Darkness.

And then, absurdly, a wiff of absolution.

Can it be? Can it?

Nah’.

Aristotelian thought would dictate otherwise. You’re a liar, Nish’. One motherscrewingly pricey, class A, twenty-four carat superbitch.


Silence, nothing but silence, as if the whole world was dead.

... Always with the realist illusions? Please. Go kill yourself.


Are you kidding? We've barely got onto the popcorn here: again, again!

A pause.

...Besides, a slight linguistic correction; they're not illusions, they're allusions.


Groans and rolls over. Loudly.

Quasi-mumbling."Yūrei..."


"Yes Adeline - would you prefer if I activated your alarm 3:45.32.5 hours prematurely - your regular coffee has just reached optimum brewing selection. Black. 197.2 degrees Fahrenheit. It smells, if I do say so myself, sublime, my lady. Would you care for a sniff?"

Nodding into the pillowcase."Yeah, motivate me."


A gentle wisp of stimulation. Noir - alluring.

Breathes."Mmmh... Goddess, that's the sainted stuff."


Another pause.

Chirpily."Triggering your alarm in 3.... 2... 1..."


Understandably moaning.”Cra…”
Ardently scrabbling for the mute…


"GET UP AND SHAKE YOURSELF YOU LAZY JAPOCENTRIC HALF-CASTE WHORE." Nishi gives the mute a bodyslam that numbs her shoulder cold.

"...You know, I never quite feel comfortable with the sample you have assigned me as a wake-up tone. Would you possibly...?"

”No, it works. The Coffee?”

"On demand, M'lady."

The Chrysanthemum smiles - only a weak smile - a pure, natural grin freckled with the odd touch of apathetic pain as she cradles the mug like it was a newborn. Or a hand grenade. Either way, she wasn't going to let it smash.


With the bleary-eyed slur of an exhausted conversationalist."You know, I love you, Yūrei." She smiles quietly as she clinks spoon to porcelain, stirring in sweetner the colour of strychnine crystals.

With the wry, synthetic machismo befitting a ship of war:"And I respect you too, Nishi."

She laughs quietly, dangerously close to dribbling her scalding cargo down the pit of her thighs, the mug dangling like an unlucky funambulist. Uncomprehendingly, She paws at her eyes. "Heh, yeah; that's m'boy."

"And that's my girl."

The sound of fidgeting fingertips tip-tapping a jig over the countertop. The scratch of fingernails on glass.

"Just... 'eh, just boot 'er up."

Compliantly. "...Booting..."

Flings her boots down with a thumping abandon. “Uhrh. I hate hacking. It’s like rifling through the pockets of a corpse. At least a corpse doesn't spew putrefaction and porn all over you until you get down to the flesh.”

And hacking hates you. Besides, rifling through a corpse takes all of two minutes…

…or half an hour if you’re thorough…

…and a fresh set of surgical gloves, whilst hacking takes you a full morning. Besides, I wouldn’t call “Inserting a stolen ID keycard into a console whilst the pilot was off his head on homemade potato wine” hacking. That’s not even script kiddie level stuff, at most it’s basic theft…

Enough. Nishi seals her headphones against the side of her skull. “…Bartok, now. Make it fast.”

Yūrei responds with the deliberated patience you’d expect of an immortal machine. “I am not a random number generator, Nish’. Please select a track.”

Nishi hmphs like the Fat Controller. “…Doesn’t ‘surprise me’ work anymore? Don’t you have, I don’t know, a shuffle function? Something?”

If Yūrei had lips, he’d be grinning half-moons. “I am a virtually intelligent polymorphic administrator program – not a jukebox.”


“…No, you’re uncooperative and I’m going to turn you off.”

“Unfortunately, I lack hand-switches. Although you could viably incapacitate me for twenty four hours by blowing three or more thermistors in my CPU. The technicians would likely bill you for the waste of man hours and assets. I estimate the likelihood of at least one of them sending a rather precipitously worded email to the First Sister at approximately 79.45%, based on their previous behavioural patterns.”

“Uh-huh. Right. And what would that cost me again?”

Amiably “Fifteen thousand credits, three and a half hours if you are expedient, an indefinite period if you are slow, and one fully charged disposable plasma cutter. Two if you inadvertently fuse a thermistor to the surrounding insulation. Would you like me to pencil this into your calendar, Nish’?”

“…Yeah, you know what? Pass.”

"Good girl. Do as the Bretonian robot tells you."

Grinning lips to lobe: "...Go blow a microprocessor."

"Yes M'lady."

"...Good Dog."

A silence you could ring a coin in.

"Your Bartok, Nishi?"

"Chicago symphony orchestra recording of 'The Wooden Prince'. Just cut the reverb out of it. Start at twenty three fifty five."

"...But that's half way through a..."

"Do."

"Doing."

And the air filled with the pulsing sine waves of wriggling strings.

---