{"id":6064,"date":"2025-07-10T13:56:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T20:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/starsreach.com\/another-working-day-part-three\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T13:13:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T21:13:56","slug":"another-working-day-part-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starsreach.com\/pt\/another-working-day-part-three\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Working Day – PART THREE"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few brave warships had chased the asteroid and opened fire after the tragedy on the space station. Their fire did nothing. If anything, each impact made the artifact\u2019s mesh glow brighter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMa\u2019am\u2026 we <\/span>have<\/span><\/i> to stop it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bunten was pacing again. \u201cWhat if we give the location to a different Clave member?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Assistant was horrified. \u201cOh no, ma\u2019am! I don\u2019t think we can trust the Clave, not at all? I\u2019ve been reading the files, and\u2026 those artifacts, they\u2019re <\/span>dangerous?\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Bunten snorted. She grabbed the glowing yellow tesseract and tossed it to the Assistant. \u201cHold it to your head, kid.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Tentatively, the Assistant did as she was told. The yellow construct deformed around her horns and skull. It did sound like the ocean. In fact, there were whispers in the ocean. Susurrant whispers she could almost parse. She felt like a child who had her first glimpse of the worlds beyond the stars, and felt intensely <\/span>curious<\/span><\/i>. If she just listened more closely, the shadowy sibilance would senesce into silence and surface sense out of the sizzle and sassafras sassy syntaxy solubility salsa \u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

Bunten pulled the artifact from her head. She yearned for more, but Bunten set it down on the desk gently.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat was\u2026\u201d The Assistant searched for words. \u201cBeautiful. But also like drowning in very deep water?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDanger is relative,\u201d Bunten said. \u201cThis is a level seven artifact. Most it\u2019ll do is maybe persuade you that you have a direct channel to a higher level of reality, and that\u2019ll fade after a day or two, though you might have lingering effects like an ayahuasca trip. The asteroid \u2013 it might be Stage V or even Stage VI by now, but it\u2019s still only a level two. It\u2019s big, but they probably have access to enough Old One tech to communicate with it or redirect it. The Clave might accidentally let it eat a starbase or something, but it can\u2019t grow if they\u2019re studying it somewhere out in empty space and they restrain it. Better contained than loose.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOnly level two? But it\u2019s singing\u2026 and maybe talking? Isn\u2019t it aware?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bunten shrugged and pointed at her yellow tesseract. \u201cThis here is probably intelligent too. And it was talking to you just now \u2013 in a language we can\u2019t quite understand. I\u2019m much more worried about the alien artifacts we can\u2019t understand than the ones that like show tunes.\u201d She quirked a grin. \u201cIt\u2019s a loathsome habit, but it\u2019s one we humans understand.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou keep saying it\u2019s Stage V\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYes, it\u2019s growing. That\u2019s a stage of development. Once it reaches Stage X, it\u2019ll probably converse just like the hunter-killer that just left. <\/span>If<\/span><\/i> it\u2019s sane and not a berserker.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Assistant was thinking furiously. \u201cSo, it\u2019s\u2026 it\u2019s a hungry baby. And it\u2019s moving intentionally, like it\u2019s <\/span>curious<\/span><\/i>.\u201d <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>She thought about the sense of an endless ocean and how she had felt like wading into the tesseract and losing herself under its waves. \u201cWhat if we can offer it an ocean to walk into?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bunten looked at her with sharp interest. \u201cWhat are you thinking, Assistant?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She reached for the datapad and the earbuds. \u201cI was doing some research\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bunten gestured impatiently for her to go on.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a part of the job I really enjoy? And what you just said has me thinking\u2026 what if we give it something to be curious about?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

# # #<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It took only a few hours to get the beacons lined up right. The Assistant programmed the playlists herself. She even spent the time to do some remixes, blending in Skwatchi slam poetry with \u201cHello Dolly!\u201d She fired that last one on a trajectory that doomed it.<\/span><\/p>\n

She felt uneasy about drowning a baby. But baby monsters are still monsters, right? And she was becoming aware that there were a lot more kinds of monsters in the world than she ever knew.<\/span><\/p>\n

The whole Garden watched breathlessly as the asteroid diverted course to follow the novelty the beacons offered. Clave and Warden vessels chased it fruitlessly across the spaceways as it avoided Pyromycis altogether, chasing the signature songs from the second acts.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was one day more before all that jazz lured the Artifact through the local sector, and across the event horizon of a black hole.<\/span><\/p>\n

It went down burbling songs from Cats, defying gravity to the very end.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

# # #<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Assistant watched Bunten sag back on the couch and wave at the NewsNet screen to turn it off. The reporters had moved on from saying anything positive about the asteroid\u2019s demise, and instead were full of recriminations against the government for having failed to save enough lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bunten looked over at the Assistant, apologetic. \u201cI\u2019m sorry. I know I was riding you hard today. It gets to me, sometimes.\u201d She waved again, and suddenly show tunes were playing quietly on speakers in the room.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s understandable, ma\u2019am,\u201d the Assistant said. She had kicked her shoes off, and was lounging on the other couch. She was indulging in a cold compress on her forehead, draped across her horns.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo, listen. You did good today.\u201d Bunten looked down. \u201cAnd you had some fresh ideas.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThank you, ma\u2019am.\u201d She still felt enervated, almost hollow, from the rush that her idea had worked. Now she felt drained, like a vessel ready to be filled. \u201cSorry about the musical theater.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bunten smiled tiredly. \u201cI\u2019ll never admit it in public, but I have loathsome habits myself sometimes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYes, ma\u2019am.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI know today was hard. Our job. Our job is <\/span>secrets. <\/span><\/i>We learn secrets, and we keep secrets, and our job isn\u2019t to save one planet,\u201d Bunten said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Assistant slowly sat up, and looked into the eyes of her boss, a woman who bore many burdens.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not,\u201d the Assistant said. She felt more sure of herself, and for once, it didn\u2019t come out as a question.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Bunten said. \u201cIt\u2019s to save <\/span>all<\/span><\/i> of them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll the planets\u2026\u201d the Assistant breathed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo, girl.\u201d Bunten smiled wistfully at her. \u201cAll the people. And we are going to fail every damn day at it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe did okay today.\u201d But even with her eyes closed, all the Assistant could see was that child\u2019s drawing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou say that now. But you need to understand. We\u2019re just bureaucrats, really. Armed with regulations and paperwork. Rules from on high that don\u2019t make any sense, and long days averting catastrophes that you can only see by parsing spreadsheets. We do our jobs by stamping forms and approving line items, fining and horse-trading and favors. The days are long. Some are like today. Most aren\u2019t. And the pay sucks. And no one will ever like you for it, because every single thing you do will be a trade-off.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Assistant thought about that, and for some reason she felt <\/span>proud<\/span><\/i> of that. \u201cAbout that, ma\u2019am? If I did really well today\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShut up. No, you cannot have a fucking raise. You can\u2019t even catch an escaped space otter.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Assistant grinned ruefully. \u201cHad to ask!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There came a pounding at the door, and frenetic buzzing. The door screen activated, and the Assistant saw a flustered group of Elioni. They were worked up about something. She could hear them shouting something about cultural insensitivity, memory, and cats. And how offensive it all was, and apologies were demanded!<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh<\/span><\/i>, she thought. <\/span>Cats. Right.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cBack to work, I guess!\u201d the Assistant said, and grinned at her boss.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bunten grinned back.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo, before we let them in,\u201d Bunten said. \u201cFaceless bureaucrat\u2026 tell me your name.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":217806712,"featured_media":6028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1462,1457],"tags":[259755017],"class_list":["post-6064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-lore-posts","tag-lore"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/starsreach.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/AWD_Blackhole_v2.webp","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdLeGO-1zO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starsreach.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starsreach.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starsreach.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starsreach.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/217806712"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starsreach.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starsreach.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starsreach.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starsreach.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starsreach.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starsreach.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}