Lucy Rides Again (191)

PSI-1

Calliope scooped Lucy out of the maximum security baby prison in the dining room. “Hey. You having fun in jail? Wanna come hang out with Maggie and the puppy dog instead? We’re gonna consume the flesh of our enemies.”

“Ma-ma-ma!” Lucy replied, followed by a long string of syllables, presumably about her prison stay.

“Ya know, we heard what the dog thinks. I wonder what you think?”

Erik peeked out of the kitchen doorway and waved to Lucy. “I probably can’t get it on purpose, Calliope, but if I ever hear anything on random, I’ll let you know.”

“Cool. Hey, Lucy, say, ‘Hi, Erik!’” Calliope demonstrated waving for her.

Lucy managed a tiny wave and said, “Hah!”

Erik grinned. “Hi, Coconut!” He opened his arms, offering to take her.

He decided, staggering into the kitchen with the heavy bundle, that they really needed a new Lu-ambulator.

———

“Smallest Subsidiary Caretaker, I get that you’re trying to help out here, but you really need to work on your upper body strength, okay? Like, you need to spend fifteen to twenty minutes a day pulling yourself up on the furniture at least. You are not comfy.

“Mama, as I was trying to explain before we were so rudely interrupted, you do not have the authority to leave me in a box that I can’t get out of, toys or no toys. I mean, am I the center of the universe or not? You guys need to step it up! I got places to go!

“Hey. Who the hell is that?”

The small goddess beheld a huge, dark figure crowding up most of the Foodspace. It had a shiny head and big white teeth.

Generally speaking, arms, legs and a head meant a person. There was a size threshold, beneath which a new object was usually a toy, but that red thing they put in the God Box with her sometimes was under the threshold and not a very good toy, if that was what it was supposed to be. The science was murky, she was still running experiments. The red thing had its own agenda and it was always stealing her other toys. It seemed to have limited powers of speech, but she could never understand what the hell it was saying. It made itself known by crying and grabbing. The other people seemed to think it was almost as fascinating and adorable as she was, which unsettled her.

At least it wasn’t big enough to pick her up and drag her around without her consent. The other people were always doing that.

She was willing to allow some rough treatment because her caretakers clearly meant well. She didn’t understand their strange religion, but she was at or near the top of the pantheon, which was as it should be. Sometimes she had her doubts. That God Box was not cool. It seemed designed to remove her from the action and prevent her from doing her job. Or at least it forced her to do her job in a very limited, boring way.

The small goddess was a scientist and a cultural anthropologist by necessity. She spent her days exploring, performing experiments, and trying to understand. She didn’t know how she ended up in this alien world, but there weren’t any other creatures like her to explain it. The natives babbled a language that was primarily verbal and hopelessly complex. She was learning to reproduce its structure in her spare time, with enthusiastic assistance from her core group of caretakers. Then again, they seemed to approve of just about everything she did — with occasional, horrified exceptions, such as when she found small objects on the floor that required oral analysis.

She suspected she had been god-napped. Perhaps stolen from an alternate dimension where they made beatific beings like her in a lab. She was a highly-desirable creature. One of a kind. Always the center of attention.

Except when they stuck her in the damned God Box.

She was beginning to suspect the other containers where she sometimes found herself might be forms of God Box. In which case they were not cool either. They served additional functions — she appreciated her Eating Nest for its height and her Sleeping Nest for its security — but she did not approve of her caretakers curtailing her movement on purpose. They spent so much time encouraging her to move and helping her with her exercise routine that the very idea seemed laughable. Then again, they were extremely stupid sometimes.

She needed to run some more tests.

She couldn’t do much at the moment because it was Adoration Time again. Adoration Time often broke out randomly and involved strangers. She approved of the practice, if not always the strangers. She liked to make the people happy, and it was easy to do. Really, she just had to exist. If she felt like encouraging them, she could blow some bubbles or smile. Hi and/or bye-bye, her latest anthropological discovery, provided both an entr’acte and a show-stopping finale.

The big stranger was doing hi/bye-bye at her right now and grinning while Smallest Subsidiary Caretaker was holding her up by the armpits, with the apparent intention of handing her over.

“Hey,” she said. “I am not up for this. I don’t know that guy. I don’t trust it. I want to examine it from a safe distance or neutral territory. Where’s Mama? Give me back to Mama or put me in my Eating Nest! Oh, you’re too short. Why don’t you help my Smallest Subsidiary Caretaker out, you morons?”

There were a bunch of people in the Foodspace. Everyone liked to be in the Foodspace, because eating was a fun activity. This did tend to make the Foodspace a bit cramped and difficult to negotiate. The small goddess could identify Food-Oriented Caretaker, Wiry Caretaker, Softest Caretaker, and another small stranger who seemed vaguely familiar.

The small goddess wondered if she had met that one in the Outsidespace. The Outsidespace was way bigger and louder and there were way more people in it, most of whom she did not recognize as caretakers. There was a group of caretakers in bright colors which seemed associated with that red non-toy thing they expected her to play with, and a single blue caretaker who visited sometimes. They were fun for a change of pace, but not great. The blue one in particular didn’t seem to have any idea what it was doing, but Mama liked that one and it smelled similar to her, like paints and pencils. Apart from them, Outsidespace people were often dumb, sometimes interesting to look at, and they tended to return to the Outsidespace, never to be seen again.

The fuzzy brown toy she was not allowed to play with and its associated caretaker were also present, off to one side. The fuzzy brown toy was a new and frequent visitor, but it was clearly not her toy, because they wouldn’t let her have it. She had seen her caretakers playing with the fuzzy brown toy on multiple occasions and she was rather frustrated with it. It made a fascinating clicking noise and she wanted to chew on that bright, jingly thing it had around its neck.

This was clearly something to do with the weird religion her caretakers had developed around her. The fuzzy brown toy, certain pieces of shiny metal, things that felt warm from a distance and small non-food objects were ritually impure somehow.

Altogether, the Foodspace was loud and confusing right now. This might have been acceptable if not for the large, perhaps threatening person who wanted to pick her up.

“I’m not enjoying myself! Hey! Are you people paying attention? My situation is less than ideal over here and I demand that you fix it this very instant!”

They broadly understood when she said that, although they could spend an irritating amount of time figuring out what she wanted them to fix. Mama understood her the best. Mama hardly ever checked the butt-wrapper when she was yelling for food or a toy in no uncertain terms. Dada, Softest Caretaker and Food-Oriented Caretaker were in a close race for second-best. Everyone else was just clueless.

An unknown force grabbed her from behind and lifted her and she shrieked her protest, “You’re scaring me!”

Food-Oriented Caretaker babbled gently at her in its goddamn incomprehensible language and put her against its shoulder. She hoped like hell it was an apology.

“Not cool, man,” she said. “Not cool. Next time you rescue me from where I can see you. You have no idea how to take care of a god. I’m gonna cry until you cry. See how you like that. No. Don’t bounce me. I don’t like you anymore. Shut up. You go to hell and you die.”

She didn’t know what those things were, but the voice that spoke to her at night seemed to be trying to scare her with them, so they had to be unpleasant.

“I hope you get hungry and nobody can figure out you want to eat, dumb Food-Oriented Caretaker.”

Bouncing was fun.

After a few moments it pulled her back and danced her lightly in the air, smiling at her.

She smiled back. “Hell. I can’t stay mad at you. You’re so cute and stupid.”

Food-Oriented Caretaker brought her near the large stranger again. Mama was standing next to him. She looked teeny-tiny in comparison. She put her hand on the stranger’s big dark arm and explained him, smiling. The small goddess valued Mama’s opinion of new people, even if it was hard to pick up on the details. Mama liked this one.

She put up her hand and did hi/bye-bye at the stranger. “Hey, big guy.”

It was, as always, a crowd-pleaser.

A few moments later she allowed the big guy to pick her up without protest.

“See? I like meeting people if you do it right. Wow. It’s tall up here!”

Adoration Time continued as per usual, with multiple people talking about what she assumed had to be her. (They called her ‘Lu’ most often, but also lots of other things she didn’t get.) Then it was time to hang out in her Eating Nest and watch her nighttime meal being prepared on the adjacent surface. (They were always careful to do that out of her reach. It involved the impure shiny metal things.) Her Food-Oriented Caretaker played the Better Food for Head Wiggles Game, which involved one of the nonverbal language components which she had mastered. Up-and-down head wiggle was affirmative and side-to-side head wiggle was negative. She was pretty sure.

“Red fruit, no. Orange fruit, yes! And give me some of those tiny crackers. I like to pick them up one at a time and crunch ‘em!”

After finger food came spoon food, which they seemed too busy to let her feed herself this evening. She could do the spoon! Sort of. Anyway, she was never going to learn if they didn’t let her play with it. There were extra people and extra stuff was going on tonight, so she’d let it slide. She had her investigation of the strangers and the fuzzy brown toy to keep her busy.

The fuzzy brown toy was willing to eat dropped fruit chunks and crackers. Her caretakers were also willing to let her drop fruit chunks and crackers, as long as she ate most of them.

She was a little pissed off when Mama removed her from the action for the liquid portion of her meal, and then wanted to rock her in the rocking chair and be quiet instead of have more fun. Still, it was even harder to stay mad at Mama.

Apparently, it was time for sleep.

“All right, Mama. Let’s negotiate. I want at least forty-five minutes of singing and rocking, and all my toys in my Sleeping Nest with me.”

She let Mama talk her down to twenty minutes and two toys. She was too sleepy to care.

———

One day you will die.

“Yeah, whatever, Voice-In-Head. Let me go back to sleep.”

Death is the end of all that you know. Maybe the end of all things.

“No, that’s called ‘being born.’ That happened forever ago. I’m over it.” Honestly, the event itself was pretty murky and she couldn’t recall knowing anything before it, but that would square up with it being the end of all she knew. There was no point in knowing whatever she’d known before that, there was all this new stuff to know about. It was going to keep her busy for a long time. Days and days.

You might not have all those days. Being alive means knowing it might all end at any time. All your hard work and amazing research gets thrown in the trash, and no one will ever know about it.

The idea was disturbing. “No. I’m going to learn their alien language and tell them about it. I know they’re going to listen to me and they’ll be thrilled, because they love me and they always give me attention.”

Pssht. Yeah, right. You’re going to learn their language and find out they don’t care what you have to say. You’re too little now, and later you’ll still be too little, or too stupid, or too weird, or too ordinary, or just the wrong kind of person. And if you’re still here when you’re old, then you’ll be too old. You won’t have anything new or interesting to say ever. It’s all been done. You’ve got a few people who love you because you’re a cute baby, you’re their cute baby. The more you become your own person and belong to yourself, the less they’ll care about you. Then maybe one day they’ll all be dead, and no one will care about you at all.

“Mama won’t die. She loves me too much.”

Mama will definitely die. You’ll be around to see it, unless you die first. That’s still an option. There’s plenty of stuff they don’t have vaccines for yet.

“Mama and I will make sure we die at the exact same time then. And we’ll do the next thing together too.”

Statistically, that’s very unlikely. If one of you goes first, the other one probably won’t follow after. Because you don’t know what the next thing is, or if there even is a next thing, or if you’ll get to be together or do anything. This world is all you know and your time in it is short and fragile, and highly dependent on support you may never get. I don’t even know about the next one.

“Well, then you don’t know it’s nothing or bad, and you can’t know, and I can’t know until it happens. It can’t be worse than being born, that was like the worst thing ever. You’re just trying to scare me.”

Sure I am. Your Uncle Mordecai thinks this is why babies cry in the middle of the night, and he’ll never know. That’s hilarious. I’ll probably break your arm for him later too. He won’t even remember it’s his fault!

“Piss off, Voice.”

Your body will rot away to dust. We’re super sure about that part. You sure can’t eat delicious orange fruit chunks without a body, or even red and white ones. I think on that basis, it’s scientifically reasonable to assume being dead must suck, little Lu. What do you think?

“What? No more orange fruit chunks?”

Zero orange fruit chunks forever.

“That’s not fair! I don’t want to die!”

Too bad.

“AAAAAAHHHH!”

A pale figure leaned over her, obscuring the shifting shadows on the ceiling and the soothing motion of her Spinny Art Object. Two hands lifted her and nestled her against a shoulder with a curtain of tangled dark hair in her face. A moment later, one hand swept all the hair over the opposite shoulder, where it lay in loose waves and tickled her leg on that side.

For a little while, she didn’t even care. “I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna die! You have to fix it so Mama and me never die! I can’t be expected to do my job under these circumstances! It’s too scary here! Why did you people even bring me here in the first place, huh?”

Her caretaker began to hum softly. It walked her back and forth in front of her sleeping nest, bouncing with every step.

“You big stupid idiot, how is this supposed to fix dying?”

It was warm. Bouncing felt good. These things were real, not like voices out of nowhere in the dark. No orange fruit chunks forever wasn’t real. Couldn’t possibly be real. The voice just wanted to make her cry.

Seemed like Dada was sleeping over tonight. That was good. She didn’t like when she wanted him and Mama had to walk all the way upstairs and get him. Dadaspace smelled like flowers and soap, and it hardly had any toys or Art Objects. Apart from the Rainbow Wall and the Magic Doppelganger Portal, she wasn’t impressed with it. Dada ought to hang out in Mama-and-Luspace all the time. He could stay in the closet when they weren’t using him.

You have no idea how close you are to the truth. Dada and your Softest Caretaker are the same person.

“Voice-in-Head, that’s the dumbest lie yet. Dada is, like, medium-firm. Softest Caretaker is like a pillow.”

Softest Caretaker is a pillow, actually.

“They’re not even the same kind of thing. See, this is why I don’t believe you about no more orange fruit chunks. You just say whatever you think is funny.”

Yep. Pretty much. Unless you need it for plot purposes. But there’s no way you remember this. Consciously.

“Dada, do you get stupid voices in your head too, or is it just me? Man, I’ll have to ask you when I can talk.”

Dada held her up in the dim light and squinted at her.

She smiled. “What’re we gonna do now? You’re my fun caretaker!”

He put her back against his shoulder and walked her quietly out of the Mama-and-Luspace, and into the Foodspace. The lights only came on at half-brightness and didn’t hurt her eyes. Dada set her back in her Food Nest. It was borderline cold, but her sleepsuit had feet. She grinned. “Yes! All right! Middle-of-the-Night Snack Time! Whaddya got?”

Dada took down two shiny brown cups from the cabinet and held up a digit at her. Dada didn’t do complex verbal communication, he had his own thing going on. She hoped she’d be able to talk to him too.

He backed out and ran back in again with a clear bottle half full of white. He checked her to make sure she was still all in one piece after he left her alone in the Nest for a second, then he patted her on the head and poured white into the cups.

She frowned at him. “Hey, Dada, not just white. Don’t be boring.”

Dada leaned in and regarded her frown with his own frown. He nodded and walked away briefly. When he returned he once again checked her, and then held up a brown jar. She beamed at him and did the affirmative head wiggle. He put two spoons of brown in each cup and stirred.

“Brilliant, Dada. You are the best, because you understand I need sweet stuff to live.”

He held the cup until she could get both hands around it. She slurped from the edge like her caretakers did. When she switched to a casual one hand grip and tipped the cup aside, it stuck to her hand and none of the brown-white fell out. Dada fixed the shiny brown cups so she could have drinks to-go!

They drank brown-white in the dim Foodspace together. Dada left the two cups next to each other in her Eating Nest. He took her back to the Mama-and-Luspace and rocked her in the Wobbly Chair until she fell asleep again.

———

When she woke up again it was light in the room. Hooray! Time to get back to work!

“Hey, Mama! Dada! It’s another goddamn beautiful day! Let’s go! Up and at ‘em!”

Mama bumped into her sleeping nest and peered down at her. Mama did not appear ready to get going on this goddamn beautiful day. Her hair was all messy and there was drool on her cheek. The small goddess smiled at her. “Come on, Mama. I’m cute!”

Mama staggered over to the Wobbly Chair and gave her the liquid part of her breakfast. After Mama got her dressed without even checking which outfit she wanted, Dada appeared and shoved Mama gently back in the direction of the bed.

“That’s right, Dada, you get it. Working is better than sleep! That is a universal truth and it’ll never change!”

Dada let her pick out her footgear, since that was the only thing left. She chose two different colors, which he was cool with. He had a smile for her this morning! It was gonna be a fun day!

———

Dada made toast squares, fruit chunks and plain white for breakfast. She let him get away with it. Then he took her downstairs and let her sit in the Weird Chair with her eyegear on! Her eyegear was fun, but Dada couldn’t make sparkles without Wiry Caretaker and that was boring. When she complained, he slotted the module with the Rainbow Wire on it in front of her. She obligingly moved the little circles back and forth, although she preferred the module with the Big Circle and the Squeaky Dot. She got bored again fast. She wanted to move around, man!

Dada looked up at her with a smudged face and a big grin and made one of his signs at her.

“Okay. What are you happy about?”

There was a clicky thing on the back of the weird chair that she couldn’t reach. Dada indicated it and clicked it. Nothing happened. Usually at least sparkles happened or some smoke came out.

“This is extremely disappointing, Dada.”

 Dada made some more signs and went over to the table with the tools. He turned on the music.

The Weird Chair shuddered and began to rock back and forth. The circles shivered on the Rainbow Wire and slid themselves. Dada frowned and cranked up the volume. The rocking smoothed out and matched itself to the beat of the music.

“Wow! Did you make it do that? You’re awesome! My Weird Chair is like my Old Nest that I Still Kinda Remember! Hey, whatever happened to that?”

Dada held up her hand with just three fingers and bowed to her. The Weird Chair stopped rocking for a moment, shifted its many legs and bowed too! Still holding her hand, he backed up and it followed him. He stepped towards it and it backed up, until it hit the wall — then it climbed onto the wall, bending its legs to keep her upright. It continued to rock to the music. When he leaned one way, it matched the motion in the opposite direction. He backed off and coaxed it away from the wall, then walked around her, causing the chair to spin a slow circle. He didn’t have to let go of her hand the whole time!

“This is my Old Nest, isn’t it, Dada? You hid it and made it look like a Weird Chair. It’s even a different color! You fooled me! This is the best thing since Peek-a-Boo!”

Dada tried dancing next to her, then on the other side, and then he went around back where she couldn’t see him. Her New Nest seemed to have a hard time deciding how it was going to keep dancing that way, but it eventually spun around so she could see him again and it never lost the beat of the music even a little.

Then Dada clicked the clicky thing again. The rocking stopped. He walked the New Nest back to where it had been and clicked the clicky thing one more time. Then her Nest was back to being a Weird Chair, without even the rumble of things working inside of it. It was asleep.

“Hey, Dada, not cool. I wasn’t done dancing!”

He picked her up and made another one of his signs at her. She knew this one.

“‘Shh?’ Oh, all right. Fine. Are we gonna fool Mama too?” Of course he didn’t know she was asking and he couldn’t tell her.

He took her back up the Foodspace and deposited her with Food-Oriented Caretaker without a word. Food-Oriented Caretaker seemed a little annoyed, but Dada was already gone.

“Hey,” said the small goddess, “as long as you’re in here, how ‘bout a snack?”

———

She guessed she didn’t have to ask. That was, like, basically the only thing Food-Oriented Caretaker knew how to do. It put her in her Eating Nest and offered her spoon food from a jar.

“That looks boring.” She chewed and considered it. “No, I don’t like that anymore.” She rejected it with her tongue and let it dribble down her chin. Food-Oriented Caretaker scooped it up and tried to put it back but she wouldn’t take it. “Come on. You can do better.”

It put both hands around the jar, hiding it, and then offered her another spoonful.

Now it tasted like orange fruit chunks.

“Nope! I don’t like that anymore either!” She dribbled out the food and grinned. “Come on. Play with me.”

It put both hands around the jar and tried again.

“MOOSHY GREEN DOTS? YOU KNOW I HATE THOSE!” It was perfect. Even the texture. She sat back in her Eating Nest and laughed, leaking awful food out of both sides of her mouth. “Food-Oriented Caretaker, you’re evil!”

When it gave her another spoon, the food was back to boring, not even orange fruit chunks.

“Fine. You win this round, Evil Caretaker.”

After she ate one spoon of boring, the rest of the jar tasted like orange fruit chunks.

“Oh. Well-played, Evil Caretaker. Well-played indeed.”

———

She heard Wiry Caretaker make some kind of loud announcement in the Everythingspace. Food-Oriented Caretaker obligingly took her along to check it out. She already knew what it was.

Dada and Wiry Caretaker were standing on either side of her New Nest and smiling. Everyone was there, even Smaller (Maybe?) Caretaker and the Biggest (Maybe?) Caretaker Ever. Smallest Subsidiary Caretaker wandered over and put both arms around Food-Oriented Caretaker. Honestly, she was having a little trouble deciding whether the Smallest Caretaker was subsidiary to Food-Oriented Caretaker, or if it was the other way around. She’d switched their names back and forth a million times. Right now it looked like Smallest Caretaker had figured out Food-Oriented Caretaker was nervous.

“You’re holding me too tight! Put me in my New Nest, why doncha?”

It didn’t move even a little.

“Hey. I’d even rather the Smallest Caretaker hold me. Cut it out. Mama! Come get me!”

Mama pried her away from the Food-Oriented Caretaker and put her in her New Nest where she belonged, because Mama understood things and listened.

Dada and Wiry Caretaker switched out the different modules and probably explained them. Each module flipped around and stuck right in front of her, but she couldn’t flip them herself. If she wanted a different one she had to yell for service. The Big Circle with the Squeaky Dot was on the other side of the Boring Flat One. The Rainbow Wire was on the other side of the Music Winder. They demonstrated how the familiar — but also a different color now — Crinkly Shade Thing with Flowers stuck on and came off too.

Then they started to play with the clicky thing and walk her New Nest around the Everythingspace, even up the walls and stairs.

“Whee! This is awesomesauce! Do the music! You guys, do the music!” She impatiently squeaked the Squeaky Dot, but it didn’t work like Music Winder. “Dumb Squeaky Dot, I never thought I’d get bored with you.”

Smallest Caretaker gave a yell and ran out suddenly. It returned with a long black box with colored stickers that she recognized. “Oh, hell yeah! It’s the Music Scratcher! Give that sucker to Food-Oriented Caretaker, maybe it’ll cheer up if it has a toy.”

It looked like Smallest Caretaker wanted the toy for itself this time.

“Oh. Okay. I’m not sure what you play is music, exactly, Smallest Caretaker, but you do you! I wonder if it’ll work for you?”

The Music Scratcher didn’t function like the various Music Boxes from around the house; you had to keep scratching it to make it go. Probably it was supposed to teach you about picking things up and moving them around, which she was already super good at herself. Food-Oriented Caretaker liked to play a lot of different music with the Music Scratcher. Smallest Caretaker preferred a limited repertoire of, like, three almost-songs which sounded very similar. They weren’t bad exactly, just thin and fuzzy like the Music Box in the basement sounded sometimes, and then Wiry Caretaker would whack it with a metal thing. She kinda had an idea Wiry Caretaker wouldn’t do that if music was supposed to sound that way. But even if it wasn’t music per-se, Smallest Caretaker made interesting noises when it played.

“Do it loud, Smallest Caretaker. Give my New Nest a chance.”

Her New Nest did seem to be having a bit of difficulty, but when Dada began to clap along to the beat, it straightened itself out fast. Wiry Caretaker and everyone except Food-Oriented Caretaker (and Smallest Caretaker, it was playing) started to clap too. Dada made the New Nest bow, then he gave Mama the small goddess’s hand. Mama tried a little tentative back-and-forth and grinned. Dada took Mama’s other hand and showed her how to really get the New Nest to go. Smallest Caretaker giggled and ducked out of the way, still playing. The Smaller Caretaker approached shyly, made a bow of its own and tried to join in. They all danced. The New Nest performed beautifully, bobbing along and scurrying up the walls as needed.

When Smallest Caretaker stopped playing and bowed, the Nest bowed too, and so, laughing, did Mama and Smaller Caretaker. Dada gave the Nest an affectionate pat and ruffled the small goddess’s hair.

“I’m not done dancing,” she complained.

Mama ran off and came back with the Blue Music Box from Mama-and-Luspace, because Mama listened and understood.

“You’re the best, Mama. Awesomesauce!”

———

Mordecai tugged Calliope’s hand and drew her aside before she could select a record. He knew he’d get a straight answer out of Calliope, although he wasn’t sure he wanted one. “Please, please, please tell me those legs aren’t made out of what it looks like they’re made out of.”

“Three used rubber catsuits?” Calliope said.

“Used?”

“Yeah. New ones are expensive. They’re from the Leather Dungeon. Ann knows their accountant. She’s way more fun than Melpomene. Accountants can be fun. Milo didn’t want any gears on the outside, Lucy could pinch her fingers. These’re safety legs. We had to merge all the rubber together. The catsuits had holes in the…”

“Oh, my gods, no!”

“…in the knees,” Calliope said. She shrugged and went back to pawing through her record collection. “Hey, guys, how about ‘Safety Dance?’ For the legs, right?”

“We didn’t need this monstrosity!” Mordecai informed the room at large. “We were doing perfectly well with the playpen and letting Lucy eat in the sink!”

“It still has Save-Me Mode,” Hyacinth said. “And look, we gave him little arms in front so he could carry the shopping…”

“You people are delusional, this is not a pet! We have a pet!”

“Joint custody,” Erik said. He patted Mister All-Purpose Lucy-Ambulator Version Three on his decorated metal carapace and got the purr function going. “This one is all ours!”

“Because nobody sane would want it!”

“Oh, man, I gotta take him down the block and show Ted and Maria,” Calliope said. “Pablo’s going to be so jealous, Lu! You guys wanna come with me and get lunch?”

“No! The Obvious Bondage Spider is confined to the house! I have to live in this neighborhood, people know I’m associated with you!”

“Gods, Em, get over it,” Calliope said. “They know we’re crazy already. It’s almost like a kind of respect.” She tapped the Lu-ambulator and asked it to follow her to the bedroom so they could get ready to go.

“Hyacinth,” Mordecai muttered. “The front legs. The two short legs in front. Where did you get those suspicious ball-shaped rubber guards on the tips? Tell me those are child-friendly rubber balls made for bouncing…”

“You know, I think it’s funnier if we never even give you a hint,” Hyacinth said with a smile. When the Lu-ambulator returned, she casually hung her purse on one of its arms. “I’ll pay for our lunch, Lucy, what do you say?”

“A-ba-ba-ga-ma!” Lucy replied.