The Dead Dove Locker -- "I don't know what I expected."

[Mamorien]

The Greenfield Family.

It's time for a few interventions. Kenneth needs to be shown that what he longs for is maybe not so unwelcome as he thinks.

Dana needs to be shown that it may be possible for her to accept what her daughters have been doing.

And Rick needs to be shown that maybe what he and the rest of his family have done does not need to be a source of shame.

https://storiesonline.net/n/52852/the-gr...-family/41

Princess of the Void.

Sykora is out at one of her many Core meetings, this one the latest in a long series about the progress on the former Cloud Gate sector’s resettling. Their caregiver—a springy-haired woman named Yshala with adorable apple cheeks and a bib-front coverall full of hand puppets—bows as he enters the cabin. Rory is sleeping in her crib; her brother and sister are with their pod at the other end of the Pike, but she had a cough today and Grant fretted enough that they kept her in the cabin.

Now he looks at her tranquil slumber and feels like a dummy. “How is she?” he asks Yshala.

“Much better, Majesty,” she says. “No coughing. We played for a while and then she conked right out.”

“It’s deeply appreciated.” He indicates his armoire. “I’m here to change clothes. Would you give me some privacy?”

“Of course, Majesty.” She scurries for the door. “I’ll be outside.”

The hydraulic doors hiss open and shut. He’s alone, then, with his baby girl. He moves to his closet, then reconsiders and picks her gently out of the crib. She yawns and squirms; her eyes stay shut.

He cradles her head, where the wisps have solidified into a respectable head of hair. “Jeez,” he murmurs. “You’re really getting follicular up here, huh? Bet you’re gonna have your mom’s hair. Long and Princess-y.”

She lets out another tiny yawn. Her chubby little hand reaches up. He rests his thumb in it.

“Your brother and your sister are gonna make a lot of people really mad,” he says. “You’ll have to keep them safe sometimes, I think. You’re the one they’ll all call normal. No matter how much of an oddball you end up. I guess that’s a license to get weird, huh?”

She pedals her tiny feet. He chuckles.

“I wonder if you’ll ever feel left out,” he says. “If you’ll ever feel like less of a fucking miracle than they are. I hope not.” He kisses her head and puts her back in her crib.

Right On Time

Through flickering fluorescent hallways, Helen strolls. The chain of her tea diffuser clinks on the side of her thermos. She halts at the office checkpoint and passes her shoes and her sling bag through the scanner. “How proceeds the night, Harry?”

The man in the flak jacket spares her as much of a smile as he can. “A lot of talk, ma’am. A lot of movement. A lot of wondering.”

“I’m sure.” Helen points to the red plastic bowl by the security desk. “Have they finally restocked the kitchen, or are you bringing those Lucky Charms from home?”

“We’re fully loaded. Something tells me there’s overtime incoming.” Harry shifts the collar of his bulletproof vest and clears his throat. “Have we heard anything from her, at all? Any kind of contact?”

“Her being—”

“You know.”

“Uh huh.” Helen retrieves her bag. “None.”

“I have a suspicion, Madame Director. The timing—”

“The sweep,” Helen says. “She gave us the sweep because the sweep is what triggers the Imperial arrival. And then she disappeared.”

Harry’s face falls. “You think so too?”

Helen steps back into her heels. “It seems obvious, yes.”

“She screwed us, then.”

“Perhaps that was her intention and perhaps not. But I don’t feel particularly screwed.” Helen shimmies her shoulders. “I feel rather loose, in fact. Don’t you?”

“I’ll let you know how I feel once I’m positive it’ll still be legal to,” he says. “That or I’ll say hail the Empress.”

“So dour.” She winks at him. “Chin up, Harry. The future’s here. Right on time.”

Through the checkpoint and down the clerical hallways, nodding to the whispering and heads-down staff around her in their Archer Holdings antiradiation ponchos (a ridiculous precaution, but one must give one’s staff their creature comforts). She finds her office, slides the glass door shut and settles at her desk.

“Mrroawawul,” Lordling observes, from his corner bed.

Helen flips her laptop open as he rises, stretches, and hops onto her desk. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Lordling, than are dreamt of in your philosophies.”

Lordling vocalizes his unenthusiasm for Shakespeare.

She rubs the white spot on his head. “No grumbling now. I’m expecting a call.”

And the phone rings. She hums as she lifts the handset. Everything moving like clockwork.

“You have Director Mercer. Who may I ask is speaking?” She clicks and unclicks her pen. “Yes, I’m available now, if he is. Yes, fine. I’ll hold.”

She scribbles on her notepad as the connecting music plays. Two crossed poleaxes. It’s somewhat addictive, drawing it. She wonders how it’ll look on the moon.

The call connects. “Good evening, Mr. President,” Helen says. “I hear you’re asking around about the Taiikari Empire.”

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/120617...ht-on-time
https://www.scribblehub.com/read/1419041...r/2476564/