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#oh unrelated but i dropped my mac book on my foot two days ago and lettme tell ya that shit's heavy
canyouhearthelight · 5 years
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The Miys, Ch. 43
The one where Sophia’s administrator is officially hired, and an odd story about black cats features.
Or, “Sometimes the real world is as weird as fiction”
For all that I joked about books being my truest, most lasting love – after all, who still loves the same thing in their thirties that they loved when they were three? – life on the Ark kept me so busy that I was ashamed to admit I did not know where the archives were.  However, I was always willing to learn more about the ship and take the chance to meet new people on the way. As such, I tucked the promised tomes into a satchel and decided to walk there, using my datapad as a map. A little voice somewhere on processor four, where my conscience and good will toward people tended to be, told me that travelling on foot would give people the chance to see that I wasn’t afraid, despite what happened.  Maybe it would help make them less afraid.
That was three hours ago.  Both of my shoulders ached from swapping the bag of books back and forth over the course of my idiotic trek. I was sweating slightly, and somewhere along the way I decided that the ‘little voice’ at the beginning was not, in fact, my conscience or belief in people, but instead came from processor five, home of Bad Decisions. I was completely certain of this, because the same voice had been telling me for the past thirty minutes to burn the books anyway and just be done with it.
To my relief, my datapad indicated that the door in front of me was my destination. Unlike most common areas on the Ark, this door was not labelled in any way that a human could interpret.  Early on, Miys made it very clear that the doors were, in fact, marked by the architecture and gave back a specific echo when hit with a certain frequency – one that humans could neither hear nor create without technical assistance.  I took a moment to straighten my bearing and run a hand through my frazzled hair before approaching the den of my soon-to-be administrator.
Alistair Worthington was nowhere in sight, but what I did see compelled me to let out a confident and completely dignified squeak.  Books.  Hundreds and hundreds of real, tangible, paper books.  The smell of ink and glue invaded my lungs like the most intoxicating drug ever created.  I don’t know what I had been expecting when I imagined there being an ‘Archive’ on the ship, but this wasn’t it.
This was a library.  One like I hadn’t seen since I was a kid.  Every shred of exhaustion and frustration vanished from my body as I trailed my fingers gently over the spines on the shelves.  I honestly wanted to cry from the sheer sensation of being reunited with a long-lost friend.  You can keep your hymns, your prayers, and your sermons, I thought. This is the most religious experience of my life.
My reverie was shattered painfully by the sound of a throat being cleared behind me. “Miss, please don’t touch the – Oh. Councillor Reid.” Worthington’s face snapped from stern to surprised when I turned on him, not even bothering to wipe the tears from my face.
Without a word, I untangled myself from the satchel I had been carrying and held it out with one hand. When he just glanced at it in confusion, I shook it. “Your books. I promised I would bring them myself, and I try to always keep my word.”
After only a split second of additional hesitation, the man before me showed the only spec of emotion I had seen in our brief encounters by eagerly snatching the bag from me and digging through it like it held everything he ever wanted. Ah, I thought, arching a brow. So you are human, after all.
“There are two missing.” He actually sounded disappointed.
Shaking my head, I tried to wrap my Councillor bearing around me. “No, there aren’t.  Antoine Costa decided to keep Love in the Time of Cholera, since it was made here on the ship and the source does not negate the fact that it is his favorite book. Tyche Reid did agree to donate two of her graphic novels to the archive, but made a personal choice to keep Blankets, as is her right.”
With a sigh, he nodded in terse acceptance. “I suppose I can learn to live with that.”
“Archivist Worthington, there are fifteen books in that bag.  None of the books that were donated or reclaimed were found to have Baconist propaganda, so that is all of them beside the two which were kept by their rightful owners,” I pointed out in frustration. “Besides, I carried those down here, on foot.  It took me three hours. The least you can do is show an ounce of gratitude.”
He was clearly unimpressed, if the flat look he pointed at me was any indication. “For honoring our agreement and delivering them yourself, yes, I am grateful. However, I did not ask you to foolishly make that trek without the use of a transport, especially not when you are still recovering from your attack if I remember correctly. How you convinced your over-protective sister to even allow this – “
“Tyche does not ‘allow’ me to do anything, Mr. Worthington,” I cut him off icily. “I am a grown woman, and I am capable of making my own decisions.”
“That does not mean they are intelligent decisions, apparently,” he grumbled. “You clearly have more sense than this, I am baffled why you decided to walk down here.”
He had me there. After an awkward silence, I decided to change the subject. “Where did the rest of these come from?” I asked, running a finger along the edge of a shelf. “I know they aren’t confiscated.”
“I brought them from Earth, mostly,” he breathed with a nod. “Maybe three months before I arrived on the Ark, I stumbled across an old book store. Imagine my surprise when I saw that, somehow, it had not been broken into, the books not used for kindling.”
“You may as well have found Atlantis while you were at it,” I replied, not even half joking. In ten years, I had only found one or two books that were in sufficient condition to still read them, and more gutted and burned libraries than I wanted to remember.  Book were paper, paper made good kindling. Sadly, religious texts burned the best, since they were usually printed on thinner paper.  College textbooks were a close second.
Clearing his throat, he continued. “When I woke up on the Ark, I insisted that either the books come with me, or I go back to Earth.  Books are history, I explained.  And those who fail to learn from history…”
“Are doomed to repeat it,” I finished with a nod. “I completely agree, and I’m sure Tyche would agree with your determination.  She managed to talk Noah into bringing the pets and genetic samples of the wildlife.”
“It is an Ark,” he conceded. “Would be a shame if we left the fauna behind. They did not ruin our world, after all.” He glanced away with a familiar haunted look. We all had ghosts, it seemed. Shaking his head vigorously, he seemed to snap out of whatever memory he was stuck in. “I’m just glad she did not bring any actual mice.  They destroy books like nothing else.”
“No mice, just a cat,” I reassured him with a small smile.
“Ah, yes. Mac.” Worthington wrinkled his nose slightly. “A bit cliché, isn’t it? A witch having a black cat?”
“Ooo, someone never asked about the cat,” I sing-songed. “He’s shared, for starters. Mine, hers, and apparently the entire ship’s.  But he’s also part of a long-standing tradition, one that goes back further than I can probably tell you.  It’s unrelated to the witch thing, although that seems to be tradition, too.”
“Most people find black cats to be bad luck,” he sniffed, making it clear that ‘most people’ probably equated to ‘superstitious idiots’ in his mind.
I shook my head and chuckled. “Not my family, not by a long shot.  Black cats always seem to find us, and we always seem to have at least one.  No idea why, but I can’t remember a time when a woman in my family didn’t own a black cat.” A glance showed that the archivist was waiting expectantly. “When I was three years old, my family lived in California.  Tyche wasn’t even born yet.  Someone dumped two newborn kittens on our doorstep, a tabby and a black one. Smokey and Dragon.  Mom went that day and got the formula and bottles to nurse them, and we kept them until we had to move across country.  Then we were adopted by strays, first in Arkansas, then in Washington… When we moved back to Arkansas for the last time, not a week after we moved in, a gorgeous long-haired black tom showed up on our doorstep. Shadow. He was already grown, and half feral, but he always came back to our house.  Not long before he vanished for the last time, one of our other cats, Monster, had a litter of kittens.  Nearly every one was black.  The girl, Onyx, was our next black cat.  Then I went to college, Onyx died of a very venerable old age, and on my way to class one day, a kitten screamed at me from an engine block.  I fished him out, and that was the original Machiavelli.  Mac is his grandson, by the way.  Mac stayed with Tyche, and I ended up with first The Dread Pirate Timmy, and then Nicodemus. There were other cats, but always at least one black one.”
As I told the story, I had been walking along the edge of the room, trailing my fingers along the tops of and down the spines of the books.  I glanced over my shoulder to see Worthington’s head tilted and a strong look of thought on his features. “My family is heathens,” I clarified. “As far back as we have a family tree.  You have to look really hard to find any major Abrahamic religions in there, and there’s not a drop of noble blood in our veins unless you count the Vikings.”
“Vikings were quite noble,” he muttered, still lost in thought.
“Maybe that’s why we never bought into the whole ‘black cats are bad luck’ thing,” I shrugged. “Cats are cats. They eat vermin, they make good companions. Self-sufficient, not very needy. So. I need to know that you’ll get along well with Mac.”
“Wait.” He shook his head again before taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “What? Why would I need to get along with your cat?”
I turned to fully face him, wide grin on my face. “Because, Mr. Worthington,” I flicked the file toward him from my datapad with a flourish. “You, sir, are my new Administrator. Congratulations.”
Finally losing all his composure, he started sputtering. “You – you cannot be serious.  Did any others even apply?”
“Over a hundred, actually,” I confirmed, enjoying myself. “Forty made it past Xiomara Kalloe. Seventeen survived a second, deeper background check.” No need to mention Derek. “You, however, were the only one with a recommendation letter from my sister.”
“She doesn’t even like me,” he argued.
“Not in the criteria for the position, fortunately,” I explained. “And you’d be surprised.  You aren’t afraid of her, which is significantly more impressive than you seem to realize.”
“You have clearly never taught teenagers,” he responded wryly. “Nasty little shits, they can be.”
I continued, trying not to laugh. “You’re determined, which is something she understands. But probably the most important is that you were the first person who I encountered after what happened on Level One who didn’t treat me like either a hero or a helpless victim.  You saw me as a Councillor, expected me to act like one, and trusted my judgement.”
“I argued with you,” he pointed out.
“Do you not want the position?” I asked, arching a brow at him. He stopped arguing. “Even the fact that you argued with me is a point in your favor, not against it. You argued reasonably, logically. The disagreement was not with me personally, you were simply trying to get me to understand both sides of the debate.  I’m not infallible, I’m human. I can be wrong, and today proves it.  I can’t have someone assisting me who will agree to whatever I say just because I’m the one saying it. That way lies madness, despots, and the End.”
“I was really the best candidate?” he asked, still skeptical.
“I wasn’t part of the deliberations, so I can’t answer that honestly. But I do know that you were the one that my sister and I most approved of, based on what we knew of you.  And the Council agreed on your appointment unanimously. Which means Grey Hodenson also decided, after what I understand was weeks of deliberation, that you were the best for the position.  If that does not speak volumes as to your qualifications, I really don’t know what else would.”
“Huh.”
“Like I said, Administrator Worthington, congratulations.”
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