Work Text:
The sesame cat-cake sat on the keyboard and looked at Aventurine reproachfully. Its eyes were large and luminous, and as Aventurine had cause to observe in the past, these eyes could hold a lot of reproach.
“I just need a little more time,” Aventurine said, with a self-deprecating smile.
Behind the cat-cake, the computer screen filled up with numbers. The cursor moved down to the next line.
Sesame meowed at him. Aventurine’s Synesthesia Beacon helpfully translated:
'(Dr. Ratio says you’ll get migraines again if you don’t rest! You have to drink lots of fluids, take regular breaks, and maintain a healthy sleep schedule!)'
“He’s not actually a medical doctor,” Aventurine said.
The cat-cake meowed disapprovingly.
'(Credentialism is a faulty method of judging competence, and that was an ad hominem attack! Also, Dr. Ratio has multiple medical degrees.)'
There were 4,431 emails in Aventurine’s inbox that he still needed to read (and that didn't count the documents and contracts he needed to review—dying had really set back his schedule) and he had been in the process of drafting a mesasage. He really didn't have time for this, and it wasn't even one in the morning yet. From experience, though, he knew it was no use trying to get a cat-cake off of a keyboard, or anything else. It hurt their feelings; they didn't do well with rejection.
Aventurine sighed. “Just let me send one last message, and then I’ll be good.”
The doctor had known exactly what he was doing when he’d brought over (taken in? adopted?) the cat-cakes; now he had a way to keep an eye on Aventurine even when he was researching off-world. Through long discussion, the doctor had managed to convince some of the cat-cakes that recognition by a superior being was meaningless compared with contributing to the betterment of people’s lives all over the cosmos; some of them had taken to the idea with a disturbing amount of passion. This had apparently caused a schism among the cat-cakes that had produced multiple lengthy debates and theses, but more relevantly to Aventurine, Sesame and two other cat-cakes had interpreted this to mean watching Aventurine’s health.
Sesame was pondering him words suspiciously. Then it stood up, its paws shifting on the keyboard, its left forepaws raised. Aventurine’s eyes widened when he saw which key its foot was over.
“Wait—“ He grabbed for the cat-cake, but it was too late.
The paw descended like a sword of Nihility. With the near instantaneous response and lack of network throttling afforded to the senior staff of the IPC, the screen responded with a success message.
1 minute and 13 seconds later, on Epsilon-XII:
Regina was grabbing a pre-dawn late breakfast when her phone rang. As a P38 member of the Strategic Investment Department, she was an expert at dealing with this kind of interruption, so she didn’t miss a beat, guzzling down the rest of her banana-flavored fully-balanced meal replacement (specifically focused to improve focus and productivity). At the same time, she took the call on speaker.
“Hello, sir?”
She’d known even without looking at the screen that it was Ashton, her P40 boss; Regina had set up separate sounds for all the people she worked with so that she could prioritize them appropriately. Also, he tended to make phone calls that could have been an email.
“I just got a request from high up a minute ago.” Ashton sounded a bit panicky. “I need you to take care of it.”
“I need to prep for the meeting with Ast Rickley’s agent,” Regina said, the very model of calm, professional poise. This was why she was on the fast-track to promotion.
“This is more important.”
Regina couldn’t help a gasp. The Rickley deal was going to make them millions. If something was more important than the Rickley deal, then that could only mean one thing: it was a request not just from high up, but way high up. The kind of person who could promote Regina with a snap of their fingers—maybe she could skip over P39, go right to P40, buy herself her first Fleming bond, even afford an apartment with a view.
“Check your email,” Ashton said, interrupting her fantasies. “I pasted you the request.”
She checked her messages and found Ashton’s email. The request began straightforwardly enough by asking for a compilation of luxury cat trees for sale, with price being no object—all right, it was a bit odd that they were pivoting to cat tree market research, but the higher-ups probably had their vision. The stranger part was the rest of the message…
It took up multiple screens, consisting of a bunch of repeated letters, numbers, and then some gibberish combination of letters and punctuation marks. She scrolled up and down, reading it over.
Her mind churned. Cat trees. The repeated occurrence of the number 7, the string of apparently nonsense letters and punctuation marks at the end…
This had to be some kind of code. A test from above, to see who was smart enough to be promoted. Or who needed to be fired.
She smiled. No wonder Ashton had panicked and passed this onto her. Of course, Ashton would probably try to take the credit for her work, but she could figure out a way around that. She’d done it before.
There was no time to linger. She had to get to the office. As soon as possible, she had to figure out what ‘,................................. ' meant.