Changes

'Daytime' arrived. People woke up. They had mouths to feed.

Stella sat up. She had no mouths to feed, so she contemplated lying again to stare at the roof, but it'd kind of gotten boring after the tenth hour or so. She had to calibrate her internal clocks. Time flowed differently here.

A quick infrared scan showed that not only was Shigure still there, but had nodded off at some point during the candle hours. As for Kou? Still alone. The concerned citizens in front? Walking, getting ready for work. The bus stop at the other side of the hedge wall was busy during this hour. In another universe, they might've stopped by her place to get some coffee before doing whatever kept them busy.

Stella turned her audio processors back on. If she'd really tried to, she might've been able to eavesdrop on a conversation or two, but she didn't feel like it. Spying was bad. Like lying.

Would Isla Gray show up again? Most likely. He was a strange being unburdened by reality. In that case, to have Shigure napping on her doorstep might...

...concerned citizens had begun to walk past her house.

...that.

They paused when they saw Shigure. But then they kept walking.

She was a 'bad wife'. What kind of spouse let her husband sleep outside, in such an uncomfortable position? Even though the snow globe's hyper-regulated environment meant no temperature drops or bugs, it still wasn't 'good'.

Carefully, she lifted the fridge away from the door, then put it back in place at the kitchen. She plugged it back on. Not like it mattered; it had nothing inside. Even more carefully, she opened the door. Shigure had curled into himself, and had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Where could he have gotten it from?

No matter. Stella picked him up, blanket and all. A couple of concerned citizen neighbors walking by stopped, but one of them told the other to keep walking, so they did.

With the most care of all, Stella took Shigure to the guest room. Once Isla showed up, he'd make a lot of noise, so she couldn't drop Shigure on her bed (which was now on the living room anyway). He didn't wake up even she plopped him on the bed. Must be a heavy sleeper. Just in case, though, she didn't cover him with the blankeet.

Stella shouldn't have, but she did anyway—that summed up most of her recent actions. She lay next to him. 

Her neighbors probably thought she was bad wife on top of a world-destroying machine. 

Goodbye coffee shop.

Breathing sounded nice. She wished she could do it. Or sleep. Or dream. Or have a spouse. That would be nice: to wake up next to someone every day. To be able to stare at the roof like this, neither alone nor lonely. Did people with families realize how lucky they were?

Somebody knocked on her door. Strange, because she'd left it open (by accident). Pouting, Stella went to check. She gave one last look at Shigure for emotional support.

Despite having seen him only once several days ago, she recognized Mr. Murasaki almost immediately. How could she not, when everyone else looked so young? Despite the receding hairline, the way he permanently curved forward, and his walking cane, the laugh lines on his face kept him glowing. "Good morning, Stella," he greeted. "Can I come in?"

"Yes, but..." She trailed off. The entirety of her bedroom furniture had been pushed out, and with how small the house was, she'd had to stack them on top of each other on the living room. "...I don't have any snacks."

"Don't worry about that. May I sit?"

"Yes, but..."

Mr. Murasaki pushed the bed with his cane a bit before sitting on a couch. Stella remained standing. Come to think of it, she still had Isla's ridiculous outfit on, but at least her hair was tamed. This was a disaster. At least he hadn't found Shigure napping outside. "How are you doing so far?" He asked. Silly. Didn't her clothes and disaster house say enough?

Stella was tired of lying. "Bad," she replied. "I humbly request to be disassembled."

"Why is that?"

"I don't like it."

"It?"

"I don't understand."

"What don't you understand?"

"How about a factory reset?" She inquired.

Mr. Murasaki took a while to reply, which meant this wasn't an option. "The biggest problem with this program aren't the resources," he said. "It's the people. Why do you think that is?"

'People' as in benefactors? Social workers? The government? Humans? Sentient beings? Stella shook her head.

"No thoughts on the matter? Nothing?"

"The question is unclear."

"Or perhaps you just don't wish to respond."

If he knew, then why bring the topic up in the first place? Stella's tail slammed against the closet. She jumped, but Mr. Murasaki did not. "What is your age?" She asked. "Why is no one else old?"

"You answer, I answer."

She should've seen that coming. Stella sat on her bed. "People are ungrateful," she replied. "It's silly—no, stupid—that they create problems where there should be none. That's what I think. Please fulfill your end of the deal."

Mr. Murasaki nodded, slowly. Shigure's similar gesture after she'd lied yesterday came to mind. One was inquisitive, one was judgmental, or angry or maybe sad. She wished she could forget. "I'll be two-hundred and fifty this year. Back when you and I were young, 'old' was sixty. There was no anti-aging technology—nothing that worked. Senescence is a strange thing. It can't be stopped. It can't be reasoned with. However, if you work with rather than against it, you can, at least, contain it."

"That's... a quarter of a millennium..."

"Oh, it gets better: one of my closest friends is one of the oldest humans in the world. She served in the Last War, too, as a pilot."

Stella had to ask: "Do you know anything about my ex-owner?"

"Mr. Fuyukawa sent multiple requests for investigation. They're on it."

"They? Who? Your friend? Did she know a Robert?"

"I'll ask." Mr. Murasaki paused for a bit. "She's beginning to forget things, though. Finally."

"Why finally?" Isla's voice startled them both. For how long... never mind. She didn't want to know. "Isn't that a bad thing? Heya, Murasaki, Stella. I brought snacks." He placed said snacks on the kitchen-living room divider. Shockingly, he had the tact not to approach them any further. "By the way, did you already show her the eviction notice, or not yet? If you haven't, that's fine. Finish your convo. I'll be doing stuff."

He tapped.

Mr. Murasaki swayed his cane. He'd been doing that for a while. "I was about to get to that. There's no need to call it an 'eviction notice'. It's not. It is moreso... a request."

"For me to leave?" Stella asked.

"Don't you think it might be for the better? It seems to me that you're unhappy here. The 'expert advice' was, at best, superficial. Everything about this case has been mishandled from the start... which is very strange. But that's over now. What do you think about moving to a settlement primarily inhabited by veterans?"

"...where?"

"Saturn," Isla replied. "At that point, it's basically like being reborn. Good luck going anywhere else for vacations. Just know I was always against it."

Saturn was twice as long from the Sun as Jupiter. How much was that in light-minutes? An hour and a half, on average? Maybe a little bit less. If she wanted to talk to anyone here again, it'd take almost three hours per message. "How long is the trip there?"

"Months. Don't listen to them. It's your house. They can't kick you out."

"Mr. Gray," said Mr. Murasaki, "We're not talking about what seems right for you. We're talking about what's best for her."

"Eh, bullshit. It's always the same thing. You guys find an old robot, revive them, then pretend to be shocked when the robot messes up because nobody told them how to behave, so then, instead of teaching them anything, you ship them off to that shithole because it's 'what's best'. Is it? Or is it a self-fulfilling prophecy? Oh, and it's even worse with that supposed rehabilitation program. Whatever. At least it's better than locking people into tiny boxes for decades and pretending like that's gonna make them behave. Sometimes I feel like whoever's running this thing is incompetent on purpose."

Isla was truly a creature unburdened by reality. It was impressive. However, more impressive was Mr. Murasaki's restraint. Instead of responding like he should've—or at all—he turned back to Stella. "I'll give you some time to think," he said. "But... it is true that your current neighbors are terrified after yesterday's events."

"I don't blame them," Stella replied. "And I will think about it."

Except she would not, because she didn't want to go.

Except she would, because... what future awaited her here, or anywhere?