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lb_leeI'm warning you guys ahead of time, due to the chaos of the past couple weeks, the first half of the Prom Story may be late. (It is so long that it will have to be broken in half for this month and next month anyway.) But regardless, here's the other story that won the poll!
NiuCat Keeps Your Secrets!
Series: Infinity Smashed
Word Count: 1650
Summary: In the middle of worrying about M.D.’s legal case, Raige takes some time to acquaint himself with some graffiti on Bobcat’s world.
Notes: This story takes place around when M.D. is still fighting for her legal rights to self-ownership. It was sponsored by the Patreon crew!
Raige hadn’t gotten to see much of Bobcat’s world, outside the League building. What little he had seen was Fluji Super-City, which was built vertically. The towering skyscrapers were held together with architectural webbing that doubled as bridges, and none of it looked particularly stable. He also discovered one day that the whole mass swayed in a stiff breeze.
None of the locals had seemed to notice, only adapting like sailors on a swaying boat. But Raige had nearly had a heart attack.
I’m sorry, Bobcat had said after he’d calmed Raige down. I didn’t think to warn you. It keeps them from breaking or falling in bad weather.
Maybe so, but it was still terrifying.
With such a vertical city, Raige had yet to see the ground. Everything seemed to be concrete, or at least concrete-like. (Who knew what Bobcat’s people used for masonry?) Every surface seemed to also double as a digital display, showing animated street signs, traffic warnings, advertisements, and public announcements. (Raige even saw a lost cat flier.) They seemed to be the main source of light, this low down, but the constant flickering and flashing made the whole place exhausting to look at.
Some things apparently never changed, though, and graffiti was one of them. One tag that Raige saw over and over again was a simple doodle of a cat head—just a circle with two triangles for ears and an X for whiskers. It was always accompanied by a line of writing, which Raige couldn’t read.
After he’d seen them enough times to recognize them and wonder, Raige asked Bobcat about them, thinking they were maybe a Cat++ thing.
Oh, no, it’s a NiuCat. Nothing to do with us— well, as far as I know, anyway.
Raige’s puzzlement must have showed, because Bobcat continued, Someone stole the code for a failed community mental health program I was involved with a few years back— a sort of anonymous tip line for children. A cat was its avatar; the creators thought that would make it more endearing. Something about Bobcat’s tone gave Raige the impression that he didn’t entirely agree or approve.
“So… like McGruff the Crime Dog?” And when Bobcat looked blank, he explained.
Yes, quite like that. Regardless, the security team failed, the program was hacked within a week and shut down, and within a few months, these started appearing. I presume the original programming got repurposed. That writing you see next to it? It always reads the same thing: “NiuCat keeps your secrets.”
“I’m sorry?”
It’s interactive. You tell NiuCat a secret, and it responds accordingly. You can play with it, if you like; I have to visit a friend of mine in this building anyway, and B1AC doesn’t care for hominids.
Raige tugged at his bangs. He felt stupid even asking, but hey, this was a place where buildings swaying was considered a normal, okay thing. “It’s not… dangerous, is it?”
Not to you. Since you aren’t a citizen of the League, nor do you have an implant, any information the NiuCat gathers about you can’t be used for financial purposes, nor can it install malware into your system.
Jeez. “Well, I mean, that’s good, but I didn’t mean the graffiti, I meant, just… leaving me here. Alone.”
It should only be a few minutes, and with respect, you aren’t M.D., so I’m not worried you— then Bobcat realized what he meant and his mental voice abruptly sounded appalled. Oh! Oh, no, no, physical violence is not an accepted social norm here! It would be… (and here Raige could feel him searching for words) unthinkable. Admittedly, if you had any sort of electronic device on your person, I’d never leave you alone, but since you don’t, you should be perfectly safe.
Raige had already left his cell phone, Gameboy, and debit card in Bobcat’s black box when he’d arrived, so that was that. After a quick couple of courtesies and an order not to venture too far, Bobcat entered the building, leaving Raige on his own in Fluji Super-City. Apparently tourists weren’t uncommon here; nobody gave him a second look.
Raige looked at the NiuCat. Was he just supposed to whisper to it or something? It looked like nothing more than glow paint on a wall.
No, wait… it wasn’t quite paint…
Raige leaned forward to get a closer look, and the graffiti lit up. The simple cat head grew little dot eyes, then a circle for a body, with five lines for legs and tail, all in the same simple child’s drawing style. It walked over, and a bubble came from its X mouth, filled with writing he couldn’t read and a blinking cursor at the left.
Raige leaned closer, and as he did, a little of the speech bubble disappeared under his shadow. It was light! He looked around, but didn’t see any obvious projector, and when he waved his hands around, the graffiti adjusted itself so his shadow wouldn’t block it the same way. Maybe there were multiple projectors? Hidden ones? It’d make some sense if the graffiti wasn’t supposed to be there.
Hesitantly, he reached forward to touch the cursor. Immediately the bubble disappeared, replaced by a blank one. NiuCat sat, waiting patiently, with only idle blinks and sways of its tail tip to show it was still active.
Clearly, it was very obvious to a native what to do, but it took Raige a little while to figure out that he could write in the bubble with his finger. It took him a little longer to realize the NiuCat didn’t know English or the Roman alphabet and kept trying to correct the letters into local ones. It must’ve thought he had the worst handwriting ever.
Finally, Raige gave up writing anything. Besides, now he was curious. He touched the NiuCat instead.
Instantly, it came to life, arching under his hand, its little pinprick eyes turning into closed slanted lines of content. The lines around its throat vibrated. It was purring!
Delighted, Raige spent a good few minutes petting the NiuCat. It proved to be pretty clever, letting him scratch its ears and under his chin, batting at him if he tried to pat its tummy. When he put his finger to the wall and dragged it across, the NiuCat chased it like a string. Though it was just a few simple orange lines, it moved surprisingly realistically. Was this part of the original programming, Raige wondered, or had some playful hacker put it in?
Eventually, he ran out of ways to play with the NiuCat and it sat down again. Three new speech bubbles appeared: one contained what looked like a letter in the local alphabet, another contained a stick figure person, and the final one showed an ear. It was asking if he wanted to write, draw, or say, his secret, he realized.
Raige looked over his shoulder. Behind him, people strode back and forth—mostly human, some cats, a couple dogs that looked like miniature yellow huskies. Apparently some things were universal; all gave the exact same air of hurried business commuters as on Vaygo, and all completely ignored him. If the NiuCat didn’t know the Roman alphabet, surely none of them would either, nor would they care. And they certainly weren’t ever likely to see Raige again. He was surrounded by people, but in a way, he also had absolute privacy.
Remembering the way the NiuCat had responded to him trying to write in English, Raige picked the stick figure. When the little bubbles disappeared, replaced by the big blank one again, Raige wrote in it with his finger:
I don’t think my dad likes me very much.
This time, the NiuCat made no corrections. The words stayed there, dark shadows in the light graffiti. Raige looked at it and felt his throat close up. Somehow, having it in writing, out of the back of his head, made it real.
The NiuCat stood up. Three little speech bubbles appeared above its head, one with a happy cat face, one sad, one angry. Raige wasn’t sure if it was asking about the secret or him, but either way, he touched the sad face.
The NiuCat’s simple doodle face looked sad too. It offered itself for petting, and Raige scritched at the root of its tail. Its little throat lines vibrated, and Raige sniffed.
More speech bubbles appeared—one had a happy NiuCat, with a little pulsing oblong in its chest that Raige eventually realized stood for its heart, being pet just as Raige was petting it. Another showed a sad human face turning into a happy one, and finally there was a NiuCat face, its little X whiskers large and blinking.
It took a little puzzling, but Raige finally figured it out. The X wasn’t just whiskers, but a symbol that the NiuCat’s lips were sealed. The message roughly boiled down to, “Feel better soon! NiuCat loves you, and NiuCat keeps your secrets!”
Raige still wasn’t sure if NiuCat was a sapient program or whatever Bobcat’s world’s equivalent of a chat bot was, but he decided it didn’t really matter. Even if it didn’t or couldn’t understand him, it was trying to comfort him, and maybe that was enough. Wiping at his tears, he pet the NiuCat until Bobcat came back.
My apologies; that took longer than I expected, but… Raige, are you all right?
Raige sniffed again. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.” And as he said it, he realized he was. He felt lighter, relieved that he’d told somebody, even just the NiuCat. Now the secret wasn’t festering silently inside him. He glanced at the graffiti, but it'd reverted to its original form, and his secret was gone. “What did B1AC say?”
For a moment, he thought Bobcat might press for details, but after a searching look, it passed. Oh, she had many cutting things to say, but our construct rights embassy might be able to supply legal assistance. Are you hungry? I can tell you over dinner.
That sounded fine, and Raige found himself eating some kind of synthetic sashimi with soup and salad as Bobcat discussed the vagaries of M.D.’s upcoming legal case. And even though everything was scary and up in the air, he realized he felt a little more ready to take it on.
Maybe the NiuCat was still doing what it’d been created to do.
NiuCat Keeps Your Secrets!
Series: Infinity Smashed
Word Count: 1650
Summary: In the middle of worrying about M.D.’s legal case, Raige takes some time to acquaint himself with some graffiti on Bobcat’s world.
Notes: This story takes place around when M.D. is still fighting for her legal rights to self-ownership. It was sponsored by the Patreon crew!
Raige hadn’t gotten to see much of Bobcat’s world, outside the League building. What little he had seen was Fluji Super-City, which was built vertically. The towering skyscrapers were held together with architectural webbing that doubled as bridges, and none of it looked particularly stable. He also discovered one day that the whole mass swayed in a stiff breeze.
None of the locals had seemed to notice, only adapting like sailors on a swaying boat. But Raige had nearly had a heart attack.
I’m sorry, Bobcat had said after he’d calmed Raige down. I didn’t think to warn you. It keeps them from breaking or falling in bad weather.
Maybe so, but it was still terrifying.
With such a vertical city, Raige had yet to see the ground. Everything seemed to be concrete, or at least concrete-like. (Who knew what Bobcat’s people used for masonry?) Every surface seemed to also double as a digital display, showing animated street signs, traffic warnings, advertisements, and public announcements. (Raige even saw a lost cat flier.) They seemed to be the main source of light, this low down, but the constant flickering and flashing made the whole place exhausting to look at.
Some things apparently never changed, though, and graffiti was one of them. One tag that Raige saw over and over again was a simple doodle of a cat head—just a circle with two triangles for ears and an X for whiskers. It was always accompanied by a line of writing, which Raige couldn’t read.
After he’d seen them enough times to recognize them and wonder, Raige asked Bobcat about them, thinking they were maybe a Cat++ thing.
Oh, no, it’s a NiuCat. Nothing to do with us— well, as far as I know, anyway.
Raige’s puzzlement must have showed, because Bobcat continued, Someone stole the code for a failed community mental health program I was involved with a few years back— a sort of anonymous tip line for children. A cat was its avatar; the creators thought that would make it more endearing. Something about Bobcat’s tone gave Raige the impression that he didn’t entirely agree or approve.
“So… like McGruff the Crime Dog?” And when Bobcat looked blank, he explained.
Yes, quite like that. Regardless, the security team failed, the program was hacked within a week and shut down, and within a few months, these started appearing. I presume the original programming got repurposed. That writing you see next to it? It always reads the same thing: “NiuCat keeps your secrets.”
“I’m sorry?”
It’s interactive. You tell NiuCat a secret, and it responds accordingly. You can play with it, if you like; I have to visit a friend of mine in this building anyway, and B1AC doesn’t care for hominids.
Raige tugged at his bangs. He felt stupid even asking, but hey, this was a place where buildings swaying was considered a normal, okay thing. “It’s not… dangerous, is it?”
Not to you. Since you aren’t a citizen of the League, nor do you have an implant, any information the NiuCat gathers about you can’t be used for financial purposes, nor can it install malware into your system.
Jeez. “Well, I mean, that’s good, but I didn’t mean the graffiti, I meant, just… leaving me here. Alone.”
It should only be a few minutes, and with respect, you aren’t M.D., so I’m not worried you— then Bobcat realized what he meant and his mental voice abruptly sounded appalled. Oh! Oh, no, no, physical violence is not an accepted social norm here! It would be… (and here Raige could feel him searching for words) unthinkable. Admittedly, if you had any sort of electronic device on your person, I’d never leave you alone, but since you don’t, you should be perfectly safe.
Raige had already left his cell phone, Gameboy, and debit card in Bobcat’s black box when he’d arrived, so that was that. After a quick couple of courtesies and an order not to venture too far, Bobcat entered the building, leaving Raige on his own in Fluji Super-City. Apparently tourists weren’t uncommon here; nobody gave him a second look.
Raige looked at the NiuCat. Was he just supposed to whisper to it or something? It looked like nothing more than glow paint on a wall.
No, wait… it wasn’t quite paint…
Raige leaned forward to get a closer look, and the graffiti lit up. The simple cat head grew little dot eyes, then a circle for a body, with five lines for legs and tail, all in the same simple child’s drawing style. It walked over, and a bubble came from its X mouth, filled with writing he couldn’t read and a blinking cursor at the left.
Raige leaned closer, and as he did, a little of the speech bubble disappeared under his shadow. It was light! He looked around, but didn’t see any obvious projector, and when he waved his hands around, the graffiti adjusted itself so his shadow wouldn’t block it the same way. Maybe there were multiple projectors? Hidden ones? It’d make some sense if the graffiti wasn’t supposed to be there.
Hesitantly, he reached forward to touch the cursor. Immediately the bubble disappeared, replaced by a blank one. NiuCat sat, waiting patiently, with only idle blinks and sways of its tail tip to show it was still active.
Clearly, it was very obvious to a native what to do, but it took Raige a little while to figure out that he could write in the bubble with his finger. It took him a little longer to realize the NiuCat didn’t know English or the Roman alphabet and kept trying to correct the letters into local ones. It must’ve thought he had the worst handwriting ever.
Finally, Raige gave up writing anything. Besides, now he was curious. He touched the NiuCat instead.
Instantly, it came to life, arching under his hand, its little pinprick eyes turning into closed slanted lines of content. The lines around its throat vibrated. It was purring!
Delighted, Raige spent a good few minutes petting the NiuCat. It proved to be pretty clever, letting him scratch its ears and under his chin, batting at him if he tried to pat its tummy. When he put his finger to the wall and dragged it across, the NiuCat chased it like a string. Though it was just a few simple orange lines, it moved surprisingly realistically. Was this part of the original programming, Raige wondered, or had some playful hacker put it in?
Eventually, he ran out of ways to play with the NiuCat and it sat down again. Three new speech bubbles appeared: one contained what looked like a letter in the local alphabet, another contained a stick figure person, and the final one showed an ear. It was asking if he wanted to write, draw, or say, his secret, he realized.
Raige looked over his shoulder. Behind him, people strode back and forth—mostly human, some cats, a couple dogs that looked like miniature yellow huskies. Apparently some things were universal; all gave the exact same air of hurried business commuters as on Vaygo, and all completely ignored him. If the NiuCat didn’t know the Roman alphabet, surely none of them would either, nor would they care. And they certainly weren’t ever likely to see Raige again. He was surrounded by people, but in a way, he also had absolute privacy.
Remembering the way the NiuCat had responded to him trying to write in English, Raige picked the stick figure. When the little bubbles disappeared, replaced by the big blank one again, Raige wrote in it with his finger:
I don’t think my dad likes me very much.
This time, the NiuCat made no corrections. The words stayed there, dark shadows in the light graffiti. Raige looked at it and felt his throat close up. Somehow, having it in writing, out of the back of his head, made it real.
The NiuCat stood up. Three little speech bubbles appeared above its head, one with a happy cat face, one sad, one angry. Raige wasn’t sure if it was asking about the secret or him, but either way, he touched the sad face.
The NiuCat’s simple doodle face looked sad too. It offered itself for petting, and Raige scritched at the root of its tail. Its little throat lines vibrated, and Raige sniffed.
More speech bubbles appeared—one had a happy NiuCat, with a little pulsing oblong in its chest that Raige eventually realized stood for its heart, being pet just as Raige was petting it. Another showed a sad human face turning into a happy one, and finally there was a NiuCat face, its little X whiskers large and blinking.
It took a little puzzling, but Raige finally figured it out. The X wasn’t just whiskers, but a symbol that the NiuCat’s lips were sealed. The message roughly boiled down to, “Feel better soon! NiuCat loves you, and NiuCat keeps your secrets!”
Raige still wasn’t sure if NiuCat was a sapient program or whatever Bobcat’s world’s equivalent of a chat bot was, but he decided it didn’t really matter. Even if it didn’t or couldn’t understand him, it was trying to comfort him, and maybe that was enough. Wiping at his tears, he pet the NiuCat until Bobcat came back.
My apologies; that took longer than I expected, but… Raige, are you all right?
Raige sniffed again. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.” And as he said it, he realized he was. He felt lighter, relieved that he’d told somebody, even just the NiuCat. Now the secret wasn’t festering silently inside him. He glanced at the graffiti, but it'd reverted to its original form, and his secret was gone. “What did B1AC say?”
For a moment, he thought Bobcat might press for details, but after a searching look, it passed. Oh, she had many cutting things to say, but our construct rights embassy might be able to supply legal assistance. Are you hungry? I can tell you over dinner.
That sounded fine, and Raige found himself eating some kind of synthetic sashimi with soup and salad as Bobcat discussed the vagaries of M.D.’s upcoming legal case. And even though everything was scary and up in the air, he realized he felt a little more ready to take it on.
Maybe the NiuCat was still doing what it’d been created to do.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-28 12:31 am (UTC)Now I want to meet a NiuCat. If they really are friendly, of course. I wonder if the art has texture, or at least tangibility? A faint electrical fzzzz fizzle to the fingertips, a high-frequency vibration, in the shape(s) sketched out? Hmm. High tech Braillekitty!
no subject
Date: 2018-08-28 01:05 am (UTC)And I admit, I'm tempted to try and make a super-simple text-only web version, with the NiuCat itself and its bubbles being made of ASCII characters, but I can't program for the life of me and am kinda afraid of trying.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-28 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-28 09:49 am (UTC)