If Jove Stray

Chapter 24: cool place, brah

Tyson missed coffee. Tea didn't smell the same and there was basically no way to explain a latte to anyone. Not that he could eat or drink, but he missed the smell of coffee in the morning, a fresh pot brewing in the kitchen as he sliced bread to toast. He missed checking his phone to see all the ways people could embarrass themselves on social media, and, he was a little ashamed to admit it; he missed cat videos. He hadn't seen a cat here yet, and wondered if they existed anymore.

"We should have lunch with your papa today," Alcott remarked, sipping her tea on the couch. "I thought yesterday went well."

"You're heartless," Tyson groaned. "Can we do it later?"

"Of course. It's not lunch time now," she laughed. "I've already messaged him, Tyson."

Tyson rolled his eyes, realizing that Alcott was far craftier than he gave her credit for. Perhaps his reluctance to interact with his parents gave her something to fix so that Tyson couldn't focus on her.

"Well then, can do we do something fun in the meantime?" he asked. "Everyone keeps talking about the printers, can we go look?"

"Sure."

Alcott lifted herself off the couch and grabbed her tea and holo-rib before heading out the door. Tyson followed her with a little astonishment. The only thin Alcott seemed to insist on was that he reconnect with his parents. Anything else, at least during this free week, was fair game.

"Lully and Emerson work in the printers, right?" he inquired.

"Oui. Lully is the print queue manager and Emerson just made deck chief. Charles was deck chief before. He was one of the ones killed last week."

"How many people did you say live here?" he asked, stopping in the hall.

"A little less than three hundred, we've talked about this before. Why?"

Alcott paused once she realized that he was not walking with her anymore.

"You've had an uprising, multiple murders, and there's no more security that a couple of numbers at each door?" he questioned. "You don't have police or a jail, I'm assuming. As there been any measures taken to prevent such things again?"

"What would we do?" Alcott inquired. "Tell me, Tyson. Everything that has happened here as stemmed from one man's decision to let the Canary drop out of the sky. O'Keefe put Levi back into cryo which cause Levi to have irreparable nerve damage. While Levi was in cryo, the Canary crash-landed and hundreds died. When they were rescued and assimilated into the base, several decided to take revenge for their lost loved ones and slaughtered congress on Landing Day. And those who lost loved ones then decided to kill the Canary members responsible. And I'm sure if those whose partners died knew who was truly responsible, they'd take action and we'd be in an endless cycle of revenge and loss."

"What do you mean, those truly responsible?" Tyson asked.

Alcott glanced once around the hall.

"The official story is that O'Keefe shot Harper and killed the others," she said. "And that's the only one that matters. There is too much at stake."

Tyson didn't know what to say to that. Surely the truth was more important. Who had really killed those people? Had he met them? They were still walking around the base even though they had taken lives and justice into their own hands.

Alcott took a gulp of her tea. "Didn't you want to see the printers? Come on."

She continued down the hall and Tyson followed behind, lost in his own thoughts. They walked into an enormous room filled with strange machinery that looked like it was from the future. Of course, it was the future, so it should have been little surprise. Still, there was a machine building a couch right before Tyson's eyes and another that was printing a holo-rib. He watched with wonder as the men and women monitored these giant machines. As the couch was completed, two workers pulled the couch off the line and began setting up for something new.