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COMMONWEALTH NEW EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK - INDEX/DICTIONARY
Gene Therapy (Page 19): Transhumans, as they drift further and further from their human baseline in the centuries following the Mutagen Bomb, have started to aggressively evolve and mutate. Gene Therapy is, at the moment, the best option available to Transhumans to arrest and impair transforming into something they neither want nor recognize. See also the Ainu Archipelago Medical Megaplex (Page 24).
GLC (Page 17): The Great Lakes Collective, home to the Commonwealth's Seed Vault initiative, serves as the home base to a trio of terrestrial Earth-Shakers currently tasked with rewilding the Nouvo American colonies.
CALLSIGNS AND CONTACT NAMES AS OF 2440
Nu - Nicneven; Iota - Iseult; Lambda - Laenius
The Great Reset (Page 06): An extinction level event, of unknown origin, that wiped out 99.998% of sentient life across the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. Organics, inorganics, and computer intelligences alike were targeted. Lower level lifeforms were left otherwise untouched.
Legacy Support
By: RaddaRaem
Thumbnail by
ducky
Synth species created by
Vader-San
FIRST, PREVIOUS, -
“I THOUGHT YOU LIKED BORING!” Tera howled. The Synth's face, filling the whole of the tablet wrapped around Brie's wrist, seethed with contempt.
“...It'll do Rivet good,” the newt grumbled as she shoved Tera's likeness aside with a flick of her fingers. The Nouvo Carolina coastline, illuminated by the swarm of stars filling the night sky, twinkled behind her. “He could use the experience.”
“BUT HE'S MY TECHNICIAN!” Tera snapped. “MY BOYFRIEND!”
“Well now he's Oberon's,” grumbled the amphibian.
“WHUH-”
“HIS TECHNICIAN,” Brie blurted with a blush. Jostling back and forth the newt steadied herself when the light rail she was riding rounded a curve.
Lips rising and falling like a sine wave, Tera narrowed her gaze.
“It's a temporary reassignment,” the Transhuman groused. “Get over yourself.”
The reptilian robot's faceplate took on a menacing crimson glow as her antennae turned horns folded back.
Slouched forward, Brie cupped a hand to her cheeks and slowly kneaded out the bags forming under her eyes. “Maybe if a certain SOMEONE hadn't bombed her Class E CDL test-”
“Ahemhem...” interrupted a pale green Synth with a clear of his throat.
The Transhuman sheepishly pulled down the brim of her hat in response. “Sorry, Sir.”
“Hmph.” Arms crossed about his toned chest, the fins jutting from his thighs and shoulder blades buzzing with an electric hum, the shark-like Synth allowed his eyes to droop shut with a disgusted grunt.
Tail coiled around her ankles, Brianne shrank in on herself. Shamefully did she wait for the other passengers on the red-eye ride to cast their attention elsewhere.
“...Fuck him,” Tera's voice, laced with harsh static, whispered once the coast was clear.
Brie's pale grey cheeks smoldered with embarrassment as she frantically tamped down the volume on her tablet. Dragging up the keyboard terminal with a flick she furiously texted back a response.
“TERA!!!”
“WHAT!” the Earth-Shaker mouthed back while text bubbles, populating with every unheard syllable as they were spoken, popped up on screen. “He's an ass! He could have politely shooshed and shut you down at any time! But nooooooooo he just had to make a scene out of it.”
“That's not-”
“Fuck him AND the Wavebreaker blueprint he rode on in!” Tera huffed. Nostrils exaggeratedly flared, the Synth exhaled out a pixelated cloud of smoke. “Don't let him treat you like that!”
Lips pulled flat, Brie rolled her eyes and dragged the conversation back on track. “Look. It's not my fault the Commonwealth put you back on a short leash...” she typed.
Multiple ellipsis bubbles bobbed about Tera's noggin while a semi-colon sweat bead flickered into being upon her faceplate.
Flopping back into her seat, tail draped across her thighs, the amphibian struggled to hold her increasingly heavy eyelids aloft. “You act like you're the only one being inconvenienced here,” she tiredly tipped and tapped out. “We quit working together for a reason you know. A good one.”
The Earth-Shaker's faceplate dimmed in color from radiant red to a soft and subdued sapphire. “Well. We-” Tera hastily cut herself off as she puffed out a cheek.
Brie's hand hovered over the paper thin tablet wrapped around her slimy skin.
BING
The quiet hum of the electrified rails, buzzing beneath the rail car, went silent. As it glided to a halt the doors lining it slid open with a chime and a humid blast of air. A number of passengers stepped out into the darkness.
Silence came to punctuate the ever increasing delay between what had been a lightning fast back and forth of banter. After some hesitation Brie typed out a grudging response. “We what, Tera?”
Tera bitterly sighed. “...We started working together for just as good a one too.”
Brie guiltily slumped down in her seat as the light rail hummed back to life and resumed its route. Unable, and unwilling, to meet the Synth's gaze she turned her attention towards the beautiful blur of moon kissed sea grass and sand dunes rushing past. “I know,” she mumbled.
The reptile-like robot's hackles raised at the drawn out gap between words. Mutely did she continue to flap her gums and force the conversation forward after what felt like an interminable wait. “...So. You still haven't told me. How was it?”
With the rail car all but emptied, Brie gingerly ticked back up the volume on her wearable computer. “How was what?” the Transhuman yawned. Tears beaded along her eyes as her maw, lined with short but razor sharp teeth, stayed open for far longer than she would have liked.
“You know what! The Great Lakes Collective!” Tera snipped with a cocked brow.
“It...” Brie's head slumped forward while she struggled to stay awake.
“It damn well better have been worth ditching me over,” the Synth dismissively tched.
“...”
“Oh come on it's not that low a blow,” Tera smarted. Diagonal blush lines, bunching up against the undersides her eyes, flared to life upon the Synth's faceplate while a frustrated growl lodged itself in her throat.
“...”
“What is with you and the silent treatment tonight?! Say something you ass!” Tera scowled.
“...”
“Brieanne?” Horns swiveling forward, the Earth-Shaker's antagonistic tone quickly turned conciliatory.
“...Snrrrrrr.”
Jaw hanging slack, Tera grunted at the sight, and sound, of the newt snoring. “Oh for.” Eyes collapsing into tildes the Synth softly sighed.
BING
Tera's head shrank in on itself as streams of pixels trickled down from where her neck ought to have been. Little by little the remainder of her avatar, scaled down to fit onto what little screen space she had to work with, loaded in. Reaching out towards the side of the tablet the Synth grimbled and grambled to herself as she plucked apps free from the ether. Mechanical clacks sounded out when she scheduled an alarm to coincide with the next stop on the light rail. “You're lucky it's no fun kicking you when you're down,” she grumped. Cursing to herself, Tera grudgingly went on to coordinate for a driverless shuttle to pick up Brie for good measure.
“Snrrrrrr...”
Looking out towards the front of the rail car, Tera resigned herself to standing sentry for her sleeping superior. Arms crossed about her generous chest she impatiently thrummed her fingers along her forearms. “You haven't changed a bit,” she wearily complained to no one in particular.
“You're welcome by the way!” the Earth-Shaker shouted.
Shuffling inside her barren apartment, door slamming shut behind her, the Transhuman positively overflowed with embarrassment. “I DIDN'T ASK FOR YOUR HELP! WHY DO YOU-” Brie bit her tongue as her tail came to droop and drag along the tiled floor behind her. “Always do this.” Leaning against a wall, and digging the toe cap of one shoe into the heel of another, she kicked off her shoes.
“Because since you won't take care of yourself I clearly have to!”
“SINCE WHEN IS THAT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY?” Tugging off her brimmed cap, revealing wild pink locks of hair matted against her forehead in the process, Brie wrung her headwear between her hands.
“WELL GOD FORBID I LOOK AFTER MY FR-” Tera cut herself off with a disgusted grunt.
The newt's tongue repeatedly flapped against the roof her mouth and the back of her teeth as every imagined retort fell flat. Humiliating as it was... better this than waking up in a panic at the train terminal. Cheek puffed out, she offered up a reluctant reply. “Thank you.”
“Whuh. What?”
“I said thanks,” Brie grumpily repeated herself.
“O-o-oh.” The Earth-Shaker wasn't used to the Transhuman agreeing with her. “Don't... don't mention it,” the Synth quietly sassed back.
To Brie's surprise Tera simply dropped the topic. Blindly ambling about her quarters, temporary housing granted to her by the Commonwealth on short notice, the exhausted amphibian fumbled for light switches.
KACLICK
Tera's digital likeness, its snoot practically bowing out the liquid crystals lining the paper thin computer wrapped around Brie's wrist, shamelessly sneaked peeks at her now illuminated home away from home. “Some housewarming this is. You haven't even decorated the place yet!” she playfully teased.
Brie wrinkled her own soft snoot in disgust while she slipped off her hydration pack. “I JUST got here,” she groused as the sucked dry container noisily clattered to the floor.
“Excuses, excuses...” Tera trailed off with a whistle.
“You act like I'll be staying here for long,” the Transhuman grunted. Hands cupped to her neck she fumbled with the collar of her buttoned up shirt.
“I mean you will be if I have anything to say about it,” the Synth snickered.
“TERA,” hissed the newt. Buttons undone, and tanktop exposed, Brie's generous bust tugged taut the soft cotton wrapped around her curves.
The Earth-Shaker's avatar contentedly watched on while Brie lobbed her dirty laundry down a hallway and towards an ever growing pile of clothes bunched up before a closet. “Go on then. Gimme the tour!”
“No.”
“Not even a peek?”
“It's pre-furnished and it's going to stay that way,” the Transhuman angrily muttered as she ambled towards her kitchen. Popping open the fridge Brie fished out a chilled, and frosty fresh, hydration pack.
“You'll break one of these days,” Tera taunted.
“Would you fuck off already?” Sliding the straps of her hydration pack over her shoulders, Brie furrowed her brows and rudely mlemed at her garrulous guest.
“Goodnight, Brieanne,” the Synth blepped right back.
BZZZZZZZT
Tera's likeness disappeared with a burst of static.
Pinching her hydration pack's drinking tube between her fingers, Brie slipped it between her pursed lips and sheepishly started sipping away at a gallon's worth of mocktails.
KACLICK
Peeling off her wearable work computer, the Transhuman snapped it back into a flat tablet with a flick of her wrist. It, along with her hat, came to rest upon her kitchen's quartz island.
In between slurps, Brieanne unbuckled her belt and unbuttoned her slacks. Reaching behind her back, hands fumbling with the straps of cloth wrapped around the base of her tail, she hummed in relief when her pants slid down her thighs and pooled around her ankles.
“...”
Lips clamped around her drinking tube, rolling it along her teeth like a stim, Brie dropped to a kneel and grudgingly fished her phone free from a wadded up pocket. Rising back to a stand she waddled down her apartment's narrow hall while it powered back up.
BZZZZT BZZZZT
Notifications about a handful of missed texts, and a voicemail, assailed her.
Brie quickly scrolled through her messages. Eyes half-lidded, and lips drooping down into a sad frown, she promptly texted back a reply.
Brieanne: “Sorry I missed you, Mom.”
Kneading at her forehead, the newt stepped out of her pants and kicked them aside when she passed by her bedroom. Her bare feet clapped heavily against the tiled floor as she ambled into her bathroom.
KLICK
Warm fluorescent bulbs flickered to life. Brie fired off another text before planting her phone face down on the counter.
Brieanne: “Still getting used to the new responsibilities and time zone.”
BZZZT BZZZT
Brie painfully recoiled at the prompt response. Shoulders bunched, she nevertheless committed herself to her nighttime routine. The only thing keeping her going at this point was sheer inertia after all.
SHFFFFFFFF
With a broad sweep of her hand she brushed back a nondescript set of shower curtains. The Transhuman's eyes grew heavy at the sight of a bath pillow, and a thin mesh mattress of sorts, suctioned tight against the base of the tub. Reaching over the edge she plugged the drain before fumbling for the faucet. A slow but steady trickle of warm water soon followed.
“Pbbbbbbbt.” Lips pursed, Brie spat out her drinking tube with a raspberry. Guided by muscle memory she reluctantly returned to the kitchen and slid her already half-emptied hydration pack back into the fridge. She'd top it back off in the morning.
Flick by flick, slimy digits dragging along the switches, Brie extinguished every light as she retreated back to the bathroom. Quietly did she brush her teeth while the tub continued to slowly fill.
BZZZT BZZZT
Sharply inhaling through her clenched teeth, and biting down into the base of her wooden brush, Brie flipped up her phone.
Mom: “It's OK.”
Mom: “Some days are just harder than others for your father. You know how it goes.”
The dejected newt tapped out a reply.
Brieanne: “I'll call you when I wake up. OK?”
Ptooing out a mouthful of toothpaste, the Transhuman rinsed her mouth and continued to undress herself while she waited for the next bit of back and forth. Thumbing at her waist, and pulling down the underwear wrapped form fittingly tight to her thunderous thighs, the newt kicked her unmentionables back into the hallway. Her bra followed soon after.
Squinting, Brie wrinkled her snoot at the size of the laundry pile. Best get fresh load of laundry running in the morning.
BZZZZT
Mom: “Talk to you then. Love you, Brie.”
Brieanne: “Love you too, Mom.”
Cheeks puffed out, Brie's eyes glazed over while she absentmindedly flit through the various alarms and reminders she had programmed into her phone for the days ahead. Setting the volume as high as it would go she planted it back down upon the counter.
FWISH
Before throttling her bathtub's faucet shut. Dragging out an emphatic exhale the naked newt stepped into the nearly filled tub and slipped beneath the water. The pores lining her pale grey skin expanded, and the beginnings of gills peeled open along her neck, while Brie's body unconsciously adjusted to her submerged surroundings.
“...”
Eyes drooping shut, the Transhuman nestled the back of her head into the mesh pillow tethered to the base of the tub. Shallow breaths that struggled to fill her lungs soon gave way to greedy gulps as she effortlessly inhaled oxygen from the air and water alike. Her eyes drooped shut-
Only to peel open what felt like all of an instant later.
Bells, piercing yet pleasant, rang within her bathroom. The cacophonous clatter of her phone noisily skittering across the sink's counter top accompanied them.
Brie reluctantly rose from her acryllic crypt. Crawling out of the tub, cursing herself for putting her phone just out of reach, she flipped it up only to impotently scowl at the time.
“It's the ass crack of dawn! Tera?! Was this your doing?!” she instinctively accused. “Who the hell would set an alarm this ear-”
REMINDER: 4:30 AM SST – Triannual Checkup
“...Oh. I would.” Setting back down her phone, Brie cupped her hands to her cheeks and dragged out an exaggerated and exhausted sigh. That's right. She had scheduled this so early so that she wouldn't have to take off work for it. Fingers tugging at the bags beneath her eyes the newt tiredly locked eyes with her reflection in the mirror above the sink.
“One day this'll all be worth it,” the Transhuman tried to reassure herself. “One day.” Brie's reflection, its expression unenthused, offered little in the way of encouragement. With a shake of her head the amphibian pushed off from the sink and tried to optimize her morning routine with what little time she had.
Only to utterly and abjectly fail in the attempt. Her hair still sopping wet, and clad in wrinkled clothes she had fished out from the bottom of her laundry pile, the sleep deprived newt slunk down into her chair.
Brie's eyes wandered over the solarpunk styled lobby as she blinked her violet peepers in and out of sync. Her fellow patients, each and every one of them Transhuman much like herself, likewise languished. If they weren't napping in their chairs they were otherwise wishing that they could.
“...”
Arms crossed about her chest, Brie stifled one jaw-splitting yawn after another as her attention drifted towards the various Orbots staffing the clinic. The spherical robots could be seen manning the entrance; Tending to the hypoallergenic plants coiling through the trellises along the walls; Testing the pH levels of the fish-filled ponds that gently burbled in the lobby's center.
“Honghhhhh...” Brie brushed back stray locks of hair matted to her forehead while she continued to slip down further and further in her chair. Chin tucked against her chest she blearily regarded the handful of magazines and books strewn about the table before her.
Sheepishly did the newt swish her eyes this way and that before scooping up the lone children's book hidden amongst them. “Human After All,” Brie wordlessly mouthed aloud before she pinched at the wrinkled edge of the cover. The thick pages, crafted specifically for Transhumans of all types to be able to effortlessly interact with, flipped over with ease.
“Once upon a time there was a planet called Sol. Beautiful and blue it was a most special place.”
Brie flipped the page. Even though she knew the book by heart she would never turn down the chance to reread it.
“For on Sol something there was something most magical! In all the Milky Way no one, nothing, had seen anything like it!”
Again Brie flipped the page as Sol and its singular moon, colored in with crayon, came into ever clearer focus.
“What was that special something? Why... it was life! Verdant and plentiful!”
Curious creatures and plants, of all kinds of shapes and colors, came to populate the page. Many of them looked an awful lot like the Transhuman children that would no doubt go on to read it... though for whatever reason they seemed to walk on all fours instead of upright.
“And among that life were our ancestors. Humans!”
Bereft of scales, or fur, a shy smile crept up along Brie's lips at the sight of said humans.
“Though their differences were many... they had more in common than one could dare dream.”
Brie continued to flip through the pages.
“Inquisitive to a fault our ancestors, after exploring Sol in its entirety, took to the skies. They sought ought sanctuaries among the stars much like the beautiful blue dot they called home. And if they could not find any... then they would make them!”
The illustrations zoomed out to the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. Cute and bubbly representations of the Jovian colonies, the Arion flotilla, and the Taphao Kaew ring worlds filled Brie's view.
“It was very fortunate that they did. For if they hadn't... the Great Reset would have swallowed them whole.”
Brie winced when the otherwise adorable book became bereft of color. The Milky Way and its many spiral arms, were portrayed in a chalky white color. Even now very little was known about the Great Reset. Save that, on that fateful day, some unknown force roared out from the super massive black hole that was the Milky Way's dark heart. Life, sentient life exclusively, was wiped out nearly to the last. Organic, artificial, even computer intelligences it mattered not... anything above an unknown intelligence threshold found itself culled.
“It was as if all the lights in the sky went dark.”
On the next page menacing waves of black billowed out from the galaxy's center. Over the span of three hours the Great Reset came to envelop nearly the entirety of the Orion Arm. Estimates pegged the survival rate for those caught in the Great Reset's reach at 0.002%. Only those scarce few colonies situated at the edge of existence were spared.
Holding her breath, Brie turned the page.
“Our ancestors were left scared and scattered among the stars. Desperately did they seek out a way to adapt to the trials left for them in the Great Reset's wake.”
The newt could feel her anxiety flaring. In the centuries following the Great Reset, when interstellar and even interplanetary travel atrophied away and solar systems became sheared off and separated from one another, times were hard. Desperate even. To this day long forgotten colonies and space stations were still being found floating in the sea of stars. Brie shuddered to think how many people upon them survived the Great Reset only to realize no one would, much less could, come save them. Nigh instantaneously did civilization, down to the atomic level, collapse.
“Throughout their short stay on Sol humans oftentimes looked to the life that had grown and flourished alongside them for inspiration. So they did so once again. And while their efforts were noble...”
“Quit dragging it out,” Brie grumped as she found herself nevertheless absorbed in the page-turner.
A cartoonish KABOOM stretched from the edge of one page to the other.
“The results of their research, by way of ill intentions or outright incompetence, proved anything but.”
The colorful clouds disappeared and what had once been humans looked to themselves, and one another, in abject confusion. Their forms were now familiar to the book's presumed Transhuman readers. In their desperation did humans turn to genetic engineering to survive centuries worth of grinding failure and famine as they aimlessly listed amongst the void of space. No one recalled quite how it started. How it spread so quickly from star to star. Much less who was ultimately responsible for it. But... the immediate aftermath of what had come to be known as the Mutagen Bomb proved trying to say the very least.
Brie looked over her own slimy skin and twiddled her webbed fingers with some disappointment. Even now, literal millenias later, they were still dealing with the repercussions and consequences of it.
“Sadly the one-two punch of the Great Reset and Mutagen Bomb proved too much for our ancestors. Humans as we once knew them went extinct.”
“All but extinct,” Brie quietly corrected the record under her breath. When Sol was rediscovered by the Commonwealth some centuries back, humanity's cradle having attained an almost fable-like status by that point, so too were what vanishingly few humans that remained.
“Yet, in us, their legacy lives on! For while our differences may be many... we have more in common than one could dare dream. Every one of us is still human after all.”
The newt arched her brows. “And what about the Synths?” she snorted.
“Miss Orotaloa?” called out an Orbot from behind one of the medical complex's many counters.
Brie hurriedly tossed aside the children's book at the mention of her name. With a clear of her throat she meekly raised her hand.
The spherical bot bobbed in recognition. “Doctor Megiddo will see you now.” Hovering out from behind its desk it bid Brie to follow it with a twirl.
With some difficulty did the newt push herself up to a stand. Her flip flops clapped noisily against the floor as she followed the Orbot through a sliding set of doors. Led by the nose down a labyrinth of hallways, and leaning against the walls while she walked, Brie weakly groaned.
“Paging Doctor Megiddo!” the Orbot chimed when they exited out into a rotunda situated at the medical complex's center.
“Thank you, Orbot,” a sultry and static laced voice hummed back. Its owner, a Synth sporting a hard-light lab coat, sauntered over with a smile. “I thought I recognized that surname. Welcome back, Brieanne! It's been some time!” Megiddo's yellow eyes, contorted into the shapes of raised carats, quickly reshaped themselves into hollowed out circles as she took in the sad and sorry sight of her patient.
“Hey Doc,” the newt slurred out.
With a sigh Megiddo clasped her hand to the Star of Life emblazoned upon her breast. “Hello to you too. Are you quite alright, Brieanne?”
“Never better,” the Transhuman mumbled with a thumbs up.
The Synth's horns, wrapped in yellow and blue ambulatory stripes, sagged. “...You look anything but.”
“Is that your professional or your unprofessional opinion?” Brie deadpanned.
Pixelated brows pulled flat, Megiddo wordlessly summoned a transparent clipboard from the ether with a snap of her fingers.
The newt visibly wilted at the Synth's unimpressed expression. Pushing herself off from the wall she tried to smooth out the wrinkles in shirt. “Sorry, Doc. I... maybe I've been pushing myself a little too hard lately.”
Megiddo softly smiled when the Transhuman slowly let down her guard. “Well let's make sure your stay here is a relaxing one at the very least. Why don't we step into my office?”
“And in,” Doctor Megiddo gently requested.
Nostrils flared, Brie inhaled deeply and puffed out her chest.
Megiddo's hand, planted atop the newt's sternum, subtly shifted.“And out,” the doctor rhythmically repeated back to her patient after a slight delay.
Lips pursed, Brie slowly dragged out an exhale. She wiggled at the sensation of Megiddo's fingers, lined thick with sensors, tickling against her.
“Good,” hummed the Synth. The hard-light clipboard hovering before Megiddo automatically populated with the reams of data. With a clench of her fist the various unintrusive tools installed into the tips of her digits recalibrated themselves.
Brie's violet eyes lazily drifted across and drank in the contents of Doctor Megiddo's office. Decorated to look like a seaside cabin, the light along the floor ebbed and flow as if it were the rolling tide. White noise, meant to sound like waves, wafted through the room.
“Again,” Megiddo instructed as she gingerly cupped her hands to the sides of the newt's neck. “Let me know if you feel any discomfort.”
Brie wordlessly nodded.
The Synth applied the faintest amount of pressure to the Transhuman's otherwise imperceptible gills. “And in.”
“...”
“And out.”
Much to Brie's relief she, yet again, aced the simple test of breathing in then out.
“Very good!” Megiddo beamed. Hands tucked into her coat's pockets, and yellow plated tail undulating behind her, the doctor heaved a sigh of relief. “I must confess, Brieanne, when you first came into my care all those years ago I was quite concerned when you evolved the ability to breathe amphibiously.”
“So was I,” the newt muttered as she clapped at the sides of her neck. “I've come around to it though. Nice not having to wash the slime off my sheets anymore.”
“Less laundry, huh?” Megiddo cupped a hand close to her mouth and laughed. “Why that's, dare I say, quite the evolutionary advantage in our modern day and age!”
“That's one way to look at it. I guess,” Brie groaned when she reclined back onto the examination table. Depending on their genome, Transhumans were always at risk of unexpected, and oftentimes unwanted, mutations cropping up as they drifted further and further from their human heritage. She had been subjected to such. As had her mother. As had her fath-
Brie's eyes swung towards the bottom of their sockets as she bit down into her lower lip.
“...Forgive my jest, Brieanne,” Megiddo apologized. “I understand this is a sore topic for you.”
The newt rubbed at her eyes. “No. No it's fine, Doc,” she insisted. “I know you're just trying to inject a little levity into the situation.” With a frustrated gnash of her teeth, Brie's thoughts jealously drifted towards Rivet. Fuck him and his stable mammalian genome.
“All the same,” Megiddo trailed off. “I'm happy to report that my fears were entirely unfounded. Your lung capacity is as healthy as ever! You, and your genetics, do not appear to be in any danger of overcorrecting into an exclusively aquatic existence.”
A tired smile crept up along the newt's snoot.
“That said...”
Brie's jaw clenched at the conditional attached to the good Doctor's compliment.
“I am still going to recommend that you be placed on a regiment of preventative gene therapy,” Megiddo sadly sighed. “Your lineage, a mix and match of amphibian and reptile genomes, leaves you predisposed to a number of problematic mutations. That paired with your family's history, and the unbelievable pace at which your own personal evolutions have advanced along, leads me to believe you are at heightened risk.”
Staring up at the ceiling, her vision blurring as she started to dissociate, Brie forced down a lump in her throat.
“Would you like me to go into further detail?” the Synth softly asked.
“Sure,” Brie robotically replied.
Clasping the transparent clipboard between her hands, Megiddo flipped through the self-sorting data. “First and foremost is your vision. You are in possession of, as of right now, trichromatic vision. That means there are three separate kinds of cone cells within your eyes that can interpret and parse colors. The human standard as it were.”
“Uh huh.”
“Reptiles-”
“Like Dad,” Brie interrupted her.
“Mmhmm,” nodded the Synth. “Reptiles, like your father, are in possession of dichromatic vision. They only have two separate kinds of cone cells within their eyes and, as a result, perceive fewer colors. You, unfortunately, run the risk of your reptile genes randomly asserting themselves and the cone cells within your eyes condensing.”
Aimlessly did Brie try to make out patterns in the paint upon the ceiling.
“In such a scenario you would, in the best case, go color blind,” Megiddo elaborated. “Should such a mutation overextend itself there is the possibility you would regress to monochromatic vision. Or, in the absolute worst case scenario, be rendered completely blind.”
“Not great,” the newt deadpanned.
“No. Not at all,” Megiddo agreed. “Moving on, I would be remiss not to inform you about-”
Tera, restrained within her docking platform, irritably growled as clouds of Orbots swarmed her. Back and forth and forth and back did her enormous eyes scan the catwalks for her speck-sized superior. She was nowhere to be found.
A hollowed out plus sign flickered to life upon the Earth-Shaker's brow while her pixelated peepers angrily twitched. It had been an hour now. Brieanne's work tablet refused to respond to her requests to connect. Every message she sent was promptly left on read. “After everything I've done for her...” the infuriated Synth mutely snarled.
White noise beading along the edges of her face plate, Tera furiously flicked open the Commonwealth's APIs with but a thought. Data trawled along the back of her face plate as she brute forced one query after another. In a matter of moments she ransacked the employee records for the newt's personal contact information.
A connection was established. Jaw peeled back, her antennae turned horns crackling with static, the liquid crystals comprising Brieanne's phone parted as Tera's avatar emerged from a void of pitch black pixels. When the built in camera synchronized with and came to serve as the Earth-Shaker's eyes...
Tera's anger evaporated in an instant.
“BRIEANNE!”
Her body limp, and strapped into an examination chair, the newt gently wheezed. The Transhuman's right arm lay locked within a massive medical cuff. Transparent tubes, lined with streaks of crimson, emptied out from it and into bulging and slowly filling blood bag.
“BRIEANNE ARE YOU OKAY?!” the Synth shrieked in a panic.
Doctor Megiddo jolted to attention while Brie slowly stirred.
“...Nghh.” The newt's eyes, obscured by the messy pink bangs of hair draped over her forehead, struggled to maintain focus.
“FUCK. HOW DO I SCRAPE THE GPS COORDINATES OFF OF THIS THING?!” Tera shouted.
Snoot wrinkled, Brie tiredly turned her gaze towards the multiple IV bags dripfeeding a soupy broth of proteins into the blood bag. Megiddo padded up alongside her and curiously sought out the source of the screeching.
“DON'T WORRY, BRIEANNE!” Tera's expression, one of outright panic, tried to reassure her. “I'LL SEND RIVET RIGHT OVER!”
“Whuh?” Neck aching, the Transhuman grudgingly looked down to the phone she had left flopped atop her thighs. “Tera?”
“BRIEANNE!” the Synth sniffled on the verge of tears.
The newt dismissively squinted. “...What are you doing.”
“WHAT AM I DOING? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! YOU UP AND DISAPPEARED ON US YOU ASSHOLE! YOU NEVER SHOWED UP FOR WORK!”
Brie's head flopped back as she listlessly groaned. “Oh. Shit. Sorry. Doctor's visit... went over.”
“ARE YOU SICK?! ARE YOU HURT?!”
“I'm.... phhhhfine. It's just. It's just gene therapy, Tera,” the Transhuman mumbled. With a flop of her left hand did she gesture to her extracted bag of blood. Drip by drip the viruses feeding into it rearranged and reconstituted their targets. Cell by cell did they erase and undo any unwanted changes, no matter how minute, that came courtesy of Brie's reptile genomes.
Gingerly did Megiddo creep into Tera's view. A subtle yet pronounced chirp sounded out when her visual sensors identified, and quickly corroborated against the Commonwealth's public databases, the Synth on screen along with the professional nature of her relationship to Brieanne. “Forgive my tardiness, Earth-Shaker Tau,” she said with a bow of her head. “I just wrapped up writing a Doctor's Note excusing Brieanne's absence. You should be receiving it shortly.”
“...Oh.” Tera awkwardly ahemed when, milliseconds later, her inbox populated with a missive from Megiddo. Her faceplate burned bright pink as pixelated steam wafted out from her horns.
The doctor gingerly planted a hand upon Brie's shoulder. “If you'd like, Brieanne, I can leave you and Tau to speak in private? I'm more than capable of monitoring your vitals from afar if you'd prefer.”
“Why not,” yawned the newt.
With a smile, Meggido quietly exited the room so as to afford her patient privacy.
The hiss of artificial waves, and the soft glurk of Brieanne's blood being drawn, filled the air. “You look like shit,” Tera gently prodded.
“I feel like it too,” Brie tried joking back. She slumped at the sight of an angry blush coming to crease the Synth's cheeks.
“Why didn't you say anything?!” Tera asked. A palpable sense of disappointment, and hurt, seeped from her every spoken syllable.
A pronounced hiss sounded out from the medical cuff as Brie's extracted blood was slowly pumped back into her. “I thought. I didn't think that... it would take this long. That I'd just...”
Blocky brows pulled flat, the Earth-Shaker scrunched her lips.
“I thought...” Brie's eyes listlessly wandered over Doctor Megiddo's office. “I thought I had this,” the Transhuman tried to elaborate. “Sorry.”
Horns folding flat against her polymer plated skull, Tera's avatar flopped forward. Her eyes squinted shut in frustration. “I'll... see you at work. Whenever you roll in.”
The amphibian's eyes hung low in their sockets while she reached for her phone. Hand trembling, she held tight to her coworker's window into her world. “You don't... you don't have to leave.”
After a couple of curious blinks Tera quietly locked gazes with Brie.
“It's not. It's not like I'll be going anywhere for a while.” Brie mumbled. “That and... misery loves company after all.”
Tera, to the Transhuman's surprise, remained silent.
“...What?” Brie grunted. “Figured you'd get a kick out of seeing me like this.”
The Synth shook her head side to side. “Nah.”
“Nah?”
“Nah,” Tera nonchalantly clarified as she leaned against the side of the screen.
The newt cocked a brow.
“This is like... your tune up isn't it?” Tera thought out loud. “The organic version of it anyway.”
“That's-” Brie honestly couldn't bring herself to disagree. “I mean. You're not wrong.”
“Yeah. And,” the Earth-Shaker opined. “I know how much they can suck.”
“You would. Wouldn't you?” Brie sheepishly acknowledged.
Tera hummed and flashed a smile. “Bet yours goes a lot faster than mine do at least. Wanna trade?”
For the briefest of moments, Brie imagined herself as a monstrous and kaiju-sized colossus reclined back in the Marine Biome superstructure. Replete with a tiny Tera scrambling about her body and checking her vitals.
“Pass.”
“Awww c'mon!” the Synth cackled.
“I said pass,” Brie snipped. “Even if your updates are more reliable than... mine are.”
“Lemme guess,” Tera mused. “Your software is making your hardware do something you don't want it to?”
“Not yet,” the newt tched. “But... it might. They figure it's only a matter of time given that's what my Dad is going through.”
The Synth's tone softened. “How... how are your folks anyway?”
“They're...” Brie uhhhed at length while her jaw hung slack. “Probably pissed I forgot to call them this morning,” she cursed to herself before flopping back her head.
Tera's avatar shifted to the side while she pulled up a simple World Clock app. “I mean... they're still over in the Ainu Archipelago right?” Twirling her finger along a clock face the Synth idly adjusted and accounted for the time zone differences. “It isn't quite midnight over in their neck of the woods. They might still be up!”
“I. Mmph.” Brie's fingers fumbled with the touch screen as she struggled to navigate to her Contacts. Tip after tap she continued to fat finger and fumble. “...Tera?” she meekly pleaded.
“I gotchu,” the Earth-Shaker quietly reassured her. Dipping down, Tera clasped the Phone icon between her hands and guided it beneath the thick thumb smudging against the glass ceiling serving as her sky.
“Thanks,” Brie mumbled with a blush. Her phone started ringing.
BRRRRRRING BRRRRRRING
BRRRRRRRING BRRRRRING
-CLICK-
Another newt, her skin a brilliant ruby red pocked by splotches of gray, appeared on Brie's screen. With a smack of her lips the amphibian brushed back the fiery orange locks of hair trailing past her shoulders. “Brieanne?” she yawned. “Do you have any idea what time-”
The unfamiliar amphibian's chestnut colored eyes went wide as she peered into her own phone's video feed. There, tucked away into the corner before Brie, was a familiar faceplate. “Tera?” she muttered in disbelief.
“Hey, Missus Orotaloa,” Tera courteously and nervously replied. “D-d-don't mind me! Just... just running tech support for Brie.” Cheeks puffed out the Synth's avatar hurriedly dipped out of sight.
“...Hi Mom,” Brie weakly introduced herself.
“Brieanne!” gasped Miss Orotaloa.
“It's fine. I'm fine,” Brie reassured her.
Miss Orotaloa, wrinkles carved deep into her brow and cheeks, sighed.
“It's purely preventative,” Brie clarified. “Honest. Nothing's wrong.”
The elder newt, unconvinced, scrunched her snoot. “Tera? Is this true?”
The Synth's horns, perking to attention, were just barely visible at the bottom of the screen. “Uhm. I'm.” Tera's faceplate, slowly rising into view, forced an uncertain smile. “Do I have to, Miss Orotaloa?”
“Snrk.” Lips wavering, the ruby red newt let slip a warm laugh. “It's been too long, Tera.” With a giggle she booped a finger against the Synth's snoot.
“It's nice to see you too, Miss Orotaloa” the Earth-Shaker bashfully hummed. “S-s-seriously though! Ignore me!” Tera insisted as she slunk back down out of view and shied away from the spotlight.
Hand cupped to her cheek, Miss Orotaloa couldn't help but smile. “Oh sweetie, this is such a wonderful surprise! I'm so proud of you!”
Brie's violet eyes swished back and forth in their sockets. “For. For what?”
“What do you think?” the older Transhuman raspberried. “For burying the hatchet! Just look at you two peas in a pod! It's like your big fight never happened!”
Tera and Brie, eyes gone wide, awkwardly turned away from one another.
Miss Orotaloa's lips curled down into a sad smile. “It damn near broke my heart when you told me. There you were crying yourself hoarse, blubbering away about how you blew up at the best friend you could ever ask for, sniffling and-”
“MOM!” Brie hissed. Cheeks smoldering, and biting down into her lower lip, she glowered at her chatterbox matron.
The fiery newt, grin spreading wide, continued to overshare. “Oh I tried not to get my hopes up when you told me you accepted that assignment in Nouvo Carolina! I was so worried about what would you say, what would you do, when you saw Tera again!”
“O-o-okay, Mom,” Brie politely begged her to dial it back.
“And now I know!” beamed the elder Orotaloa.
“W-w-we're just being good coworkers is all,” Tera meekly chimed in while she peeked her snoot back into view.
The wizened Transhuman pbbbted. “If that's what you have to tell yourselves,” she teased.
“I can and I will,” the younger of the newts huffed. “Forget us. How's... how's Dad?”
Miss Orotaloa clicked her tongue against the back of her teeth. “He's... struggling. Between his mutations, and the aggressive new GT regiment he's on, your Father's had more bad days than good lately.” Chin tucked against her shoulder the fiery haired newt looked back behind her with a sigh. “He hates the changes he's going through. You... you might not recognize him, Tera,” she whispered.
The Earth-Shaker's horns drooped. It had only been a couple years since she and Brie crashed out. Surely, surely, Mister Orotaloa hadn't changed that much since then.
“But I do know hearing from you, the both of you, would do wonders for him and his mood,” Miss Orotaloa shyly smiled.
“I-I-I mean,” Tera coughed. Reluctant to insert herself into Brie's personal affairs the Synth-
“We'd love to,” Brie answered for her.
The Synth happily deferred to her coworker's judgment.
“Just drop me a hint when you do,” Miss Orotaloa giggled. “I'll do my best to keep it a surprise for your Father.”
“Sure thing, Mom,” Brie hummed.
Miss Orotaloa perked to attention when a deep, and bassy, groan carried through her speakers. “Oop! Speaking of! Love you, Brie! Love you, Tera!”
Heart caught in her throat, Tera short-circuited at the casual show of motherly affection.
“Love you too,” Brie replied with a kiss.
BOODMPPPPPPP
The phone call ended. Wordlessly did Tera's faceplate cycle through expressions as she reluctantly wrangled with her thoughts. Silently did Brie thrum her fingers along the side of her phone.
“...Tera?” spoke up the newt.
“Yeah?”
Slowly did Brie work up the courage to look the Earth-Shaker in the eyes. “Thanks.”
“...Don't mention it,” shrugged the Synth.
“No. I mean-” The Transhuman turned to her aching arm still strapped within the medical cuff. “Really, Tera. Thank you. Oberon wouldn't have checked on me. Mael sure as shit wouldn't have.”
Lips undulating like a sine wave, Tera struggled to find the words to meet the moment. “Seriously. Don't mention it.”
Brie slowly let the back of her head come to rest against the examination chair's cushioning. Eyes drooping shut, she nonetheless maintained a vice grip on her phone.
Various grunts, stutters, and sighs tumbled out from Tera's maw while she readied a request of her own. “Brieanne?”
“Hmmm?”
“Did your folks really miss me that much? It's not like-”
“Course they did,” the newt matter of factly replied. “Why wouldn't they?”
“Hum.” Stifling a sniffle, the Synth's heart melted at the thought of reacquainting herself with her faux-family.
“...And.” Brie wiggled in place. “Maybe. I do too.”
Tera practically blue screened at the acknowledgment. Unable to match Brie's earnest attempt at reconciliation with one of her own she panicked and deflected the only way she knew how. “...Heh. Oberon really is that boring, huh? No wonder you sicced him on Rivet.”
“OH GOD WHERE DO I START?” Brie ranted. “HIM AND NICNEVEN!”
“Nikky too?” the Earth-Shaker quizzically inquired. “I thought the grass was greener at the Great Lakes Collective!”
“I FUCKIN' WISH.”
Cackling, Tera struggled to keep her tears in check while her much missed friend ragged on her fellow Earth-Shakers at length.
FIRST, PREVIOUS, -
Gene Therapy (Page 19): Transhumans, as they drift further and further from their human baseline in the centuries following the Mutagen Bomb, have started to aggressively evolve and mutate. Gene Therapy is, at the moment, the best option available to Transhumans to arrest and impair transforming into something they neither want nor recognize. See also the Ainu Archipelago Medical Megaplex (Page 24).
GLC (Page 17): The Great Lakes Collective, home to the Commonwealth's Seed Vault initiative, serves as the home base to a trio of terrestrial Earth-Shakers currently tasked with rewilding the Nouvo American colonies.
CALLSIGNS AND CONTACT NAMES AS OF 2440
Nu - Nicneven; Iota - Iseult; Lambda - Laenius
The Great Reset (Page 06): An extinction level event, of unknown origin, that wiped out 99.998% of sentient life across the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. Organics, inorganics, and computer intelligences alike were targeted. Lower level lifeforms were left otherwise untouched.
Legacy Support
By: RaddaRaem
Thumbnail by
duckySynth species created by
Vader-SanFIRST, PREVIOUS, -
“I THOUGHT YOU LIKED BORING!” Tera howled. The Synth's face, filling the whole of the tablet wrapped around Brie's wrist, seethed with contempt.
“...It'll do Rivet good,” the newt grumbled as she shoved Tera's likeness aside with a flick of her fingers. The Nouvo Carolina coastline, illuminated by the swarm of stars filling the night sky, twinkled behind her. “He could use the experience.”
“BUT HE'S MY TECHNICIAN!” Tera snapped. “MY BOYFRIEND!”
“Well now he's Oberon's,” grumbled the amphibian.
“WHUH-”
“HIS TECHNICIAN,” Brie blurted with a blush. Jostling back and forth the newt steadied herself when the light rail she was riding rounded a curve.
Lips rising and falling like a sine wave, Tera narrowed her gaze.
“It's a temporary reassignment,” the Transhuman groused. “Get over yourself.”
The reptilian robot's faceplate took on a menacing crimson glow as her antennae turned horns folded back.
Slouched forward, Brie cupped a hand to her cheeks and slowly kneaded out the bags forming under her eyes. “Maybe if a certain SOMEONE hadn't bombed her Class E CDL test-”
“Ahemhem...” interrupted a pale green Synth with a clear of his throat.
The Transhuman sheepishly pulled down the brim of her hat in response. “Sorry, Sir.”
“Hmph.” Arms crossed about his toned chest, the fins jutting from his thighs and shoulder blades buzzing with an electric hum, the shark-like Synth allowed his eyes to droop shut with a disgusted grunt.
Tail coiled around her ankles, Brianne shrank in on herself. Shamefully did she wait for the other passengers on the red-eye ride to cast their attention elsewhere.
“...Fuck him,” Tera's voice, laced with harsh static, whispered once the coast was clear.
Brie's pale grey cheeks smoldered with embarrassment as she frantically tamped down the volume on her tablet. Dragging up the keyboard terminal with a flick she furiously texted back a response.
“TERA!!!”
“WHAT!” the Earth-Shaker mouthed back while text bubbles, populating with every unheard syllable as they were spoken, popped up on screen. “He's an ass! He could have politely shooshed and shut you down at any time! But nooooooooo he just had to make a scene out of it.”
“That's not-”
“Fuck him AND the Wavebreaker blueprint he rode on in!” Tera huffed. Nostrils exaggeratedly flared, the Synth exhaled out a pixelated cloud of smoke. “Don't let him treat you like that!”
Lips pulled flat, Brie rolled her eyes and dragged the conversation back on track. “Look. It's not my fault the Commonwealth put you back on a short leash...” she typed.
Multiple ellipsis bubbles bobbed about Tera's noggin while a semi-colon sweat bead flickered into being upon her faceplate.
Flopping back into her seat, tail draped across her thighs, the amphibian struggled to hold her increasingly heavy eyelids aloft. “You act like you're the only one being inconvenienced here,” she tiredly tipped and tapped out. “We quit working together for a reason you know. A good one.”
The Earth-Shaker's faceplate dimmed in color from radiant red to a soft and subdued sapphire. “Well. We-” Tera hastily cut herself off as she puffed out a cheek.
Brie's hand hovered over the paper thin tablet wrapped around her slimy skin.
BING
The quiet hum of the electrified rails, buzzing beneath the rail car, went silent. As it glided to a halt the doors lining it slid open with a chime and a humid blast of air. A number of passengers stepped out into the darkness.
Silence came to punctuate the ever increasing delay between what had been a lightning fast back and forth of banter. After some hesitation Brie typed out a grudging response. “We what, Tera?”
Tera bitterly sighed. “...We started working together for just as good a one too.”
Brie guiltily slumped down in her seat as the light rail hummed back to life and resumed its route. Unable, and unwilling, to meet the Synth's gaze she turned her attention towards the beautiful blur of moon kissed sea grass and sand dunes rushing past. “I know,” she mumbled.
The reptile-like robot's hackles raised at the drawn out gap between words. Mutely did she continue to flap her gums and force the conversation forward after what felt like an interminable wait. “...So. You still haven't told me. How was it?”
With the rail car all but emptied, Brie gingerly ticked back up the volume on her wearable computer. “How was what?” the Transhuman yawned. Tears beaded along her eyes as her maw, lined with short but razor sharp teeth, stayed open for far longer than she would have liked.
“You know what! The Great Lakes Collective!” Tera snipped with a cocked brow.
“It...” Brie's head slumped forward while she struggled to stay awake.
“It damn well better have been worth ditching me over,” the Synth dismissively tched.
“...”
“Oh come on it's not that low a blow,” Tera smarted. Diagonal blush lines, bunching up against the undersides her eyes, flared to life upon the Synth's faceplate while a frustrated growl lodged itself in her throat.
“...”
“What is with you and the silent treatment tonight?! Say something you ass!” Tera scowled.
“...”
“Brieanne?” Horns swiveling forward, the Earth-Shaker's antagonistic tone quickly turned conciliatory.
“...Snrrrrrr.”
Jaw hanging slack, Tera grunted at the sight, and sound, of the newt snoring. “Oh for.” Eyes collapsing into tildes the Synth softly sighed.
BING
Tera's head shrank in on itself as streams of pixels trickled down from where her neck ought to have been. Little by little the remainder of her avatar, scaled down to fit onto what little screen space she had to work with, loaded in. Reaching out towards the side of the tablet the Synth grimbled and grambled to herself as she plucked apps free from the ether. Mechanical clacks sounded out when she scheduled an alarm to coincide with the next stop on the light rail. “You're lucky it's no fun kicking you when you're down,” she grumped. Cursing to herself, Tera grudgingly went on to coordinate for a driverless shuttle to pick up Brie for good measure.
“Snrrrrrr...”
Looking out towards the front of the rail car, Tera resigned herself to standing sentry for her sleeping superior. Arms crossed about her generous chest she impatiently thrummed her fingers along her forearms. “You haven't changed a bit,” she wearily complained to no one in particular.
“You're welcome by the way!” the Earth-Shaker shouted.
Shuffling inside her barren apartment, door slamming shut behind her, the Transhuman positively overflowed with embarrassment. “I DIDN'T ASK FOR YOUR HELP! WHY DO YOU-” Brie bit her tongue as her tail came to droop and drag along the tiled floor behind her. “Always do this.” Leaning against a wall, and digging the toe cap of one shoe into the heel of another, she kicked off her shoes.
“Because since you won't take care of yourself I clearly have to!”
“SINCE WHEN IS THAT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY?” Tugging off her brimmed cap, revealing wild pink locks of hair matted against her forehead in the process, Brie wrung her headwear between her hands.
“WELL GOD FORBID I LOOK AFTER MY FR-” Tera cut herself off with a disgusted grunt.
The newt's tongue repeatedly flapped against the roof her mouth and the back of her teeth as every imagined retort fell flat. Humiliating as it was... better this than waking up in a panic at the train terminal. Cheek puffed out, she offered up a reluctant reply. “Thank you.”
“Whuh. What?”
“I said thanks,” Brie grumpily repeated herself.
“O-o-oh.” The Earth-Shaker wasn't used to the Transhuman agreeing with her. “Don't... don't mention it,” the Synth quietly sassed back.
To Brie's surprise Tera simply dropped the topic. Blindly ambling about her quarters, temporary housing granted to her by the Commonwealth on short notice, the exhausted amphibian fumbled for light switches.
KACLICK
Tera's digital likeness, its snoot practically bowing out the liquid crystals lining the paper thin computer wrapped around Brie's wrist, shamelessly sneaked peeks at her now illuminated home away from home. “Some housewarming this is. You haven't even decorated the place yet!” she playfully teased.
Brie wrinkled her own soft snoot in disgust while she slipped off her hydration pack. “I JUST got here,” she groused as the sucked dry container noisily clattered to the floor.
“Excuses, excuses...” Tera trailed off with a whistle.
“You act like I'll be staying here for long,” the Transhuman grunted. Hands cupped to her neck she fumbled with the collar of her buttoned up shirt.
“I mean you will be if I have anything to say about it,” the Synth snickered.
“TERA,” hissed the newt. Buttons undone, and tanktop exposed, Brie's generous bust tugged taut the soft cotton wrapped around her curves.
The Earth-Shaker's avatar contentedly watched on while Brie lobbed her dirty laundry down a hallway and towards an ever growing pile of clothes bunched up before a closet. “Go on then. Gimme the tour!”
“No.”
“Not even a peek?”
“It's pre-furnished and it's going to stay that way,” the Transhuman angrily muttered as she ambled towards her kitchen. Popping open the fridge Brie fished out a chilled, and frosty fresh, hydration pack.
“You'll break one of these days,” Tera taunted.
“Would you fuck off already?” Sliding the straps of her hydration pack over her shoulders, Brie furrowed her brows and rudely mlemed at her garrulous guest.
“Goodnight, Brieanne,” the Synth blepped right back.
BZZZZZZZT
Tera's likeness disappeared with a burst of static.
Pinching her hydration pack's drinking tube between her fingers, Brie slipped it between her pursed lips and sheepishly started sipping away at a gallon's worth of mocktails.
KACLICK
Peeling off her wearable work computer, the Transhuman snapped it back into a flat tablet with a flick of her wrist. It, along with her hat, came to rest upon her kitchen's quartz island.
In between slurps, Brieanne unbuckled her belt and unbuttoned her slacks. Reaching behind her back, hands fumbling with the straps of cloth wrapped around the base of her tail, she hummed in relief when her pants slid down her thighs and pooled around her ankles.
“...”
Lips clamped around her drinking tube, rolling it along her teeth like a stim, Brie dropped to a kneel and grudgingly fished her phone free from a wadded up pocket. Rising back to a stand she waddled down her apartment's narrow hall while it powered back up.
BZZZZT BZZZZT
Notifications about a handful of missed texts, and a voicemail, assailed her.
Brie quickly scrolled through her messages. Eyes half-lidded, and lips drooping down into a sad frown, she promptly texted back a reply.
Brieanne: “Sorry I missed you, Mom.”
Kneading at her forehead, the newt stepped out of her pants and kicked them aside when she passed by her bedroom. Her bare feet clapped heavily against the tiled floor as she ambled into her bathroom.
KLICK
Warm fluorescent bulbs flickered to life. Brie fired off another text before planting her phone face down on the counter.
Brieanne: “Still getting used to the new responsibilities and time zone.”
BZZZT BZZZT
Brie painfully recoiled at the prompt response. Shoulders bunched, she nevertheless committed herself to her nighttime routine. The only thing keeping her going at this point was sheer inertia after all.
SHFFFFFFFF
With a broad sweep of her hand she brushed back a nondescript set of shower curtains. The Transhuman's eyes grew heavy at the sight of a bath pillow, and a thin mesh mattress of sorts, suctioned tight against the base of the tub. Reaching over the edge she plugged the drain before fumbling for the faucet. A slow but steady trickle of warm water soon followed.
“Pbbbbbbbt.” Lips pursed, Brie spat out her drinking tube with a raspberry. Guided by muscle memory she reluctantly returned to the kitchen and slid her already half-emptied hydration pack back into the fridge. She'd top it back off in the morning.
Flick by flick, slimy digits dragging along the switches, Brie extinguished every light as she retreated back to the bathroom. Quietly did she brush her teeth while the tub continued to slowly fill.
BZZZT BZZZT
Sharply inhaling through her clenched teeth, and biting down into the base of her wooden brush, Brie flipped up her phone.
Mom: “It's OK.”
Mom: “Some days are just harder than others for your father. You know how it goes.”
The dejected newt tapped out a reply.
Brieanne: “I'll call you when I wake up. OK?”
Ptooing out a mouthful of toothpaste, the Transhuman rinsed her mouth and continued to undress herself while she waited for the next bit of back and forth. Thumbing at her waist, and pulling down the underwear wrapped form fittingly tight to her thunderous thighs, the newt kicked her unmentionables back into the hallway. Her bra followed soon after.
Squinting, Brie wrinkled her snoot at the size of the laundry pile. Best get fresh load of laundry running in the morning.
BZZZZT
Mom: “Talk to you then. Love you, Brie.”
Brieanne: “Love you too, Mom.”
Cheeks puffed out, Brie's eyes glazed over while she absentmindedly flit through the various alarms and reminders she had programmed into her phone for the days ahead. Setting the volume as high as it would go she planted it back down upon the counter.
FWISH
Before throttling her bathtub's faucet shut. Dragging out an emphatic exhale the naked newt stepped into the nearly filled tub and slipped beneath the water. The pores lining her pale grey skin expanded, and the beginnings of gills peeled open along her neck, while Brie's body unconsciously adjusted to her submerged surroundings.
“...”
Eyes drooping shut, the Transhuman nestled the back of her head into the mesh pillow tethered to the base of the tub. Shallow breaths that struggled to fill her lungs soon gave way to greedy gulps as she effortlessly inhaled oxygen from the air and water alike. Her eyes drooped shut-
Only to peel open what felt like all of an instant later.
Bells, piercing yet pleasant, rang within her bathroom. The cacophonous clatter of her phone noisily skittering across the sink's counter top accompanied them.
Brie reluctantly rose from her acryllic crypt. Crawling out of the tub, cursing herself for putting her phone just out of reach, she flipped it up only to impotently scowl at the time.
“It's the ass crack of dawn! Tera?! Was this your doing?!” she instinctively accused. “Who the hell would set an alarm this ear-”
REMINDER: 4:30 AM SST – Triannual Checkup
“...Oh. I would.” Setting back down her phone, Brie cupped her hands to her cheeks and dragged out an exaggerated and exhausted sigh. That's right. She had scheduled this so early so that she wouldn't have to take off work for it. Fingers tugging at the bags beneath her eyes the newt tiredly locked eyes with her reflection in the mirror above the sink.
“One day this'll all be worth it,” the Transhuman tried to reassure herself. “One day.” Brie's reflection, its expression unenthused, offered little in the way of encouragement. With a shake of her head the amphibian pushed off from the sink and tried to optimize her morning routine with what little time she had.
Only to utterly and abjectly fail in the attempt. Her hair still sopping wet, and clad in wrinkled clothes she had fished out from the bottom of her laundry pile, the sleep deprived newt slunk down into her chair.
Brie's eyes wandered over the solarpunk styled lobby as she blinked her violet peepers in and out of sync. Her fellow patients, each and every one of them Transhuman much like herself, likewise languished. If they weren't napping in their chairs they were otherwise wishing that they could.
“...”
Arms crossed about her chest, Brie stifled one jaw-splitting yawn after another as her attention drifted towards the various Orbots staffing the clinic. The spherical robots could be seen manning the entrance; Tending to the hypoallergenic plants coiling through the trellises along the walls; Testing the pH levels of the fish-filled ponds that gently burbled in the lobby's center.
“Honghhhhh...” Brie brushed back stray locks of hair matted to her forehead while she continued to slip down further and further in her chair. Chin tucked against her chest she blearily regarded the handful of magazines and books strewn about the table before her.
Sheepishly did the newt swish her eyes this way and that before scooping up the lone children's book hidden amongst them. “Human After All,” Brie wordlessly mouthed aloud before she pinched at the wrinkled edge of the cover. The thick pages, crafted specifically for Transhumans of all types to be able to effortlessly interact with, flipped over with ease.
“Once upon a time there was a planet called Sol. Beautiful and blue it was a most special place.”
Brie flipped the page. Even though she knew the book by heart she would never turn down the chance to reread it.
“For on Sol something there was something most magical! In all the Milky Way no one, nothing, had seen anything like it!”
Again Brie flipped the page as Sol and its singular moon, colored in with crayon, came into ever clearer focus.
“What was that special something? Why... it was life! Verdant and plentiful!”
Curious creatures and plants, of all kinds of shapes and colors, came to populate the page. Many of them looked an awful lot like the Transhuman children that would no doubt go on to read it... though for whatever reason they seemed to walk on all fours instead of upright.
“And among that life were our ancestors. Humans!”
Bereft of scales, or fur, a shy smile crept up along Brie's lips at the sight of said humans.
“Though their differences were many... they had more in common than one could dare dream.”
Brie continued to flip through the pages.
“Inquisitive to a fault our ancestors, after exploring Sol in its entirety, took to the skies. They sought ought sanctuaries among the stars much like the beautiful blue dot they called home. And if they could not find any... then they would make them!”
The illustrations zoomed out to the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. Cute and bubbly representations of the Jovian colonies, the Arion flotilla, and the Taphao Kaew ring worlds filled Brie's view.
“It was very fortunate that they did. For if they hadn't... the Great Reset would have swallowed them whole.”
Brie winced when the otherwise adorable book became bereft of color. The Milky Way and its many spiral arms, were portrayed in a chalky white color. Even now very little was known about the Great Reset. Save that, on that fateful day, some unknown force roared out from the super massive black hole that was the Milky Way's dark heart. Life, sentient life exclusively, was wiped out nearly to the last. Organic, artificial, even computer intelligences it mattered not... anything above an unknown intelligence threshold found itself culled.
“It was as if all the lights in the sky went dark.”
On the next page menacing waves of black billowed out from the galaxy's center. Over the span of three hours the Great Reset came to envelop nearly the entirety of the Orion Arm. Estimates pegged the survival rate for those caught in the Great Reset's reach at 0.002%. Only those scarce few colonies situated at the edge of existence were spared.
Holding her breath, Brie turned the page.
“Our ancestors were left scared and scattered among the stars. Desperately did they seek out a way to adapt to the trials left for them in the Great Reset's wake.”
The newt could feel her anxiety flaring. In the centuries following the Great Reset, when interstellar and even interplanetary travel atrophied away and solar systems became sheared off and separated from one another, times were hard. Desperate even. To this day long forgotten colonies and space stations were still being found floating in the sea of stars. Brie shuddered to think how many people upon them survived the Great Reset only to realize no one would, much less could, come save them. Nigh instantaneously did civilization, down to the atomic level, collapse.
“Throughout their short stay on Sol humans oftentimes looked to the life that had grown and flourished alongside them for inspiration. So they did so once again. And while their efforts were noble...”
“Quit dragging it out,” Brie grumped as she found herself nevertheless absorbed in the page-turner.
A cartoonish KABOOM stretched from the edge of one page to the other.
“The results of their research, by way of ill intentions or outright incompetence, proved anything but.”
The colorful clouds disappeared and what had once been humans looked to themselves, and one another, in abject confusion. Their forms were now familiar to the book's presumed Transhuman readers. In their desperation did humans turn to genetic engineering to survive centuries worth of grinding failure and famine as they aimlessly listed amongst the void of space. No one recalled quite how it started. How it spread so quickly from star to star. Much less who was ultimately responsible for it. But... the immediate aftermath of what had come to be known as the Mutagen Bomb proved trying to say the very least.
Brie looked over her own slimy skin and twiddled her webbed fingers with some disappointment. Even now, literal millenias later, they were still dealing with the repercussions and consequences of it.
“Sadly the one-two punch of the Great Reset and Mutagen Bomb proved too much for our ancestors. Humans as we once knew them went extinct.”
“All but extinct,” Brie quietly corrected the record under her breath. When Sol was rediscovered by the Commonwealth some centuries back, humanity's cradle having attained an almost fable-like status by that point, so too were what vanishingly few humans that remained.
“Yet, in us, their legacy lives on! For while our differences may be many... we have more in common than one could dare dream. Every one of us is still human after all.”
The newt arched her brows. “And what about the Synths?” she snorted.
“Miss Orotaloa?” called out an Orbot from behind one of the medical complex's many counters.
Brie hurriedly tossed aside the children's book at the mention of her name. With a clear of her throat she meekly raised her hand.
The spherical bot bobbed in recognition. “Doctor Megiddo will see you now.” Hovering out from behind its desk it bid Brie to follow it with a twirl.
With some difficulty did the newt push herself up to a stand. Her flip flops clapped noisily against the floor as she followed the Orbot through a sliding set of doors. Led by the nose down a labyrinth of hallways, and leaning against the walls while she walked, Brie weakly groaned.
“Paging Doctor Megiddo!” the Orbot chimed when they exited out into a rotunda situated at the medical complex's center.
“Thank you, Orbot,” a sultry and static laced voice hummed back. Its owner, a Synth sporting a hard-light lab coat, sauntered over with a smile. “I thought I recognized that surname. Welcome back, Brieanne! It's been some time!” Megiddo's yellow eyes, contorted into the shapes of raised carats, quickly reshaped themselves into hollowed out circles as she took in the sad and sorry sight of her patient.
“Hey Doc,” the newt slurred out.
With a sigh Megiddo clasped her hand to the Star of Life emblazoned upon her breast. “Hello to you too. Are you quite alright, Brieanne?”
“Never better,” the Transhuman mumbled with a thumbs up.
The Synth's horns, wrapped in yellow and blue ambulatory stripes, sagged. “...You look anything but.”
“Is that your professional or your unprofessional opinion?” Brie deadpanned.
Pixelated brows pulled flat, Megiddo wordlessly summoned a transparent clipboard from the ether with a snap of her fingers.
The newt visibly wilted at the Synth's unimpressed expression. Pushing herself off from the wall she tried to smooth out the wrinkles in shirt. “Sorry, Doc. I... maybe I've been pushing myself a little too hard lately.”
Megiddo softly smiled when the Transhuman slowly let down her guard. “Well let's make sure your stay here is a relaxing one at the very least. Why don't we step into my office?”
“And in,” Doctor Megiddo gently requested.
Nostrils flared, Brie inhaled deeply and puffed out her chest.
Megiddo's hand, planted atop the newt's sternum, subtly shifted.“And out,” the doctor rhythmically repeated back to her patient after a slight delay.
Lips pursed, Brie slowly dragged out an exhale. She wiggled at the sensation of Megiddo's fingers, lined thick with sensors, tickling against her.
“Good,” hummed the Synth. The hard-light clipboard hovering before Megiddo automatically populated with the reams of data. With a clench of her fist the various unintrusive tools installed into the tips of her digits recalibrated themselves.
Brie's violet eyes lazily drifted across and drank in the contents of Doctor Megiddo's office. Decorated to look like a seaside cabin, the light along the floor ebbed and flow as if it were the rolling tide. White noise, meant to sound like waves, wafted through the room.
“Again,” Megiddo instructed as she gingerly cupped her hands to the sides of the newt's neck. “Let me know if you feel any discomfort.”
Brie wordlessly nodded.
The Synth applied the faintest amount of pressure to the Transhuman's otherwise imperceptible gills. “And in.”
“...”
“And out.”
Much to Brie's relief she, yet again, aced the simple test of breathing in then out.
“Very good!” Megiddo beamed. Hands tucked into her coat's pockets, and yellow plated tail undulating behind her, the doctor heaved a sigh of relief. “I must confess, Brieanne, when you first came into my care all those years ago I was quite concerned when you evolved the ability to breathe amphibiously.”
“So was I,” the newt muttered as she clapped at the sides of her neck. “I've come around to it though. Nice not having to wash the slime off my sheets anymore.”
“Less laundry, huh?” Megiddo cupped a hand close to her mouth and laughed. “Why that's, dare I say, quite the evolutionary advantage in our modern day and age!”
“That's one way to look at it. I guess,” Brie groaned when she reclined back onto the examination table. Depending on their genome, Transhumans were always at risk of unexpected, and oftentimes unwanted, mutations cropping up as they drifted further and further from their human heritage. She had been subjected to such. As had her mother. As had her fath-
Brie's eyes swung towards the bottom of their sockets as she bit down into her lower lip.
“...Forgive my jest, Brieanne,” Megiddo apologized. “I understand this is a sore topic for you.”
The newt rubbed at her eyes. “No. No it's fine, Doc,” she insisted. “I know you're just trying to inject a little levity into the situation.” With a frustrated gnash of her teeth, Brie's thoughts jealously drifted towards Rivet. Fuck him and his stable mammalian genome.
“All the same,” Megiddo trailed off. “I'm happy to report that my fears were entirely unfounded. Your lung capacity is as healthy as ever! You, and your genetics, do not appear to be in any danger of overcorrecting into an exclusively aquatic existence.”
A tired smile crept up along the newt's snoot.
“That said...”
Brie's jaw clenched at the conditional attached to the good Doctor's compliment.
“I am still going to recommend that you be placed on a regiment of preventative gene therapy,” Megiddo sadly sighed. “Your lineage, a mix and match of amphibian and reptile genomes, leaves you predisposed to a number of problematic mutations. That paired with your family's history, and the unbelievable pace at which your own personal evolutions have advanced along, leads me to believe you are at heightened risk.”
Staring up at the ceiling, her vision blurring as she started to dissociate, Brie forced down a lump in her throat.
“Would you like me to go into further detail?” the Synth softly asked.
“Sure,” Brie robotically replied.
Clasping the transparent clipboard between her hands, Megiddo flipped through the self-sorting data. “First and foremost is your vision. You are in possession of, as of right now, trichromatic vision. That means there are three separate kinds of cone cells within your eyes that can interpret and parse colors. The human standard as it were.”
“Uh huh.”
“Reptiles-”
“Like Dad,” Brie interrupted her.
“Mmhmm,” nodded the Synth. “Reptiles, like your father, are in possession of dichromatic vision. They only have two separate kinds of cone cells within their eyes and, as a result, perceive fewer colors. You, unfortunately, run the risk of your reptile genes randomly asserting themselves and the cone cells within your eyes condensing.”
Aimlessly did Brie try to make out patterns in the paint upon the ceiling.
“In such a scenario you would, in the best case, go color blind,” Megiddo elaborated. “Should such a mutation overextend itself there is the possibility you would regress to monochromatic vision. Or, in the absolute worst case scenario, be rendered completely blind.”
“Not great,” the newt deadpanned.
“No. Not at all,” Megiddo agreed. “Moving on, I would be remiss not to inform you about-”
Tera, restrained within her docking platform, irritably growled as clouds of Orbots swarmed her. Back and forth and forth and back did her enormous eyes scan the catwalks for her speck-sized superior. She was nowhere to be found.
A hollowed out plus sign flickered to life upon the Earth-Shaker's brow while her pixelated peepers angrily twitched. It had been an hour now. Brieanne's work tablet refused to respond to her requests to connect. Every message she sent was promptly left on read. “After everything I've done for her...” the infuriated Synth mutely snarled.
White noise beading along the edges of her face plate, Tera furiously flicked open the Commonwealth's APIs with but a thought. Data trawled along the back of her face plate as she brute forced one query after another. In a matter of moments she ransacked the employee records for the newt's personal contact information.
A connection was established. Jaw peeled back, her antennae turned horns crackling with static, the liquid crystals comprising Brieanne's phone parted as Tera's avatar emerged from a void of pitch black pixels. When the built in camera synchronized with and came to serve as the Earth-Shaker's eyes...
Tera's anger evaporated in an instant.
“BRIEANNE!”
Her body limp, and strapped into an examination chair, the newt gently wheezed. The Transhuman's right arm lay locked within a massive medical cuff. Transparent tubes, lined with streaks of crimson, emptied out from it and into bulging and slowly filling blood bag.
“BRIEANNE ARE YOU OKAY?!” the Synth shrieked in a panic.
Doctor Megiddo jolted to attention while Brie slowly stirred.
“...Nghh.” The newt's eyes, obscured by the messy pink bangs of hair draped over her forehead, struggled to maintain focus.
“FUCK. HOW DO I SCRAPE THE GPS COORDINATES OFF OF THIS THING?!” Tera shouted.
Snoot wrinkled, Brie tiredly turned her gaze towards the multiple IV bags dripfeeding a soupy broth of proteins into the blood bag. Megiddo padded up alongside her and curiously sought out the source of the screeching.
“DON'T WORRY, BRIEANNE!” Tera's expression, one of outright panic, tried to reassure her. “I'LL SEND RIVET RIGHT OVER!”
“Whuh?” Neck aching, the Transhuman grudgingly looked down to the phone she had left flopped atop her thighs. “Tera?”
“BRIEANNE!” the Synth sniffled on the verge of tears.
The newt dismissively squinted. “...What are you doing.”
“WHAT AM I DOING? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! YOU UP AND DISAPPEARED ON US YOU ASSHOLE! YOU NEVER SHOWED UP FOR WORK!”
Brie's head flopped back as she listlessly groaned. “Oh. Shit. Sorry. Doctor's visit... went over.”
“ARE YOU SICK?! ARE YOU HURT?!”
“I'm.... phhhhfine. It's just. It's just gene therapy, Tera,” the Transhuman mumbled. With a flop of her left hand did she gesture to her extracted bag of blood. Drip by drip the viruses feeding into it rearranged and reconstituted their targets. Cell by cell did they erase and undo any unwanted changes, no matter how minute, that came courtesy of Brie's reptile genomes.
Gingerly did Megiddo creep into Tera's view. A subtle yet pronounced chirp sounded out when her visual sensors identified, and quickly corroborated against the Commonwealth's public databases, the Synth on screen along with the professional nature of her relationship to Brieanne. “Forgive my tardiness, Earth-Shaker Tau,” she said with a bow of her head. “I just wrapped up writing a Doctor's Note excusing Brieanne's absence. You should be receiving it shortly.”
“...Oh.” Tera awkwardly ahemed when, milliseconds later, her inbox populated with a missive from Megiddo. Her faceplate burned bright pink as pixelated steam wafted out from her horns.
The doctor gingerly planted a hand upon Brie's shoulder. “If you'd like, Brieanne, I can leave you and Tau to speak in private? I'm more than capable of monitoring your vitals from afar if you'd prefer.”
“Why not,” yawned the newt.
With a smile, Meggido quietly exited the room so as to afford her patient privacy.
The hiss of artificial waves, and the soft glurk of Brieanne's blood being drawn, filled the air. “You look like shit,” Tera gently prodded.
“I feel like it too,” Brie tried joking back. She slumped at the sight of an angry blush coming to crease the Synth's cheeks.
“Why didn't you say anything?!” Tera asked. A palpable sense of disappointment, and hurt, seeped from her every spoken syllable.
A pronounced hiss sounded out from the medical cuff as Brie's extracted blood was slowly pumped back into her. “I thought. I didn't think that... it would take this long. That I'd just...”
Blocky brows pulled flat, the Earth-Shaker scrunched her lips.
“I thought...” Brie's eyes listlessly wandered over Doctor Megiddo's office. “I thought I had this,” the Transhuman tried to elaborate. “Sorry.”
Horns folding flat against her polymer plated skull, Tera's avatar flopped forward. Her eyes squinted shut in frustration. “I'll... see you at work. Whenever you roll in.”
The amphibian's eyes hung low in their sockets while she reached for her phone. Hand trembling, she held tight to her coworker's window into her world. “You don't... you don't have to leave.”
After a couple of curious blinks Tera quietly locked gazes with Brie.
“It's not. It's not like I'll be going anywhere for a while.” Brie mumbled. “That and... misery loves company after all.”
Tera, to the Transhuman's surprise, remained silent.
“...What?” Brie grunted. “Figured you'd get a kick out of seeing me like this.”
The Synth shook her head side to side. “Nah.”
“Nah?”
“Nah,” Tera nonchalantly clarified as she leaned against the side of the screen.
The newt cocked a brow.
“This is like... your tune up isn't it?” Tera thought out loud. “The organic version of it anyway.”
“That's-” Brie honestly couldn't bring herself to disagree. “I mean. You're not wrong.”
“Yeah. And,” the Earth-Shaker opined. “I know how much they can suck.”
“You would. Wouldn't you?” Brie sheepishly acknowledged.
Tera hummed and flashed a smile. “Bet yours goes a lot faster than mine do at least. Wanna trade?”
For the briefest of moments, Brie imagined herself as a monstrous and kaiju-sized colossus reclined back in the Marine Biome superstructure. Replete with a tiny Tera scrambling about her body and checking her vitals.
“Pass.”
“Awww c'mon!” the Synth cackled.
“I said pass,” Brie snipped. “Even if your updates are more reliable than... mine are.”
“Lemme guess,” Tera mused. “Your software is making your hardware do something you don't want it to?”
“Not yet,” the newt tched. “But... it might. They figure it's only a matter of time given that's what my Dad is going through.”
The Synth's tone softened. “How... how are your folks anyway?”
“They're...” Brie uhhhed at length while her jaw hung slack. “Probably pissed I forgot to call them this morning,” she cursed to herself before flopping back her head.
Tera's avatar shifted to the side while she pulled up a simple World Clock app. “I mean... they're still over in the Ainu Archipelago right?” Twirling her finger along a clock face the Synth idly adjusted and accounted for the time zone differences. “It isn't quite midnight over in their neck of the woods. They might still be up!”
“I. Mmph.” Brie's fingers fumbled with the touch screen as she struggled to navigate to her Contacts. Tip after tap she continued to fat finger and fumble. “...Tera?” she meekly pleaded.
“I gotchu,” the Earth-Shaker quietly reassured her. Dipping down, Tera clasped the Phone icon between her hands and guided it beneath the thick thumb smudging against the glass ceiling serving as her sky.
“Thanks,” Brie mumbled with a blush. Her phone started ringing.
BRRRRRRING BRRRRRRING
BRRRRRRRING BRRRRRING
-CLICK-
Another newt, her skin a brilliant ruby red pocked by splotches of gray, appeared on Brie's screen. With a smack of her lips the amphibian brushed back the fiery orange locks of hair trailing past her shoulders. “Brieanne?” she yawned. “Do you have any idea what time-”
The unfamiliar amphibian's chestnut colored eyes went wide as she peered into her own phone's video feed. There, tucked away into the corner before Brie, was a familiar faceplate. “Tera?” she muttered in disbelief.
“Hey, Missus Orotaloa,” Tera courteously and nervously replied. “D-d-don't mind me! Just... just running tech support for Brie.” Cheeks puffed out the Synth's avatar hurriedly dipped out of sight.
“...Hi Mom,” Brie weakly introduced herself.
“Brieanne!” gasped Miss Orotaloa.
“It's fine. I'm fine,” Brie reassured her.
Miss Orotaloa, wrinkles carved deep into her brow and cheeks, sighed.
“It's purely preventative,” Brie clarified. “Honest. Nothing's wrong.”
The elder newt, unconvinced, scrunched her snoot. “Tera? Is this true?”
The Synth's horns, perking to attention, were just barely visible at the bottom of the screen. “Uhm. I'm.” Tera's faceplate, slowly rising into view, forced an uncertain smile. “Do I have to, Miss Orotaloa?”
“Snrk.” Lips wavering, the ruby red newt let slip a warm laugh. “It's been too long, Tera.” With a giggle she booped a finger against the Synth's snoot.
“It's nice to see you too, Miss Orotaloa” the Earth-Shaker bashfully hummed. “S-s-seriously though! Ignore me!” Tera insisted as she slunk back down out of view and shied away from the spotlight.
Hand cupped to her cheek, Miss Orotaloa couldn't help but smile. “Oh sweetie, this is such a wonderful surprise! I'm so proud of you!”
Brie's violet eyes swished back and forth in their sockets. “For. For what?”
“What do you think?” the older Transhuman raspberried. “For burying the hatchet! Just look at you two peas in a pod! It's like your big fight never happened!”
Tera and Brie, eyes gone wide, awkwardly turned away from one another.
Miss Orotaloa's lips curled down into a sad smile. “It damn near broke my heart when you told me. There you were crying yourself hoarse, blubbering away about how you blew up at the best friend you could ever ask for, sniffling and-”
“MOM!” Brie hissed. Cheeks smoldering, and biting down into her lower lip, she glowered at her chatterbox matron.
The fiery newt, grin spreading wide, continued to overshare. “Oh I tried not to get my hopes up when you told me you accepted that assignment in Nouvo Carolina! I was so worried about what would you say, what would you do, when you saw Tera again!”
“O-o-okay, Mom,” Brie politely begged her to dial it back.
“And now I know!” beamed the elder Orotaloa.
“W-w-we're just being good coworkers is all,” Tera meekly chimed in while she peeked her snoot back into view.
The wizened Transhuman pbbbted. “If that's what you have to tell yourselves,” she teased.
“I can and I will,” the younger of the newts huffed. “Forget us. How's... how's Dad?”
Miss Orotaloa clicked her tongue against the back of her teeth. “He's... struggling. Between his mutations, and the aggressive new GT regiment he's on, your Father's had more bad days than good lately.” Chin tucked against her shoulder the fiery haired newt looked back behind her with a sigh. “He hates the changes he's going through. You... you might not recognize him, Tera,” she whispered.
The Earth-Shaker's horns drooped. It had only been a couple years since she and Brie crashed out. Surely, surely, Mister Orotaloa hadn't changed that much since then.
“But I do know hearing from you, the both of you, would do wonders for him and his mood,” Miss Orotaloa shyly smiled.
“I-I-I mean,” Tera coughed. Reluctant to insert herself into Brie's personal affairs the Synth-
“We'd love to,” Brie answered for her.
The Synth happily deferred to her coworker's judgment.
“Just drop me a hint when you do,” Miss Orotaloa giggled. “I'll do my best to keep it a surprise for your Father.”
“Sure thing, Mom,” Brie hummed.
Miss Orotaloa perked to attention when a deep, and bassy, groan carried through her speakers. “Oop! Speaking of! Love you, Brie! Love you, Tera!”
Heart caught in her throat, Tera short-circuited at the casual show of motherly affection.
“Love you too,” Brie replied with a kiss.
BOODMPPPPPPP
The phone call ended. Wordlessly did Tera's faceplate cycle through expressions as she reluctantly wrangled with her thoughts. Silently did Brie thrum her fingers along the side of her phone.
“...Tera?” spoke up the newt.
“Yeah?”
Slowly did Brie work up the courage to look the Earth-Shaker in the eyes. “Thanks.”
“...Don't mention it,” shrugged the Synth.
“No. I mean-” The Transhuman turned to her aching arm still strapped within the medical cuff. “Really, Tera. Thank you. Oberon wouldn't have checked on me. Mael sure as shit wouldn't have.”
Lips undulating like a sine wave, Tera struggled to find the words to meet the moment. “Seriously. Don't mention it.”
Brie slowly let the back of her head come to rest against the examination chair's cushioning. Eyes drooping shut, she nonetheless maintained a vice grip on her phone.
Various grunts, stutters, and sighs tumbled out from Tera's maw while she readied a request of her own. “Brieanne?”
“Hmmm?”
“Did your folks really miss me that much? It's not like-”
“Course they did,” the newt matter of factly replied. “Why wouldn't they?”
“Hum.” Stifling a sniffle, the Synth's heart melted at the thought of reacquainting herself with her faux-family.
“...And.” Brie wiggled in place. “Maybe. I do too.”
Tera practically blue screened at the acknowledgment. Unable to match Brie's earnest attempt at reconciliation with one of her own she panicked and deflected the only way she knew how. “...Heh. Oberon really is that boring, huh? No wonder you sicced him on Rivet.”
“OH GOD WHERE DO I START?” Brie ranted. “HIM AND NICNEVEN!”
“Nikky too?” the Earth-Shaker quizzically inquired. “I thought the grass was greener at the Great Lakes Collective!”
“I FUCKIN' WISH.”
Cackling, Tera struggled to keep her tears in check while her much missed friend ragged on her fellow Earth-Shakers at length.
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Category Story / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 120 x 90px
File Size 110 kB
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