Chapter Fifty-Two – Cat Nap Wrap

Chapter Fifty-Two – Cat Nap Wrap

“If you can’t uwu with sincerity, then don’t owo with infidelity!”

–Hyper Cutie Bubblechan Zoom Ranger Sparkle Girl, 2048

***

After dinner, and after my heart stopped trying to beat its way out of my chest, Lucy and I took a walk through the little park again, visiting the petting zoo off to one side of the gardens.

They had real animals here. Or animatronics realistic enough to stink and poop. Lucy made all of the appropriate cooing noises as a little goat hopped its way over to her and accepted some loose goat mix from Lucy’s hand.

“This place is nice,” she said as she tried to scratch the goat’s head. It bobbed away, then hopped off when it saw that she had no food. “There’s a lot of nice places in New Montreal that we just never got to visit.”

“Yeah,” I said as I kept my attention on Lucy. “There’s some beautiful things here.”

Lucy glanced up, then tugged a stray lock away from her face. “You’re silly,” she declared.

“No, you’re silly,” I retorted with all due consideration.

Lucy smiled, and as we continued our walk, she pressed herself into my side. I wrapped an arm around her waist, hand naturally finding its place on her hip. Lucy used that to press in even closer. It was a little cool at this end of the zoo, but we kept each other warm, even if we were only walking at the kind of pace that would make the geriatric think that we were going too slow.

Lucy had brushed off her marriage joke earlier, and it was all forgotten by the time we got to dessert. Well, maybe she’d forgotten it. It was at the forefront of my mind at the moment, even if I was trying to push the thought away.

It… it would happen, eventually. Probably.

I was better at facing hordes of enemies than that kind of problem.

“Should we go home?” Lucy asked as we started to come full circle around the zoo. We weren’t too far from the entrance, and I wasn’t feeling nearly as bloated now as I had felt just after eating.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said.

“Worried?” Lucy asked.

“Hmm? About what?”

“I don’t know. You’ve been taking some time off, even if it was all rather busy. I think it was good for you,” Lucy said. “You don’t seem as stressed.”

“I don’t feel as stressed,” I admitted. “But it also feels like there’s a ton of stuff that’s going to happen soon. The more I try to get things fixed, the deeper I get involved, the more I realize that the problems that caused the problems that caused the problems I want to fix are more complicated than I imagined.”

Lucy nodded. “It’s not your fault. Or even any one person’s fault.”

“No, I think a lot of my problems are generational. People were allowed to get away with shit fifty years ago, and now that’s hurting us here, today. It’s all very… messy. I’m surprised that no one’s tried to fix it by wiping the slate clean.”

“I don’t know. Sounds like you’d need to really start over from scratch for that,” Lucy said.

“Bit of a depressing end to the evening,” I said while suppressing a yawn. “Sorry.”

Lucy pressed herself into me. “No, it’s okay. I guess your vacation will be ending soon?”

“I guess so,” I said.

There was a small lobby space before entering the zoo. A few kiosks, the booth to buy tickets, some vending machines and the elevators leading to the parking space below. There were also a couple of televisions mounted to the walls. Some were playing loud ads on loop, but one was turned into a 24/7 News channel.

It was showing some PMCs from above, firing into a small horde of lower-tiered models rushing towards their emplacement.

The banner at the bottom said that it was live, and taking place just outside of New Montreal.

It was strange how unaffected the people here were.