So, I called Brock and explained the whole ape issue. Suddenly, there the ship was over us. We couldn’t pull the Celi up a rope ladder, so Brock said something about a monkey barrel maneuver, and off the apes went, following the ship. There were more than we wanted to fight through.
We soon came to a very large estate. We knocked on the front door. I blurted “Marty” at the bot that answered the door. Turns out his name was actually Martin. He thought I was Widget though. He said Uncle Cosmo’s power cell was failing, and only Widget could help. And all the nanites were his “children” making him stay there. I got a bad feeling, so we excused ourselves and said we needed something from our ship first. We hightailed it back to Khefak Depot and asked my cousin Rennie to grab the family for a conversation about this estate we were fleeing from. You just never know if someone hears capital letters when you talk. We said we’d meet them for dinner.
The pasta dishes were my first of three clues something was wrong. My second was that I did not recognize anyone. My third was an accent I’d not heard often around here. Oh. Rennie got the Family. The Family turned out to be a nice group. They did say the Stately Manor we left behind was considered harmless. Maybe one of them will go do a welfare check.
We left Akiton soon after and used Drift to start the three-day trip back to Absalom Station– we did not want to be followed. I was very worried Cosmo was either lying (more) and wanted to put his mind or memories in Widget’s body, or steal Widget’s power cell. I’m upset, because if Cosmo had been truthful, we could have met and helped. As it is, I had to go through Widget’s memory to try and get the bits implanted by all the calls. They came back though. For one moment, as I was falling asleep, I remembered Future Widget, who couldn’t tell us much, but if Cosmo was in a similar situation, he’d already know we would sneak off with Widget since it already happened. I think. Did I mention I’m upset?
We got back to the station in the late evening. The Office of the Directorate had no one answering calls. Venn also apparently sleeps during the station’s designated night. I’m wondering how that works at all– where I’m from, if you want to keep clients, you answer when they call.
Anyway, Venn showed up for breakfast at least. The Celi wanted to experience eggs. Hope Venn didn’t mind. He suggested we head to Abollon next, if we were worried that we were being followed. I assured him we weren’t, but we’ll do as he suggests.
Especially after we walked through the promenade and saw a new pasta place being opened by ysoki. A few waved.