “I don’t suppose today will be the day I convince you to stick around and have a bite with me,” she said teasingly. Ah, good, they were back on track at this part of the game. Mia liked to act friendly like that, be overly nice to him, always inviting him in like they were close.
Wayne just laughed it off, as usual. “And deprive you of good pizza, I would never. Besides, I think that’d count as a tip, and I’m like… ninety percent sure those’re illegal now?” He laughed again, doing his best to let the joke land, and gave a mental fist pump when Mia laughed with him. “And as much as I’d like to, I still have some other deliveries to make.”
Mia nodded, and Borea gave her floret a gentle nudge towards the hab’s kitchen to set the pizza down, ending the awkward interaction. Wayne got ready to head out, but stopped when he noticed that the Affini hadn’t moved to close the hab door.
“Wayne, petal,” she said in that slightly grating voice. “Are you sure you don’t need to stay and take a break? Since today is an off-day for you to work and all?”
Wayne hoped he managed to catch his shocked expression before Borea had. He suddenly remembered telling Mia that he only worked on Fridays, the first time she started asking questions about his habits. He quickly searched for a convincing answer. “Ah well, I also wasn’t gonna be able to show up on Friday, so I figured I’d help out Charlie today, Miss Borea,” he lied. He would have to take tomorrow off in case she looked into it. “Just lucky that I saw you both today, isn’t it?”
The Affini stared at him with those five unblinking eyes that Wayne struggled to keep a steady gaze on, before turning her lips to a smile. “Of course, Wayne, just good luck. Well, if you ever need a break, please remember that my offer still stands,” she said, and Wayne could swear the grating two-tones clashing voice got worse. Maybe it was his imagination, or maybe it was just from being reminded of Miss Borea’s ‘offer.’ Without another word, though, she closed the door to her hab.
Wayne let out the breath he’d very knowingly been holding. Stumbling towards the elevator, he took a moment to calm himself down out of sight of the lilac/orange door. Feeling a bit more calm and collected, Wayne made his way to the next delivery, making plans as he did. That was how he made sure he didn’t have to deal with this again, he’d make a plan. He sent a message to Charlie, telling him that he’d be out tomorrow, then programmed an alert to tell him if a delivery for Mia came through on any day but Friday. Wayne couldn’t afford another slip-up like today. He idly thought that he might be able to pick up a shift at Omar’s place tomorrow to make up for missing tomorrow. He sent the message, hoping he’d get something back before tomorrow morning. That sorted, he made his way to the next delivery, hoping that would be enough until he could get home and plan.
The rest of the day thankfully passed without incident. He made a few more deliveries, got plenty of ‘tips’ in the form of Affini headpats, and had a surprisingly lovely conversation about post-pre industrial metal revival music with a dog bio-modded floret (apparently the canine ears worked enough to hear music playing in Wayne’s headphones? He always thought those mods were all just for show). All in all, aside from the one incident, a perfectly average day. A productive day.
Finally, Wayne made his way back home, pleasantly exhausted and ready to spend his evening gaming. After he tucked into his pizza, of course. It was his reward for a day well spent, and then he could spend tomorrow morning thinking about what he should do about work. His stomach soured slightly, thinking of having to stop seeing Charlie, stop seeing Mia, but he had to have a plan. Having a plan was what kept questions from being asked to the wrong people.
He stopped dead in his tracks as he stepped off the elevator, seeing an Affini standing in front of his hab door. They were more blooming flowers than vines, red and white berry clusters hanging on either side of their incredibly terran face like earrings. They gave their best attempt at a comforting smile, as they said the last words Wayne ever wanted to hear.
“Hello petal, my name is Ovelia Helleboreae, Third Bloom, They/Them, with the Bureau of Xenosophont Wellness and Care,” the Affini said, two-tone voice scratching at his mind painfully. “Do you mind if we have a quick chat? We’ve gotten some reports about potential overwork…” Wayne felt his body immediately begin to shut down, saw the dancing white at the edges of his vision, felt his heart bashing against his ribs.
They were here… the wrong people.