Chapter Fourteen – Unexpected Fallout

Chapter Fourteen – Unexpected Fallout

“The obsession with youth is an unchecked virus. The fixation on appearing young is less about vanity and more about survival in a culture that equates power with youth. And yet, the reality is that all political soft power is in the hands of the old.

In the digital age, where everything is accelerated and disposable, youth is weaponized, sold, and idolized. But in chasing an endless cycle of perfection, we miss the deeper, grittier truth; true strength is forged in the scars of experience, the wisdom of survival, and the beauty of becoming something more than a perfectly polished avatar.

–Excerpt from a speech by Bernard Dotter at the Grey Hair Con of 2045

***

“Yo,” I said as I walked up to the Bastion. Olivia had peeled off a while ago, almost as soon as I was within line of sight of the ship, and now the only stranger left was… that dude that was accompanying Lucy. Emmet? Easton? No, it was… Ethan?

“Cat!” Lucy said before she ran over and gave me a quick hug. “I’m glad you arrived. Did class go on for a long time? Also, you stink.”

I laughed, then shrugged. “A bit? I think it finished early, but I had to get changed.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” she said. “Anyway, Ethan here was just keeping me company, but he’s heading out now.”

“I am?” Ethan asked.

“Yup,” Lucy said. “Thanks for stalking me around all over, it was nice of you! I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”

“Oh, yeah, right,” Ethan said with a goofy smile. If it wasn’t so obvious that Lucy had a leash on the poor idiot I might have considered socking him in the nose, but… yeah, no, he was giving off mad himbo idiot vibes.

Lucy waved as the boy took off, then she turned back to me. “Can we go home?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “You in a hurry?”

Lucy nodded. “I’ve been holding it in all morning.”

I barked a laugh, not expecting that reply. “Really? They have bathrooms here, you know?” I said as I walked over to the Bastion and sent a command through my augs to open it up.

“Yeah, I know, but… public washrooms suck,” she said. “I hate the stalls. They’re always super narrow, and there was never room for my crutches.”

“Okay,” I said. She didn’t have crutches anymore, and I was pretty sure the washroom back at the orphanage couldn’t be any narrower without breaking some physical laws, but I knew better than to point that out. If she had hangups about it, then whatever. “There’s a washroom on the Bastion. Never used, either.”

“Really?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah, there’s a whole living space. I never wanted to use the washroom on here though,” I said.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Well, for one, this thing’s usually parked at home, so like… why bother? And for two, I don’t actually know where the shit goes in the first place, and I don’t want to have to learn how to empty a shit tank or whatever.”

“That’s gross,” Lucy said. “Do like an airplane and just dump it while flying.”

“That’s an idea,” I said.

It didn’t take long before we were taking off. Lucy took one of the spare seats in the cockpit, her feet tapping a rapid, nervous beat behind me. I did fly a little faster than usual, because I wasn’t cruel.

When we got home, Lucy hurried off while I did some post-flight checks. I had the next day free, and I had a lot of shit to cram into one day. So now was as good a time as any to look at the Bastion’s maintenance logs to see what it needed.

I… still needed a shower, but if I was gonna get dirty anyway, then what was the point?

The Bastion was pretty low-maintenance for a ship as large as it was. A few filters were yellow-green on some readouts, and the lubricant tanks were sitting at a comfortable ninety-percent. Basically, I could probably keep running it for another month of daily use without having to even think about doing any work on it, but… well, just in case, I sent an order to the matter fabricator to print replacement filters and set a reminder on my augs to do an oil change every ten thousand kilometres.

I was tempted to get back to work on the mech’s leg that I still had in the back but… eh, if I got into it, I really wanted to get into it. The Nyanzerfaust still needed a couple of weeks of work, and picking away at it a few minutes at a time wouldn’t add up to much.