The Prettiest Star

"...then... let it rest..."

"Yes." Given the lack of paper, Stella recited the instructions to Isla while he typed them on his holo-screen."Let the dough rest on the fridge for two hours. Do nothing else in the meantime. Understood?"

"Got it, got it."

Wouldn't it have been easier to record Stella's voice instead of typing? Such technology had been available for centuries at this point. "Before I leave," she said, "In order to assess how poorly this will go, I'd like you to prepare a sample."

"Wow. You really have no faith in me, do you?"

"No." Isla's self-deprecating laughter was Shiguresque. Or was that Easley coming to the surface? "I'm sorry," Stella said. "I didn't mean to raise my voice."

"Wuh?"

"Now do it."

Isla raised his eyebrows at her, then complied. He hummed as he glanced at the recipe every now and then, his hands moving with a shockingly mechanical precision. The index finger of his left hand was grotesquely bent inward, never quite fitting in. A quick scan revealed that he might not even be able to curl his hands into fists.

...best not to inquire about injuries, neither mental nor physical.

"Good?" Isla asked, as though he didn't know the answer already.

"Yes. Are you sure this is your first time cooking?"

"Uh... fine. That might've been a bit of a hyperbole."

"Hmph."

"But it's been a while!" He insisted. "Really! You see, though? I'll be fiiine. You go do your... whatever it is you gotta do. But don't leave the neighborhood without telling me. I'm still supposed to be your provisional SW."

"Hmph. I thought you resented me being 'treated like a child'."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm a hypocrite. Just don't leave the neighborhood without me." Isla hummed again, starting with his second 'sample'.

Him admitting the double standard so blatantly depressed her, so Stella left after that. If she really, truly wanted to, she could turn the propulsors on her feet on and burst from the snow globe, but this would make a lot of people suffer, and she didn't feel like doing so anyway.

Every single other resident in the dome, however, was trapped. They existed inside a closed system with no possibility of escape. Like a fish, they chose where to eat, urinate, and what to interact with, but they depended on their cage staying functional. If the glass broke, then they'd spill to the world outside and die. But not Stella. She'd probably float in space until her  protons decayed, or her particled quantum-tunneled themselves into iron. That, or she could self-destruct. She probably would, once she got bored enough.

Point was, at least she had the freedom to do so. To choose to obey. To be good or evil. Yet, if 'they' had fixed her back to 'life', did she even had the option to end it? For how long would her days go by, with a meaning so feeble that she'd been able to assign it to herself?

The girl opened her door before Stella could knock. "Hell—oh, wow!"

Whilst awash in existential dread, Stella had carried a pile of boxes twelve times her height. She placed it next to the girl's house. "Don't worry," she said. "I'll unpack these. What is your name, by the way?"

The girl stared at the tower of boxes, frowning. Or scowling? There was a difference. Perhaps she was scared. "I'm uh... Yokogishizawa Tsukiko. How many pies are you planning to make?"

Stella almost said 'what the fuck', but it seemed very rude to react that way to somebody's name (plus she hated swearing). Still, while she'd activated her emergency disk, the syllables had already begun to slip. Yoko... ko... shi... "Tsukikobob."

"I'm sorry?"

"That'll do." Stella slipped the box at the bottom in a way that made the rest fall without toppling over. Tsukikobob watched this, awed. "If you help me unpack, I'll give you a discount when I open my shop."

"Shop?"

"Milk, peach pie and coffee shop. Name undecided. My not social worker said I needed majority approval to open a business on this neighborhood."

Tsukikobob stared, not helped. All the while, she frowned. "So you're... planning to open a coffee shop in a residential area?"

"Indeed."

"Crazy."

"Good crazy or bad crazy?"

"Uh..." Then she helped Stella unpack. "I don't know. Good, I guess, for me."

Good. Great, even. That officially made Tsukikobob the fourth stamp of approval, out of eleven. "If it's good for you, I'd strongly suggest you help me convince the other denizens of this place to say yes to the not social worker's demands."

Tsukikobob flinched, then looked away. "Uh..."

"Something wrong?"

"...no... I guess not."

So yes. Stella didn't press her for answers. It'd be unwise and rude to do so, and also, she needed Tsukikobob to remain an ally.

When they took the first batch of ingredients into the house, Stella screamed. Tsukikobob managed, somehow, not to drop the flour and the peaches and the butter, even as she jumped away from Stella, as Stella ran back outside and propelled herself to the red tile roof.

Once there, she curled into a ball. The clay tiles clinked below her.

Tsukikobob, minus supplies, ran outside. "What's wrong!? What happened!?"

"Books..."

"Books?  What? What's wrong with them?"

"Hate..."

Another girl emerged from the house across the street. Fifth ally, or first enemy? Stella activated her nuclear compartment. "What's going on?" She asked. "Tsukiko?"

"I-I dunno, she saw my... books...? And freaked out."

"Boobs?"

Tsukikobob blushed. "Books." She placed her hands around her mouth, as though Stella weren't right there. "Hey, it's all right! You can come down now!"

"No," Stella said.

"Why not?"

"You sure we're talking about books?" Asked the newcomer. "Is this an euphemism?"

"Irina, go away."

By this point, Stella had come to terms with her unreasonable behavior. Unfortunately, between acknowledging her faults and working on them lay a chasm that made the world outside of the snow globe insignificant by comparison.

Tsukikoboob didn't just have a book; she had a LIBRARY. Her living room was a library. Books, books everywhere. On the couches. On the coffee table. On shelves. Everywhere. It was a complete and absolute infestation, and Stella would not, of course, be able to work under such terrible conditions. Furthermore, this could only mean one thing: that Tsukikoboob needed urgent psychological intervention.

Irina, who also had catgirls and a limp, lifeless tail, actually jumped high enough to reach the roof. She had to cling to the border, but still. She rolled up. Her muscles were surprisingly developed for someone who ostentibly lived on such a light world. "Yo," she said. "What's wrong? What did she do?"

"Books," was Stella's reply.

"Ah. Did she flash 'em?"

"Yes..."

"And that terrified you?"

"Yes..."

Irina sat like a cat. It'd be less uncanny without the ears. "Sounds awful. You're the new one, right? I saw you movin' in. Becca told me about you and your hubby. Congrats."

"Yes..."

This made Irina pause. Tsukikobook tried, and failed, to jump. Her physical state was arguably worse than even Kou's, so no surprises there. Stella would've, perhaps should've, uncurled, but the position was too comfortable... no, safe. "You feelin' better now?" Irina asked. "Calmer?"

"No."

"Sucks. What helps you relax?"

"The armaggedon."

Irina smiled. It held no malice, no irony, yet it activated Stella's fight or flight response anyway (or, more accurately, its equivalent). "Have you met Becca's hubby yet? I feel like you two would get along."

No other phrase could possibly have been more insulting. "Go away," Stella said.

Just like that, Irina's smile thinned. "Did I say something wrong?"

"You ARE something wrong. Everyone here is something wrong. Everything is wrong. Everyone is strange and bad and I don't like it go away."

Stella was being unreasonable. She knew. Why was she saying these things? Did sentience make her illogical? Because she would've never acted this way before 'awakening'.

More people, more. Fourteen. At this rate, even Rebecca would be Stella's enemy. Isla would flag her as a high-risk citizen and she's get legally monitored and turned into a social worker and then fail and get disassembled and then everything would finally—

"Stella!"

She jumped.

"Do you know her?" Tsukiko asked below the roof. "Is she... can you help?"

Irina crawled down enough to see what was going on. "Is that your hubby?"

"No," Stella said.

"Yes," Shigure told her, them. "Stella, it's me. Come down." Or had he said 'calm'? "Come on."

Irina did; now Stella was alone on the roof. The sun really looked beautiful beyond the dome, as did the moon, with its lifeless, silver sea of dust contrasting against the ink of space. Most of the roofs were the same. Most of the houses were the same. It was all the time, all the time, everywhere. All the same.

Shigure talked, but not to her—to his phone. She didn't have to see this to know. "...yeah, all good. No need to escalate. No. Just—one moment." He hung up. She didn't have to see this to know. Shigure sighed. "Seriously, I leave for ONE day..."

"Yes," Stella said.

"Yes."

"I'm calm."

"You're calm."

"I'm calm," Stella repeated. She told this to herself, but for some reason, she couldn't uncurl. She couldn't. If she moved, she could disassemble. Her protons could decay. She could split the closed system in half. The moon could crumble. "It's good. I'm good. I'm calm."

"So..." Tsukiko trailed off. "I-I think it's my fault."

"Nah," Shigure told her.

"No," Stella said.

"See? It's not. Come on, wife, dearest, jump into my arms."

That, of all things, made her uncurl. Could she? She could; she didn't weight nearly as much as she would've on Earth. Doing so wouldn't harm him. 

When had he...?

No matter.

It must've been the misunderstanding from earlier. He'd sounded worried. Perhaps he had been. And so he'd returned. "Understood, hubby, dearest. I'll jump into your arms."

Sixteen people, counting Isla, who'd emerged to watch the commotion, watched as Stella rolled off the roof and Shigure caught her.