Chapter Eighty-Three – Not a Bad Day

Chapter Eighty-Three – Not a Bad Day

“The failure of the Apollo 37 program can be directly attributed to a fault in one of the regulatory valves. This valve was originally designed to operate at 62amps but a replacement was added which was designed to function at 48amps. The difference in current strength led to the melting of the plastic sheathing on the sensor system around the electronic valve, leading to a spark. In the high-pressure environment of the capsule, this spark turned into a conflagration that killed three of the five astronauts onboard the mission.

Seeing as how the fault was not caused by one of the machines created by the N-ESA space agency, the N-ESA will not be responsible for spacecraft retrieval, or for the insurance payouts of these astronauts.”

–N-ESA report, June 2047

***

“How was that?” I asked as I stepped back behind the stage.

Gomorrah was standing just a few feet away from the curtains, arms crossed and face set in a frown. Not that bad of a frown, though. I’d rate it a solid four out of ten on the frown scale, so she wasn’t pissed off at me or anything. “It sounded like you went on stage and hadn’t prepared anything at all, and then just winged it.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“Well, I suppose in light of that, it wasn’t as terrible as it could have been,” Gomorrah said. “You got the right points across.”

“Cool,” I said. I looked around, but it was just me, Gomorrah and… Shy? Huh, I’d hardly seen her at all today. “You have fun?” I asked her.

She blinked, then looked around, almost as if to make sure I was addressing her. “Um. Yes?”

I laughed at the look of her. It was pretty clear that she probably felt like this day would have been better spent staying at home all day. “Don’t worry, it’s over. You can head back home if you want to.”

“It’s not entirely over,” Gomorrah said. “We still need to make sure that all of these people make it home without breaking out into a large battle right here at the hotel. And we need to talk to the casino, to thank them for hosting the event and for their assistance.”

“Cool, you handle that,” I said.

The frown ticked up a level.

“Catherine, you can’t expect me to handle everything,” she said.

“I mean, no, but I did the bit where I had to go on stage and look good, so I figure I’ve done a decent share of the work, and–” I paused to yawn. “And I’m tired. I get that it’s been a long day for you too, but… yeah. My batteries are empty. I’m out of energy.”

Gomorrah worked her jaw, then nodded. “Fine. I’ll send Nya a text, let her know to send people out once she’s done with her next song.”

I nodded along, then looked back. Nya was on stage, bobbing her head and singing along to her own playing. I didn’t know much about music. I liked the beeps and boops, but I wasn’t anything close to even an amateur enjoyer. Still, I could tell that Nya was pretty good at the whole music thing. She was playing and singing at the same time, and while I didn’t understand Japanese enough to guess at the lyrics, that didn’t mean I couldn’t tell that she was a good singer.

I watched for a while, then Nya bid everyone a good night and stepped off stage. Then things got busy again. The various gangsters seemed to clue in that the whole thing was over, so there was a sudden rush for the exit, though to be fair, most of them moved at a slow, reasonable pace.

I circled around, heading out towards the front, and that’s when I encountered Lucy in one of the corridors.

“Cat!” She said as she saw me. She stumbled over, and I caught her in my arms.

“Hey, you okay?” I asked.

She nodded, face rubbing against me. “Yeah,” she said. “Just tired. My legs are killing me, and my feet are pain.”

“Ah, well, shit, that’s no good.” Just a month ago, Lucy needed crutches to get anywhere, and it was always safer for her to be in a wheelchair than not. Even with near-magical nano-whatever healing, I didn’t imagine that her legs were quite on the level of someone who hadn’t spent years with a degenerative disease.

So, obviously, a long day where she had to walk around a lot was going to be far more taxing. And yet she’d done it anyway, because she was awesome.

“Hup!’ I said as I scooped her up and off her feet. Lucy gasped, arms grasping onto me before she realized what I’d done.

“Cat, you can’t princess carry me around,” Lucy said.

“I’m doing it already, so it feels kind of pointless to say that I can’t,” I replied.

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“I mean, you shouldn’t,” she said. “It’ll ruin my image.”

“No it won’t,” I disagreed.