ANIMAL CONTROL - PART VII

I stay in the library for hours.

The chronicles of Mao’lah are extensive. They start very much in this mythic tone, but over time and in private notes, they scratch below the surface.

Their world was a desolate one to begin with. The Feh’linne tribes lived in perpetual deprivation and strife.

Various races banded together and took to harvesting every natural resource, even other species, to milk the last of their world. The tribes, pushed to the brink of extinction, fought back out of desperation.

Nya’lah stood out as one of the greatest warriors even among a warrior people.

She had helped raise Mao’lah, bonded pairs a common practice for division of labour and socialisation, and her sister had in turn helped reign Nya’lah in.

Yet, when the Scarabs came to harvest the Feh’linne territory and enslave its people, they were at a loss. So, Nya’lah rallied the angry and the aggrieved.

It was partially luck that saw the tides move in their favour. The Scarabs had grown accustomed to the Feh’linne retreating and merely did not think they had enough left to mount an effective offensive.

Then, faced with a deluge of warriors during refuelling and repairs, the only time their machines were vulnerable, they attempted to flee. Venting the toxic waste of their strip mining to salt the earth in their wake.

Smog thick enough to suffocate on, let alone all the harmful particulates within: corrosive, carcinogenic, a hazard to all life. They’d weaponised the side product of their resource hoarding perfectly.

But, Nya’lah urged on the warriors with ever greater bile and conviction. Using the last of their water to soak their dust cloaks, wrapping them around their heads to keep as much of the smoke out of their lungs as possible.

They boarded the Scarab command-ship.

Slew the crew and sabotaged the engines.

The other races had melded and morphed with one another. Playing as gods with their own genetics.

In theory it was to reduce their individual need for food, drink, and other materials, so that their stockpiles would last generations. In practice, the many drones were basically lobotomised mutes, their leaders mutated into malformed monsters.

Mao’lah and Nya’lah took to the bridge in an attempt to force the head of the Scarabs to surrender.

He, it, was such a chaotic mess, they could not find reason. Negotiations quickly fell through.

They fought, and just as in the legends, Nya’lah sacrificed herself for her sister. Although not a better warrior, she knew Mao’lah was the better leader, the better strategist and peacekeeper. Without an enemy, the Feh’linne could descend into tribal dispute again, so a strong ruler would be needed to hold the reins, as she had Nya’lah’s.

A survivor and a saviour in one.

Mao’lah could not carry the full burden of victory, so to honour her sister, she made Nya’lah a martyr. The Lioness. Something their people could look to as an ideal for how they should all be.

It worked.

People wrote songs, staged plays, and carried on the stories in oral tradition.

Maybe one such ballad was what she had sung in the square? Turning my heart toward her.

Even beyond the Feh’linne borders, bringing the remnants of other races into the fold, and for their descendants to know whom they owed homage. Their freedom from the Scarabs, from starvation and drought, bought at the cost of the greatest life.

As time went on Mao’lah regretted propagandising her sister, even though it bonded the various peoples under one ideal. Her myth making had distorted Nya’lah, and she could not see the truth of her kin even in memory.

As Queen she bore heirs, her first born daughter named after the Lioness. She negotiated peace across the tribes and brought ancient rivals under one banner of black and gold.

The flame of Nya’lah which burned away the smoke, and from the ashes of both rose new life.

A new civilisation and an era of unmatched peace.

None of which could be lost to simply set the record straight, that their saviour had also been a person, full of foibles and mistakes her own.

Mao’lah’s few honest descriptions of her sister were more the Nya’lah I had come to know: attention seeking, childish, lazy, and not really the brightest, but burning with unbridled passion.

Her heroic qualities – and other positive attributes – not withstanding.

“Quite the pair...” I muse to myself over the texts.

Such strong sibling love, it radiates from the pages.

Why isn’t Mao’lah here?

The thought raises itself from the void. A valid question.

If she was a greater leader than Nya’lah a hero, with laurels and legends written about herself, why did the Returns Agency not recruit her?

From my findings, it seems she died of old age, still the Feh’linne ruler, until Nya’lah II took up the mantle of Lioness. Living up to both her mother and aunt’s examples.

“Hmm...” I tilt the annal as if a different angle will give me an answer, “...maybe I should just go ask Chris?”

* * *

“No.”

His flat response leaves me dumbfounded for a moment.

“What do you mean, 'No'?”

The Head of HR has his eyes glued to his beige brick of a PC.

I half expect him to say he’s too busy with Bomb-Finder, or whatever ancient games came pre-installed on that thing.

Without looking away from what he’s been clicking at for the last few minutes, he fills me in, “She rejected us.”

So Mao’lah didn’t want to join the agency... HANG ON A SECOND!!!

“What's this crap about getting a choice? I didn't get a choice!” The flush of anger comes out of nowhere, well not nowhere, but pretty rapid onset nonetheless.

The lotus on his desk bobs and waves in the gale of my outburst. Chris just sucks his teeth and keeps clicking. “So, like... you know how we could only take you and hero you at the same time?”

I nod in recollection and he nods back like that's the end of it, “AND?!.” I press him to go on.

He tuts, “Basically, you could only be recruited alive. Some heroes can only be recruited when they, uhmm... retire.” his eyebrows raised in a, 'you get it yet?', expression.

Something clicks from our past conversations – though I am still frustrated he's maintaining Data Protection for other people when we're already neck deep in conspiracy – and I realise he means they could only recruit Mao'lah in death.

They have to keep the Returns Agency secret, so if you're alive when you're recruited, you don't get a choice. It's just transmigration to their interdimensional office and indentured servitude until you complete your contract.

However, if you're about to die, they can be honest. You either pass over, or get another shot at being a hero. Reincarnated to carry on the adventure.

It's almost enough to make you want to blow the whistle to Quality Assurance and Management!

“Did she give a reason?” As it seems to me like she would have jumped at the chance of seeing her sister again.

Chris, still clicking, looks at me for a second, then back to his screen, “Err... done, I guess.”

Done?

“You 'guess'?”

Seriously?!.

“Yeah...” a little exasperation entering his voice, “I guess.”

I shake my head and stand to leave, “Does Nya’lah know?”

“I-” I know where his response is going.

“-guess, gotcha…” cutting him off before I slap whatever kind of deity he is and get myself blinked out of existence. “What’re you playing by the way?”

Might as well offer some small talk so he doesn’t just remember me as annoying.

His demeanour perks up a bit, like when you show an interest in whatever a child is currently obsessed with, “Biscuit Bopper.” The Head of Human Resources keeps clicking away – his pre-historic mouse squeaking with repetitive strain – while I excuse myself.

The fig tree painted on his wall looking even more in need of a touch up than ever before.

I’m always amazed that we actually get internet access around here... and that I keep forgetting about it.

Been busy, I guess-

I scream ‘NO’ in my head and shut the thought down before I get angry.

I find Nya’lah passed out, sprawled across my bed, sleeping contentedly with the robot-dog resting its head on her stomach. It eyes me momentarily then goes back to screen-saver mode, or however a semi-artificial being sleeps.

Evidently, I’m not considered a threat.

Not sure whether to take that as a compliment or not.

There’s not really space to join them, as much as my inclination is towards hugging the Lioness so she knows she’s not alone, but I am tired... and it is my bed.

The place is a mess after the trick I played on them, so I set about tidying as quietly as possible. I end up lost in the sauce.

A creeping exhaustion increasingly inhibiting my hyper-focus on cleaning. I know I’ll crash at the end, but my only other option for rest would be a flimsy desk chair or the floor.

Just gotta wait out her cat nap and retake the bed.

As I lean over the sleeping nemeses, stretching to put my employee handbook back on a shelf – more of a million word binder with multiple appendices and an extensive index designed to be added to whenever new regulations come in – Nya’lah partially awakens, her feline second eyelids barely peeling back.

She notices me sleepily, grins as if still dreaming, grabs my shirt with both hands, and pulls me down on top of her.

She’s unconscious again in milliseconds.

Crushing me against her like a body pillow, legs wrapped around for good measure, so I can’t escape.

Under other circumstances-

I put the thought out my head as the hydraulic hound fusses from the disruption. It rolls over to cover our feet at the end of the bed instead of staying in the middle.

It’s not the most unpleasant experience, really.

Her toned body and soft chest and our height difference all emphasised at once. I’m not short, but Nya’lah is a good few inches taller, and then her lion’s mane adds about a foot more.

The rhythmic breathing of her deep sleep slowly intensifies, giving way to a full body purr that is both relaxing and too intense to fall asleep next to. The deep warmth of her scent filling my other senses like an intoxicant.

I lie there, a little paralysed by fear of where to put my hands, confused by my own emotions on the matter, until eventually uncertain sleep takes me whole.