The Last Thing You Should Do

Armed with Isla's lucky charm, a yellow ribbon on her tail, and Shigure's balls, for the first time in her life, Stella went somewhere on her own... kind of. Shigure would be communicating by phone while also tracking her through his balls. (Holo-screen.)

Shigure had walked to the entrance of the neighborhood with her, then lent her his wristwatch so she'd get to call the egg taxi on her own. "What are Shigure's naugh—"

So then he snatched it back. Silly Shigure. Stella couldn't legitimately laugh, but during her egg taxi trip, she pantomimed a cackle all the way to Rebecca's current place of residence. Silly, silly Shigure. Had he forgotten that he'd lent her the holo-screen, too?

When she hopped off the taxi, a disembodied voice said, "Miss, you're missing the payment."

Stella stared at the floating egg.

"Miss, you're missing the payment."

"Yes."

"If you need any help, please contact support by saying 'support, please'."

"Support, please." So this machine was stupid, too.

A very familiar voice spoke then, from somewhere within the cab (probably a transmission): "Thank you for contacting Dome #5 support. My name is Zero. I'm here to help. May I please have your name and citizen UID?"

"Stella."

Silence.

"I don't know how to pay," she said, "But I have money. Can you pay for me, please?"

"...uh... sure." That voice was so familiar. How did the idiom go again? 'Tip of her tongue?'. "You don't know your citizen UID?" Stella recited her bank account number, which Shigure had written on the home screen of his balls. "Not that. How about your online UID? Phone number? Even a last name would help."

"Stella."

The owner of the familiar voice sighed. It was male, though not particularly deep. "Unfortunately, Stella, if you're unable to pay on your own, can't provide any identifying information, and have no guardian to help you, you'll be flagged as a high-risk citizen, with all online transactions frozen, until you're able to pay the amount shown on the—"

"Wait, if I didn't prove any information, how come you're able to track me?"

"—screen. I would advise you remain next to the cab until a nearby worker can attend you. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Was I connected to the network against my consent?" She asked. "You LIARS."

"Thank you for using our services, and have a great day." Then the person at the other end of the line 'hung up'. The cab remained there, dumb and dormant, as passersby glanced her way. Nobody helped, though. Some things never changed. In fact, if not for the floaty feeling she couldn't quite get used to, the inky void above, and the town's artificial glow, she could almost fool herself into thinking she was in a pale blue dot almost four hundred thousand kilometers away.

"Support, please."

The same voice said, "Thank you for... I already told you, if you stay next to the cab, a nearby worker will assist you. I flagged it already."

"Please disconnect me from the network."

"You are disconnected. That's the reason behind this issue. And you're not getting tracked. It's just easy to see your location because you're beside one of the government's vehicles. Anything else I can help you with?"

If she could've sighed, she would've. Good. No need to factory reset, then. "Are you Rei?" Stella asked. "Mushroom—"

Rei the mushroom mafia leader who worked at a call center hung up. "PLEASE RATE OUR SERVICE FROM 1-7, 1 BEING THE LOWEST, 7 BEING THE HIGHEST," bellowed the egg taxi. Despite herself, Stella gave Rei a seven. Funny that he called himself 'Zero' in English.

Now that she gave the buildings around a good look, while glowy, none of them were that tall. most of them oscillated between white and gray. From afar, the dome must've really looked like a snow globe. "Support, please."

"Thank... your issue will be resolved soon. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"I left you a good review," Stella said.

"Thanks."

"If you're the only one receiving my calls, and they go through immediately, that must mean that you're the only one working at the moment, and that demand isn't very high. You must be quite bored. Let's talk."

"This call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes."

"So you're getting monitored, too? Are you like Shigurebob?"

After a pause, Rei asked, "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"So you are..." Did that mean he also had a thing on his head that could induce headaches if it perceived violence? Then how could he run the mushroom mafia? Was there a way to circumvent this? "We should converse more. We have a lot in common. Mushrooms look like nukes."

"Did you perhaps mean to call the mental health hotline?" Asked Rei. "I can transfer you there."

Stella nearly fell to her knees. There had been a hotline all along... for urgent psychiatric care... and she just hadn't known... and yet... nobody used it...

"Yes? No?"

Stella hung up. Rebecca was leaving the hotel. According to Kou, she had to stalk her, but Stella hated reconnaissance missions, and the law had told her not to go very far, so she called out, "Rebeccaaaa!"

This made Rebecca stop. An android who almost bumped into her cussed her out, which was very rude, but she didn't seem to notice. Instead, she backflipped towards Stella. She wore a (black) miniskirt, but it had modesty shorts below, so it was okay. "Hey, Stella! How's it going?"

Shigure left a message on the holo-screen, which buzzed. Upon opening it, Stella read: Just transferred the payment to the cab. Stop harassing the call center. Thanks.

As if on cue, the floating egg left. "Oh, wow," was Rebecca's commentary on the subject, which meant she'd probably read the message, too. "Aw. I would've left the room earlier, but they were rerunning a series I really like so, you know."

"Rerunning? On TV? Cable...?" Did that still exist?

"Yup. Anyway, what happened to you happens to a lot of first-time visitors, so don't worry. You have to connect to the local network so autopay can go through. No pun intended. Where are you going right now? Do you need any help?"

"Kou thinks you're cheating on him."

Rebecca's face didn't change. "Let me guess: and he told you to follow me to 'gather evidence'?"

"I'm... appalled." How many times had this happened for her to be not only used to this, but also seemingly resign to her fate? "Support, please." But nothing happened. Right, the egg had floated away. "Allow me to get Kou immediate psychiatric care."

"He's medicated, actually. I guess he spiraled because I didn't tell him where I went. So no, I'm not cheating on him, nor will I ever." Now she had her hands on her hips, and she looked away. "Did you tell your husband about your affair?"

Did she mean the egg taxi? "No."

"You should."

"But he just found out."

Rebecca winced. "Oh, no... and you..." She trailed off. The rude android from earlier was eavesdropping. "Would you like to grab some coffee? My client canceled earlier, so I'm free until three. You can vent if you want."

Stella couldn't tell if this mission was successful or not, but something told her that Kou wouldn't be satisfied with 'you have paranoid delusions and need help' as a response. "Understood," she responded. While she had no reason to 'vent', it'd be a good time to inform Rebecca of the current situation, if nothing else, to prevent misunderstandings.

***

"Disappointed," Rebecca said, "But not surprised."

Coffee shops on the moon were the same as coffee shops on Earth, except with less gravity. It smelled very nice. Fascinatingly, the ambient music came from a vinyl player, of all things. Many... disks...? Stood on a shelf at the back of the room. "If we convince Kou to say yes," Stella told her, as she sipped on her drink (Stella had ordered some too, but she'd take them to Shigure), "then I'll have permission to open my coffee shop."

While Rebecca had tried to sway the conversation to Shigure and Isla (for some reason) a couple times, they were irrelevant to the main issue, so Stella had ignored this. After some time, Rebecca seemed to give up on the subject. She rocked on the chair's hind legs, perhaps impassively, or maybe scared or elated. "I'll be honest with you, I'm pretty sure he said yes."

Something didn't compute. "No."

"He said he didn't, but he liked you from the start. He says you're 'not like them'. Don't ask me who 'them' is, by the way, because I've been married to him for half a century and I still have no idea. So... yeah. Let's ignore him from now. You said the remaining suspects are Aoyama Yuzu, Irina and... Asaba. Come think of it, I don't even know if that's his given or family name."

Stella slammed her tail against the chair. "I've been FOOLED."

"By Kou? Yeah. I'll force him to apologize later. Although, speaking of cheating—"

"I'm losing time! Which of them is it? Why? Why must they betray me..."

"B-betray? How long have you known them for again?"

"No matter," Stella said. "Time is meaningless, just like existence. Let us enjoy this time together. It's what makes 'to be' bearable."

Some time later, as they headed to the shopping center to buy clothes (Stella had insisted), Rebecca told her, "I think I get why he said you're not like 'them'. Still don't know who 'them' is, though."

"He? Kou?"

"Yeah. If you're not 'them', then you're on his 'side'."

Stella kept feeling attacked when she interacted with Rebecca and/or Kou, but she had to swallow back her pride if it meant getting fashion advice from someone who didn't have a nice smile but crazy eyes, or an underwear seller... both of which just happened to own the place they'd go to, and her next targets.