Baby Steps

Familiar, harsh orange light illuminated Second Silence's chamber as she scrolled through a list of documents on the holographic screen in front of her. A living block movement notice, the results of a public poll on nectar distribution, a report on the status of her city's irrigation systems, a formal letter regarding her behavior. Unread messages, complaints, and other communications left behind to her by her citizens that she'd never bothered to open. She had no interest in reading them—they had long outlived their function and she surmised many of them would make for unpleasant reading—but there was not much else to do to pass the time but browse and organize the data in her own systems. As she went, she took little time to decide many of them were garbage based on their subject labels alone, and wiped them without a second thought. It was boring, tedious work, but it was all she had. She only had herself to thank for that, and the agonizingly slow rate at which her facilities degraded.

Just as one of the reports in the long list of records caught her attention, the bright green glow of an alert she was all too familiar with lit in the corner of her screen and stung in her mind. In a fraction of a moment, both the report and the greater task at hand had left her mind entirely.

Another new message from Gaze. Silence was surprised to see another so soon—it had only been a couple of cycles since their last. She hung in place for a moment as she processed the sudden disruption and the sinking feeling that spread like wildfire through her neurons. Whether it was guilt, fear, regret, disdain, or something else entirely, she wasn't sure. As well as she knew she'd much rather prefer to treat her senior's messages with the same indifference as her citizens', she couldn't find the strength. It was torture, not to know.

Uneasily, but impatient, she opened their communication channel. At the bottom of the screen, she was greeted by a prerecorded video message. That was... new. She couldn't recall the last time Gaze had chosen to communicate with her in that manner—she knew they tended to prefer the formality of plain text. Before she allowed herself to speculate a negative reason, she reminded herself of the last few messages she'd received from them: all lighthearted reports on the interesting things they'd seen or thought about that reminded them of her. Curiously, though not without hesitance, she let the video roll on another screen.

Gaze at Ceaseless Light leaned back into the frame as the video began, taking a moment to evaluate whether their Overseer's camera was capturing the appropriate part of the room. It was set at an unusually high angle, pointed as such to capture most of the floor—it made for a slightly awkward view of Gaze themself, but the assortment of knick-knacks and rubbish covering the tile below made it clear that the Iterator wasn't the intended focus of the recording.

"I suppose this is good enough," they thought out loud as they glanced at something just out of frame. They recomposed themself, then spoke into the camera.

"Top of the cycle, Silence~!" they chimed jokingly, suddenly with much more volume and cheer in their voice. Silence was unsure whether it was feigned. "You must've already seen the photos I sent you on the subject, but I wanted to take the time to record a short video to report on some of the new, more interesting things I've found in my little visitor's extended stay. I thought you might appreciate a thorough demonstration..." They spoke the last few words with an audible grin as they began looking around the portion of the floor below them that was out of the camera's frame, before bending down for a quick moment to pick something up. When their puppet reemerged into view, they supported a moderately-sized, pale blue animal with both arms. Silence remembered the critter from the photos Gaze had sent her before, the first time it wandered into their can. It let out an inquisitive Chrrp? as if to question why it had been interrupted in the middle of whatever it had been doing before, but didn't seem discontent with the fact.

"Our friend here is responsible for the mess you're currently observing on my floor. At first, I considered these little gifts to be nothing more than... charmingly odd disruptions, I suppose, but take a look at the things it's brought me." With a quick motion of their hand, they sent a particular few of the objects flying towards the camera for Silence to view in greater detail.

A sharp fragment of rebar, wrapped with red ribbon on one end, much like others Silence had observed the Scavengers on her premises carrying through her Overseers. Then, the lime green eye of an Overseer, which evidently belonged to one of Gaze's before it had suffered enough damage to be deactivated. Thirdly, the mask of a Vulture, its tusks carved in a peculiar and clearly intentional manner. She recognized this one as the same specimen Gaze had sent an image of to her several cycles prior.

As the objects hovered beside Gaze, their visitor reached out a paw to swipe playfully at them, though it didn't seem interested in taking any of them for itself.

"It took me... an embarrassingly long amount of time to piece together, but the theme is clear, I think. These are all items the Scavengers are partial to, and my little friend is trying to trade them with me as I've seen others do with the Scavengers before. I suppose it's interested in my pearls, just to bring back to the Scavengers to continue trading with. A couple cycles back, I wiped the contents of a pearl I no longer had any use for and gave it to it in return, and it seemed satisfied with that, at least. Here," they paused to pick up another pearl off the floor and clear it, then handed it to the Slugcat, who hesitated to accept the gift with wide eyes pointed at Gaze. After Gaze reassured it was allowed to take it and stuffed the pearl into its paws, it chittered in delight and began to trace the surface of the pearl with its small fingers. Silence stifled a soft laugh as she watched the animal's captivated expression.

"It gets weirder, though!" Gaze continued, their face alight. "Previously, I thought the Scavengers might be the only species within our local group's facilities intelligent enough to craft their own tools. This spear, though, with the firecracker plants stuffed between the ribbon? I watched it make this, here in my chamber." They turned around and gently let the Slugcat down as they lowered their puppet closer to the floor. It leaped out of their arms and stared back blankly. "Go on, show her what you did!" Silence noticed the Mark of Communication flicker dimly over the creature's head as it stood still for a moment before turning to gather the necessary objects strewn across the floor and found herself amused by the thought that Gaze was endeared enough by it to want for it to understand them. It picked through the rubbish around it carefully, selecting a piece of rebar from several after apparently deeming it the most appropriate length of the bunch. Once it had found what it needed, it laid its choices out on the ground in front of Gaze, who motioned for their Overseer to adjust its position closer for a better look at what was about to happen.

First, the Slugcat laid the long scrap of ribbon out neatly on the ground. It followed by picking apart the volatile nuts from the cherrybombs it had gathered and placing them evenly along the bright red ribbon. Then it reached for the rebar, positioned its tip on one end of the ribbon, tucked that end around it, and rolled it nearly to the end to wrap it neatly. Finally, it tucked the loose bit of ribbon through the wrapped section to secure it. Silence stood in awe at the screen in front of her, fixated on the intricacy of the Slugcat's motions. It finished its work by tugging on the long bit of ribbon with its teeth to ensure it wouldn't come loose, then proudly displayed it with both hands to Gaze, who in turn motioned for it to show it to the camera instead.

"Isn't that fascinating?" they said, leaning back into the frame. "I've never seen a member of its species do anything like that before. I can only guess it learned how from the Scavengers, but regardless I'm starting to think they're a brighter bunch than I initially thought. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the matter!"

They turned their face away from the camera once more to pet the Slugcat gently on its head, and it leaned into their palm. The video continued to roll for another quiet moment until Gaze reached back for their Overseer to end it.

"Hope you're well," they wished with a final, hopeful smile, then cut the video.

Silence hovered in place as she considered what she'd seen, and found herself idly playing with one of her pearls in the same manner the Slugcat had.

I'm not surprised Gaze underestimated them. She chuckled quietly to herself. I don't think they ever paid much mind to even the Scavengers, so of course this comes as a surprise to them. She had to admit, though, that the level of intricacy and attention to detail demonstrated by Gaze's friend was a shock to her too. Perhaps she hadn't given them the credit as a species they deserved either. She made a note to send her Overseers after footage of them more often.

Though... she had to wonder how much Gaze truly cared. It was difficult for her to believe, despite all she'd observed in the video, that their interest was genuine.

Silence let her pearl drift back into its place in the ring of others around her.

Without any further thought on the matter, she resumed the work their message had stolen far more than enough of her time from.