Birds Of A Feather, Chapter 1.19

1.19

+++

Time had managed to sneak up on me. It felt like I’d blinked and it was now nearly six in the afternoon. Indeed, the only reason that it didn’t pass me by completely was because of the feeling I’d gotten that my attention would soon be required elsewhere.

Since I wasn’t in a position where my attention was needed, I rose from my recently created lounging chair, and moved straight over to the space that lift had once occupied.

It was gone now. In its place was a very steep set of stairs, which led straight up to a thin, faintly-glowing, pale barrier of blue-purple plasma.

I did not take the steps. I simply jumped straight upwards, the cold plasma rippling around my form as I did. After several hours of breathing clean air, Night City’s pollution hit my tongue like I’d just taken a bite of a chocolate chip cookie only to discover it had always been raisins.

Remarkably unpleasant.

Still, needs must.

I opened the flap of the enclosure just as a small delivery van turned around the corner. It was dark out, the last stages of twilight already fading. Neon lit the city in buzzing colour, but there was a feeling in the air that buzzed even stronger.

I looked up at the sky. It seemed normal, but I could See the building fury that had barely even begun to charge the air.

A storm was coming. Not tonight, but it would be soon, and it would be potent.

Hmm.

Good thing I don’t have to leave this place any time soon.

My head turned back to the delivery van as it pulled into the driveway, immediately turning left to park on the second spot. I started walking over as a man got out, who, if his appearance was any indication, was probably related to the old woman at the shop.

“You are very punctual.” I said, my voice just loud enough to reach him over the noise of the rest of the city. “Quite good.”

“The delivery was for six.” The man said.

He was nervous, but he was doing a fairly good job of not showing it. Not perfectly, though. I could see the signs even without the Chozo Bullshit.

He opened the side door of the van, revealing the contents. It was, I noted, all wrapped up already, packed up in a few disposable bags. “It’s a big order. Would you like to go through the bags?”

The order was complete, and tampering had not taken place. A brief look at the bags provided only evidence for that. “It is not necessary.” I said. “I can tell that the full order has been gathered.”

The question of ‘How’ was pretty clear on his face, but he didn’t actually ask it. “Alright. In that case, the only thing left is to pass it on...” He paused for a moment, before looking at the sheer number of bags. “Do you need any help carrying all of that?”

It was genuine, too. How rare! “I shall be quite fine.” I said, reaching into the van. I had to be a bit careful with my talons, but I threaded my fingers through the handles of the bags before lifting them up. The plastic creaked, but it held, as I knew it would.

I pulled back, nodded to the man. “My thanks. Do take care.”

“... Sure?” He said, sounding confused.

I turned around, and walked back to the flap. I heard the rush of air as he shook his head, and then the van door close a moment after that. The van was just reversing out as I closed the flap and let it lock behind me.

I took the stairs going back down. Were I not carrying all this fragile plastic, I would have just let myself fall, but I was, and if I had done that, I’d been cleaning up a mess.

It was also nice to breathe clean air again.

I moved over to the table, and I promptly set it all down.

Alright.

I had spent no small amount of money acquiring all of this, and I intended to make sure it was worth every single Eddie.

Now to get it all cleaned up.

First things first, the cold stuff.

At the top of the list was, of course, meat.

Night City did have some farms that kept animals, but these were relatively rare. Most of them required Nomad support getting them here, and protecting the animals and their product was quite an effort. The most common animals were chicken, pigs, and goats, with cows and sheep being available but quite rare, and pretty much everything else being either very high on the list of specialty, or novelty. I had ordered a cut of every different type they’d had, and it was the rarer animals especially that had cut into my budget so much.

Worth it, though? Absolutely.

I pulled the different cuts out, examining them all. They were all still frozen and wrapped up, but the cuts were well done, they were clean, and contamination had been kept to the minimum possible in this city.

That wasn’t zero, mind, but it was pretty good nonetheless.

I put all but one of them in the freezer, stacking them carefully, before closing it.

Next, other cold products. Dairy products such as milk and cheese, butter, some sauces that were better cold, ingredients that would otherwise go off... all sorts of random things. The quantity of any given item was low, but the breadth of them made up for it.

After that? Vegetables. Fruits. Night City’s Rooftop Gardens were slowly going the way of the dodo as Continental Brands continued to try and kill off any competition (Often literally.), but there were still a few around, holding on stubbornly. Again, the supply was limited, but the variety was expansive. This was the other major cost.

Everything else was stuff that didn’t need to be in the fridge. Seasonings and condiments, a loaf of bread, cooking oils, vinegar, random things like that.

I’d spent more money in a single day than most people on even luxury lifestyles would spend in a month, but it was hardly going to be an ongoing cost, so it was fine.

Now it was time to enjoy what I’d acquired.

The cut of meat I’d left out was steak, from a real cow even. It hadn’t been out of the freezer for long, so it was still in the process of defrosting, but that wasn’t big of a hurdle.

I reached out, and picked up one of the knives I’d had fabricated earlier. Feeling a bit showy, I twirled it in my hand, its monomolecular edge glinting in the light.

I cut the steak out of its sealing, before slicing off a single smaller piece of it. That piece, I push to the side, sending a mental command to the Nanofactories to handle. The nanomachines shortly wrap it up in sealed plastic, and when they’re done, I put it in the freezer with the rest of the meat.

But as for the rest of this cut?

That’s dinner.

+++

It was a bit finicky to get the steak to cook while it was defrosting, but finicky was something that I could manage fairly easily in this body with these abilities.

I’d elected to spring for something that I enjoyed, so while I was minding the steak, I also started preparing some sauce, bringing out some of the ingredients I’d bought. For most of the ingredients, I’d also ended up cutting out small parts of them before putting them back in storage, just so that I didn’t end up using my entire current supply.

The sauce was simple diane sauce. It came out better than I’d expected, honestly, with only the faint taste of radioactive materials and trace toxic waste that had accumulated in the ingredients to drag it down.

But that was barely even a concern for the Humans, and in the face of biology, it was only worth mentioning for how it impacted the taste.

And, if I was being completely honest...

I cut a small slice of the steak, and dipped it into the pale orange sauce. Into my beak it went, and I rolled it over with my tongue, savouring it for a moment before swallowing it whole.

It kind of made it pop? I wouldn’t seek it out, but it was certainly very... novel.

Which checked out, honestly. Zebes was about a billion times worse even on its best days, and the Chozo had seen no problem living there.

I cut another slice, and kept eating.

+++

When I was done eating, I still had a decent amount of sauce left over. I ended up using my fork to scrape it off the plate, because it was still quite tasty.

It was... a strange experience to not have lips anymore. My beak was solid, not really stretching or deforming. It certainly made it a bit difficult to clean up the fork, but my tongue was surprisingly flexible, so it worked out in the end.

For the rest of, I simply had the nanites clear it up. I still did not have much in the way of spare water, and recycling the matter was of greater importance regardless.

By that point, however, it was approaching eight at night, and while I probably could have kept going if I had to, the truth of the matter was that I was also at a point where most of my next steps were going to be spent just waiting for things to happen.

As such, I elected to actually set up a spot to rest. I didn’t actually need one. I could sleep in a wooden chair and I wouldn’t have been any worse for the wear. However, I valued my comfort, and hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon weren’t exactly in short supply, so pretty much any organic compounds were easily synthesized.

I wasn’t going to skimp if I didn’t have to.

I ended up spending an hour throwing an entire room together. A few plasma barriers kept the sound out, leaving the fusion reactor and air purification system seemingly quiet. Of course, that prompted me to set up my own alarm systems that would make very certain that nobody and nothing would sneak in, regardless of feeling that it wouldn’t happen.

I ended up settling on a recliner for sleeping. It was significantly easier to adapt to my biology. A bed would work, but...

Well, the talons make things a little difficult. It was easier to just design around that problem from the start.

Even then, it was another half an hour before I truly went to go and actually sleep. I spent the entire time programming the Nanofactories with a series of commands, so that they could continue working while I was resting. When I woke up, they’d be most of the way done, and I could move on to other matters entirely.

The recliner looked like it had come straight out of a scifi show, but it was perfectly acceptable as I settled into it.

It took a bit of shifting around in order to change the recliner’s position until I found exactly the right arrangement for my comfort, but that was that.

For a moment, I simply laid there, head resting against the top of the recliner.

My hands raised, and I looked at them. Four digits, hands covered in layered scales with tough skin between them, providing durability while preserving flexibility. The same scales covered most of my forearms, until the downfeathers took over after my elbows.

It was literally alien, but I was more at home in this skin than I’d ever been as a Human...

I made a mental note, and then activated an Autgent to make an actual note, too. At some point, I was going to have to examine my feelings, come to terms with the entirety of what’s happened to me, with what I’ve ended up leaving behind... Just not now.

I tucked my hands into my robes, threading them together as I relaxed. Above, the lights dimmed, and I closed my eyes.

Now was the time to sleep.