Chapter 1 - 3 Nopes, 4 Yups, and an Oops

I hate my job.

Kaidex 91 rolled his eyes at his boss' latest inane comment. Since he had two huge turreted compound eyes and six secondary retractable eyestalks, this was particularly dramatic. So he had to be sure the Twit didn't notice.

Thirty years. I've guarded this idiot for thirty years. If the Twit's life were threatened, it'd be Kaidex 91's job to take a plasma blast for him. And with each passing year, it became more and more obvious the fool didn't deserve that kind of devotion.

The Twit rose to his full height, which would have been laughably meager if not for that neck. His garish, high contrast green fur hurt Kaidex 91's eyes, and he spoke with enough pomp and self-importance to turn one's stomach. "This is a simply marvelous development! Marvelous!"

Kaidex wanted to be anywhere else.

"To think that our Division has won the attention of the Vice Chancellor! Could you even imagine a greater honor?"

Uh… yeah. Maybe the actual Chancellor. And maybe if the "attention" were more than a perfunctory pay bonus equal to 1% of the savings from their last quarterly budget. And if that money weren't divided among all personnel in the Division. With the Twit getting the bog-lion's share of the pot, of course.

But the Twit was looking right at Kaidex, smiling hugely with those absurd floppy lips, clearly expecting a response.

"Uh, no Sir. Totally can't imagine any higher–"

"Tut tut, 91! On a day this auspicious, I cannot abide a lack of decorum."

Kaidex forced himself to take a deep breath so he wouldn't scream. He hated when the Twit demanded his full title. "Twittith Magsbog Keffelblown du Krappe, High Speaker of the Democratic(ish) Ambassadorial Federation of Transdimensionality, Eleventh Division… I cannot imagine any higher honor than the Vice Chancellor's attention." Kaidex feared he might throw up in his mouth. He'd need a drink at the earliest opportunity.

"Neither can I." The Twit sighed in satisfaction. "Our dedication, professionalism, and attention to detail has been recognized." He stood even taller, getting himself worked up. "Yes indeed! Our responsible stewardship, dynamically empowered metrics—"

Kaidex almost threw up in his mouth.

"—synergistically equitable teamness–"

Kaidex threw up in his mouth.

"–and the work ethic to take 18 hour shifts without bonus pay, are all in accordance with the highest ideals of our Federation!"

Shuddering, Kaidex forced himself to swallow.

Thankfully, the Twit had tired himself out by standing so tall for so long. The long-necked, furry Kuzkonian was past his prime, had a bad back, and tended to tire easily if he forgot himself and stretched too hard. As Kaidex hoped, the Twit had pulled a muscle. "I say… I shall require some rest in my quarters. You're free to go, 91. I'll summon you when I'm ready to return to duty."

The Twit shuffled past the towering Kaidex, who outweighed him more than ten to one. As a Frankzen, Kaidex had been promptly hired without even an interview when he applied for a security job. Frankzen senses, reactions, size, strength, and especially their natural weaponry made them favorites for such roles. Without really trying, he kept getting promoted to higher and higher positions, his contract sold to larger organizations, until he'd peaked in this role. Most other members of the Kaidex clutch, including the ultra ambitious Kaidex 1, were envious of his prestige and pay.

None of them knew what they were talking about.

Being the personal bodyguard of a High Speaker meant empty, dull days as a big shiny decoration. At least he'd have a little time to himself while the Twit recovered.

With the taste of vomit strong in his mouth, Kaidex 91 sought out a drink.

In his rush, he accidentally barged right through Adjutant Ooogbroogoot. 91's eyes could detect a much wider array of light wavelengths, but were pretty bad at noticing the Hooloovoo species. As a hyperintelligent shade of the color blue, they didn't quite have the… presence… to demand attention. The Adjutant shimmered, refracted, and returned to his original wavelengths.

"Oops! Sorry, Ooog! Didn't see ya."

Ooogbroogoot briefly shifted his visible emissions to a soft pink, and Kaidex 91's Babel Fish translated that to, "No prob, bro."

Kaidex scuttle-dashed into the nearest lift, startling the Dentrassis chef who'd just got off. Then, thinking ahead, Kaidex grabbed the chef and carried him back aboard the lift just before the door closed.

The chef blinked its bug eyes. "Wow… Rough day?" Dentrassis were very large, among the biggest species serving on this station. But Frankzen strength boggled the minds of most beings, including this one. Instead of the chef starting up a profanity-soaked tirade at 91's rudeness, he seemed impressed.

Kaidex jabbed the button for the cantina. "Rough day? You could say that. The Twi–" Kaidex caught himself in time. "Uh… Speaker Twittith used the term 'synergistically equitable teamness' and I–"

"You threw up in your mouth?"

Kaidex felt himself turning green. "Yup."

"Sensible."

"I guess..."

"And you need a strong drink?"

"YES."

"I totally get'ya."

"Thanks for understanding." The lift twisted as it reached a junction, but the inertial nullifiers did their job.

The hairy chef raised a huge, bushy eyebrow. "Ya know… I did have a reason for going to the command center."

"You needed to talk to the High Speaker?"

"Yup."

"I figured. But it'll have to wait. He pulled a muscle and retired to his quarters."

"Again?"

"He was feeling very important."

"Bummer."

The lift opened, and in his haste Kaidex grabbed the chef again. This time, the hulking Dentrassis had more time to react to this display of strength. As Kaidex scuttled across the room and toward the bar, the chef stared in wonder at the Frankzen's arms. The four strongest were not used to carry the chef: they were weaponized and best reserved for wholesale destruction. Of the other four arms, two were long, slender, and ended in complex manipulators like hands. At least, if hands were shaped like spider/centipede hybrids. The final pair of arms were lifters. Thick, powerful, and possessing large, simple grippers like opposable scoops, they allowed Kaidex to heft the huge chef with little difficulty. There was no risk of toppling forward under the weight, because 91's abdomen was twice as long as his thorax, and easily twice the weight of the Dentrassis. The chef was accustomed to looming over all of his customers. But hardly anyone can loom over a Frankzen. Kaidex 91's ultra-tough exoskeleton shimmered with orange iridescence, and the cascade of clicks as he moved was impressive, to say the least.

Stretching his five pairs of legs and rearing up, Kaidex lifted the chef right over the bar and set him down behind it. Too impressed to begin the sort of offensive rant that made his species famous, the Dentrassis took down a "Back in 5" sign and put on his apron. He smoothed out his yellow fur, and Kaidex noticed a tiny nametag that said, "Makk." The chef smiled. "What can I get ya?"

"Drink first, food later."

"I hear that. Drink?"

"Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. Two extra cubes."

"Ya got good taste. But since this'll take a minute, have this on the house." Makk poured a double shot of Hingefreels vodka and slid it across the bar, then he got started.

Intensely grateful, Kaidex snatched up the glass with one of his delicate spidery hands and tossed the acerbic liquid into his mouth. He swished it around, wincing at the burn, but it finally washed away the worst of the puke flavor. He almost spat it back into the glass, but remembered his manners just in time, and shivered as he swallowed.

Makk tossed five cubes of Arcturan Mega-gin into the bubbling mixture, while the room filled with the heady scent of Fallian marsh gas. A nearby Peeg janitor wobbled, dizzy, dropped its mop, and started to waddle away.

"Nope!" Kaidex snatched the little guy up with one arm. "I need a hug." The chonky rodent squeaked, but calmed down immediately when Kaidex hugged it close. It let out a long, purring sort of chortle, closed its eyes, and snuffled. Peegs emanated a calming psychic aura when held, and their culture stressed giving comfort above all else. Kaidex absentmindedly stroked the janitor's fur while watching Makk work.

A squiggly Gooban crewman squelch-slithered up to the bar. "Rough day?"

"It's that obvious?"

The Gooban's eyestalks drooped slightly, and its shell drifted to the left. "Yup. Very yup. I've seen you hundreds of times, and your iridescence is usually redder."

"Wow. Now I feel like a jerk for not knowing your name."

"Don't. I'm one of fifty representatives of Gooban Haven at this facility, but you're the only Frankzen."

"Fair."

"And you're twenty times my size."

"Also fair."

"The name's Poot."

"Nice to meet ya, Poot."

"And as for your rough day being obvious, you're about to smash out your brains with a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick."

Makk perked up. "Ah… you've had this drink before!"

The Gooban smiled as only a Gooban can, with its smooshy, stretchy mouth spreading way wider than its head had been a second before. "Nope. At my size, I'd never recover. But I've helped other victims of that drink to rehabilitate."

"Me too," the Peeg whispered, half asleep. Kaidex gave its head another pat, careful to use only his smallest, gentlest arms.

Makk floated a measure of Qualactin Hypermint extract over a silver spoon, creating a lovely sheen on the surface of the drink. "Ya gonna open up about what's gotcha down? The Goob's too polite to come out and ask."

Kaidex 91 sighed. "I was the ninety-first member of my clutch to get a job, so my siblings figured I lack ambition. And I used to agree with them. But when I landed this cushy gig with the Federation, a lot of the others changed their minds. It's taken thirty years, but now I'm ready to be a bit ambitious."

"So do it," Poot said, all supportive and cheery and terribly naive.

"I can't ." Kaidex set the Peeg on the floor, patted its rump to wake it up, and turned his attention to Makk. "My bodyguard assignment is binding. The only way out is for the Speaker to dismiss me, retire, or die. But he loves having a big, shiny, scary Frankzen to show off, his job makes him feel way too important to ever retire, and Kuzkonians live a disgustingly long time."

Makk carefully dropped an Algolian Suntiger tooth into the drink. The Peeg waddled over to its mop and got back to work. The Gooban extruded a pseudopod, carefully withdrew the mucus coating, and gave Kaidex a gentle pat on his right smasher limb. "I'm sorry you have to deal with that."

Makk sprinkled some Zamphuor into the glass, but Kaidex didn't wait for the olive. He snatched up the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, knocked it back in one gulp, and ordered another.

"Whoa," Makk said.

"Whoa," Poot said.

"Whoa," the Peeg squeeked, dropping its mop again.

"More like 'woe,'" Kaidex said, suddenly convinced he was immensely clever. He wobbled, his eye turrets swiveling about randomly, and made a deliberate effort to keep his limbs in line. His smashers and stabbers demanded respect. Newly hatched Frankzens learned self-control before anything else, otherwise, they'd all accidentally kill each other on the first day.

With a sigh, Kaidex slumped. His ten legs splayed lazily, and his long abdomen lay flat on the floor. "I'll still have another."

"I know you're the size of a bus," Makk said, exaggerating, though not by much, "but we should still wait a minute."

Kaidex tossed a wad of cash onto the bar. "It'll take a minute to make another."

Makk sighed… and got to work.

91's huge primary eyes drifted toward the cantina's viewport. With the impressive, multi-layered buzz in his brain, Kaidex wondered if he was hallucinating.

The Gooban groaned. "Ugh. More trash."

Ah. Not hallucinating.

"Not my problem," the Peeg janitor squeaked. "They don't pay me to clean space."

"Where ya think all dat trash keepz come'n frum?"

Makk gave Kaidex an accusatory look. "I'm gonna pause for a minute and fix you some food. You're not having two Gargle Blasters on an empty stomach."

Kaidex growled, but the Gooban intervened. "Good question about the trash. Not sure where it keeps coming from."

Tossing a bucket's worth of veggies and shredded tubers into a huge pan, Makk started scrambling. "I stare out that viewport all day everyday, and the trash is the only thing worth seeing." He dumped a jug of blue sauce into the pan. "When the station's angled just right, I can see where it starts: Empty space."

"Huh?" Kaidex drooped to the side, and Poot strained with all its might to help him stay upright.

"It's true. The trash just manifests out of nothing. I suspect a portal. Spatial, temporal, dimensional, not sure, but I bet the eggheads could figure it out if they cared enough." The Dentrassis dumped some Arcturan Mega-capers into the pan, upped the heat, and flipped the gloppy mess.

"Sounds like the trash might be the most interesting thing to happen here in a while," the Gooban said, sighing with relief when Kaidex regained his balance. "Our Division gets way less action than the other ten. Sometimes I wonder if the Chancellor even remembers we exist. We're supposedly a democratic(ish) federation, but our team's barely ambassadorial, and I don't know if we've ever been transdimensional."

The Peeg finished mopping and clambered up onto a bar stool. "Sounds like that space trash is more transdimensional than we are."

Makk slapped the floppy glop onto a platter, and Kaidex dutifully devoured it. How can something so quick and simple taste so good? It took him a moment to focus three of his eyes on Makk. "This is… excellent…" He gestured for Makk to resume preparations on the second Gargle Blaster, and the Dentrassis reluctantly complied. "I like you… Makk… Rumind me… how dis cheapskate organizashun… manage to enlist… such uh brillunt cheft?"

"Well, like most of my kind, I was originally contracted to manage the galley aboard a Vogon Constructor Ship…"

"I sure don't envy you that assignment," Poot said.

"Oh, it was tolerable… for a while. But let's just say they lost my respect some time ago."

Kaidex leaned in close. "No wimp'n out! Gimme the gory details."

"It's… not something I like talking about."

The Gooban extended its eyestalks to better see over the bar. "Sometimes, talking about the rough times is the best way to move on."

The Peeg janitor squeaked in agreement. Without his Babel Fish, Kaidex might have mistaken that for a sneeze.

Sighing, Makk opened up, while the Fallian marsh gas bubbled through the mixture. "Remember back in the day when the Vogons demolished an inhabited planet just to make a hyperspace bypass?"

Despite the lovely soothing buzz in his brain, Kaidex forced himself to pay attention. This sounded pretty real. "I… almost remember… Somewhere… harmless?"

The Gooban wilted a bit. "I remember. It was called Earth. Primitive, but it housed multiple sapient species, with a total population in the billions ."

Two of 91's secondary eyes twitched. "That's… kinda messed up."

"Gooban Haven was devastated. We'd worked with the Vogons for years, trying to steer them away from such heartless actions. But… in the end… all our appeals to decency had to compete with their bottom line."

"Also… Vogons suck."

Three more of 91's eyes started twitching. It was the Peeg who said that.

Poot turned its eyes to the janitor. "Ya got that right."

"And that was only the beginning," Makk growled, adding three cubes of Mega-gin to the drink. Kaidex glared, and he added two more. "The Vogons decided they wanted to be thorough . When Infindium published their new, advanced version of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Vogons were delighted . But not for the information it contained. They used its Unfiltered Perception tech to employ Reverse Temporal Engineering."

Kaidex almost fell over. Way too many syllables for a guy still reeling from a Gargle Blaster. If the chef really wanted him to understand, he'd explain.

Makk solemnly added the olive to the drink. "Ultimately, the Vogons successfully erased little harmless Earth from every timeline in every universe. Or so they claimed."

The Gooban withdrew into its shell, weeping. The Peeg stared at the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, clearly considering it.

Makk slid the drink to Kaidex, then moved to block the janitor from touching it. "I was the first Dentrassis to jump ship. I just couldn't work for those scum after that. I'd thought their poetry was the worst thing about 'em but then they went full cosmic horror on a bunch of silly apes, dolphins, and mice."

Straining his foggy brain, clenching his muscles to fight against drowsiness, Kaidex forced his voice to obey. "That's… the worst thing I've ever heard. Never blame yourself. I'm glad you dumped those killers and came to us, and not just cuz your food and drink's top tier."

The Dentrassis nodded. "Sounds like you can handle your drink. I feel better about fixin' you another."

91 smiled, pleased with his ability to fake semi-sobriety.

He promptly made further fakery utterly impossible… by downing the second Gargle Blaster.

His eyes all pointed in different directions. Then they pointed in even more directions. Then space and time decided to get all loosey-goosey. He found himself slowly dancing alone to music he hadn't noticed before, and the janitor cheered him on.

Two brain-splattering drinks in a matter of minutes had him fully convinced that he was the cleverest person who ever lived. So… seeing the trash drifting past the viewport, it occurred to him that this must be a violation of some ordinance or other. And if it really was coming from another universe, that should be within the jurisdiction of the Democratic(ish) Ambassadorial Federation of Transdimensionality. Even if they were just the overlooked Eleventh Division.

His job might be desperately boring… but if he spun things right, he might just convince the Twit to make a ruckus over this interdimensional littering.

And that might just spice up his day. Maybe even his whole week .

What was the worst that could happen?

I hate my job.

Matthew Dore looked over the latest tedious report. Huston, Beijing, and especially Cologne continued to get Skyhook orders, but nearly all of it was for trash disposal. The most wonderous achievement of modern humanity… and this was what they did with it.

Thirty years. I've been in aerospace for thirty years… And not a single day of it had been fun.

In his early days with CNES, he'd vaguely hoped he might one day be an actual astronaut. Or at least a pilot.

Too bad his logistics and organizational skills got way more attention than his other qualifications. His transfer to the Beijing branch of Skyhook had renewed his hope of adventure… but they'd never offered him anything outside of management.

His screen showed thirty-five new requests, ranging from signing off on a tacky publicity poster, to tightening the schedule of nighttime janitorial staff, to drafting apology letters for a shareholder's vague MyFace post that might offend someone somewhere. Everything he hated about modern space programs, and nothing he dreamed of.

Unless you count nightmares. Specifically, nightmares of getting blamed for the words and actions of far stupider colleagues.

"Boss, it happened again."

Matt turned. Loden Kogg was the closest thing he had to a friend, since the guy actually felt like a person instead of a bureaucrat, and would rather solve problems than throw them at Matt. He also actually believed in getting real work done. The other three employees were basically asleep at their screens, but it didn't matter. Loden made them mostly redundant. "Did you get a clear image this time?"

Loden zoomed in on the recording. "Clear enough I guess."

So bizarre… This doesn't make any sense.

The vid showed a garbage payload that had been launched from the Huston Skyhook well over a year ago. Everyone expected it to burn up quickly when it got close enough. Quickly… but not instantly. And yet, when it was still about five million kilometers from the sun's surface… it just vanished. No flash. No emissions. Just… gone.

"This has to be some kind of technical error in our equipment," Matt said. "A hundred tons of assorted matter doesn't vaporize in an instant."

"And it would put out quite a burst of detectable emissions if it did."

"How many are we at?"

"Of the last seventy payloads to reach their destination… looks like seventeen have pulled this vanishing act."

Matt sighed. Astronomers, physicists, and chemists should be pouring over this footage… but his superiors kept suppressing Matt's attempts to share it. With the most likely explanation being technical errors in Skyhook's imagery or computers, scrutiny was deemed too likely to produce only embarrassment. Ever since the second instance of a trash shipment vanishing, the higher-ups had imposed a cap on rendering detail for the publicly-available imagery. Anyone who signed in to the Skyhook livestream was shown deliberately low-quality footage. Such a typical "solution." Don't wanna have to explain or examine something weird? Find the cheapest, most low-effort way to avoid the issue entirely.

"Well, the next load should reach that distance to the sun in eight hours." Kogg blazed away at his keyboard. "I should be able to secure a higher res image by combining footage from three different satellites."

"So long as you don't annoy the wrong person by commandeering those cameras, I'm all for it." Matt felt a bit excited at the prospect, and it turned to pessimism the instant he identified it. Instead of launching deep space exploration craft, he was getting an adrenaline rush... from hoping for a better look at a solar garbage disposal. "Loden… do you ever feel… underutilized?"

"Dude, I tested at 170 IQ and graduated college at age sixteen. And this job treats me like I'm barely more than a spreadsheet management AI. No offense to you of course. You're the only person above me in the organization that feels like an actual human being."

A slumbering coworker stirred at that, but didn't bother to turn.

"And as for the work we do… does that strike you as worthwhile?"

"Well… the early days certainly mattered. Cleaning up all the orbital debris made a difference for satellite maintenance and long-term planning. Plus, tossing all the radioactive waste at the sun has finally shut up most of the ninnies that don't understand nuclear power."

"Yeah, but… shouldn't we be facilitating exploration? Skyhook makes getting to space cheaper than ever, but…"

"Yeah… it's kinda lame. But at least that sort of thing would be possible. Humanity might be a bit lazy at the moment, but with our stations in place… they could start colonizing the solar system at any time."

"That's… optimistic."

"Well, people always get bored sooner or later. When the current stupid fads die out, maybe somebody will say, 'Wait a sec… we could go full IRL sci-fi using those Skyhooks. Maybe that'll be fun.'"

"But we might have to wait years, or even decades , before they get around to it."

"Yeah… that's a bummer." He waved with casual indifference. "Not like we can force anyone to want adventure."

"So… how do you stay so… content?"

"When reality's boring… fiction steps up."

Matt pondered that. His own duties, while tedious, ate up nearly all of his time. Entertainment was a teeny tiny percentage of his life. Loden though, always managed to get his work done very quickly, and he stole loads of little time slots for reading throughout each shift. It seemed to do good things for his sanity. "Tell me about your latest read."

Loden Kogg already had the graphic novel out and open. The imagery was a colorful riot of chaotic action and incongruous details that made Matt's head hurt. "This series is a couple decades old, from the final days before the entire industry imploded."

"Yikes."

"Well, it's at least three layers of derivative, but it makes me giggle inside. Constantly. It's basically a parody of itself without ever realizing it. The eight-year-old heroine learned kung fu as a toddler by chewing on an ethernet cable. Now she fights inequality by… undermining the very systems that made the comic book industry sustainable." He chuckles. "That's not how it's portrayed of course, cuz the writers were hilariously clueless."

"So… it's basically as logical and believable as everything else produced during that era?"

"Honestly, this goofy garbage is genius when compared to what was getting churned out in Phase 6 of–"

Alarms sounded, and the three zoned out employees jerked awake.

"Report!" Matt commanded. "Is there an imbalance in one of the Skyhooks?" That would not be his preferred way to spice up his day.

"Nope." Loden brought up the camera trained on the sun, but widened the zoom.

An enormous shape had appeared, near the spot where the trash had vanished. A crisp, silvery dodecahedron, moving toward Earth with no obvious propulsion systems. One of the redundant employees fainted.

Eleven messages appeared on Matt's screen.

"Holy…" Matt brought up more data on his screen. "How big is this thing?"

"Bringing the other two satellites to bear… and… Oh. Uh. Dang."

"How big?"

Then Matt saw why Loden had hesitated. A second object had appeared, this one a triangular prism.

Fifty more messages appeared on Matt's screen.

Loden finally answered. "Well… the first one's half a kilometer wide."

"Half a kilometer?"

"And the second one's over a kilometer long."

Another useless coworker passed out, and four hundred new messages appeared on Matt's screen.

Loden Kogg adjusted the zoom again, and now a stupidly ginormous sphere appeared. "Aaaaaand… this one has a diameter of three kilometers."

The last lazy nonentity of a colleague ran screaming from the room. Probably for the best.

"They're accelerating toward Earth… at seventy Gs."

"SEVENTY?"

"At this rate, they'll be here in about six hours."

Dead silence. Matt's screen showed the number of unread messages climbing by about a thousand per second. Another shape, this one a comparatively unremarkable cube a hundred meters to a side, manifested as if from nothing.

Loden finally broke that silence. "Well… our job finally got interesting."

"Yeah… and there's a very real chance that humanity won't exist six hours from now."

"Come on, sir. That sort of negativity's totally pointless."

"Are you kidding me?"

"Think about it: With the capabilities on display, if they wanna blow us up, there's zero chance we can do anything about it. So what good is worrying? Might as well assume they're friendly, and prepare for that . Cuz there's no such thing as being 'prepared' to fight vessels that can appear out of nowhere and move with concussion-grade acceleration. Let's call this... first contact with curious neighbors."

"So you're saying… your cheery, optimistic demeanor… comes from knowing we'd get annihilated in a fight?"

"Sure beats the psychological alternative."

Matt pondered that, while three more monolithic vessels appeared near the sun and began their mind-blowing acceleration toward earth. His screen's notification counter maxed out at one short of a million pending messages. He heard helicopters and emergency vehicles converging on the building.

At last, he nodded. "I take your point. Let's treat this as merely the current top priority on our to-do list, and assume there'll be a tomorrow."

"Bravo, sir."

"And if there isn't a tomorrow… at least I won't have to finish addressing all these calls."

"That's the spirit!"

A total of eleven huge, silver craft now streamed toward earth, the largest being a cylinder ten kilometers long with a diameter of three and a half. Matt shook his head at the absurdity. Deep down, he was sure management would find a way to blame him for this.

Sakura petals drifted in the gentle breeze, and blanketed the ground in soft pink. A pair of Soot Sprites floated and rolled among the petals, occasionally bouncing off Mei playfully. The rich light of sunrise illuminated the little Kusakabe family shrine. With Satsuki's name being the most recent addition.

Mei stood quiet, solemn, as the sun slowly climbed higher. The chirping of birds and the scurrying of squirrels managed to coax out a smile. Then, Chibi Totoro leaned against her, producing a soft sound similar to a purring cat. "Thank you," Mei whispered. "It's harder on the anniversary… but she lived a full and beautiful life." And that, in turn… enriched mine.

Like many little sisters, Mei had always followed in her Onee-chan's footsteps… at least when she didn't get distracted. Their childhood had been a mix of bitter and sweet, mundane and wondrous. Their delightful adventures with Totoro had helped them through a difficult time… and the smallest of them never really left.

The little white creature had grown over the decades… if you looked very closely. Perhaps ten centimeters taller than when Mei was four. She'd never learned if Chibi was the Totoro equivalent of a child, but he'd always been sweet.

How I miss you, Satsuki. You always set the example. Paving the trail, showing me the way I wanted to lead my life. To be second best was fine, with you as Onee-chan… But what am I now?

The weight of decades bent Mei, but it hadn't broken her. Old age ain't for wimps. At ninety-two, she'd seen the world change and change and change again. Her family had rolled with it, but now that she was alone–

Not alone! Don't think like that, silly. The world's smaller than ever. Nieces and nephews overseas are just a quick call away.

But she felt the Satsuki-shaped hole in her life more every year.

Sensing her melancholy, Chibi Totoro started skipping through the falling petals, playing with the squirrels to cheer her up. A neighbor boy jogged by, and the Totoro went briefly invisible, then continued his antics when the boy rounded the bend. "Thanks for the effort, little one."

She'd been content sharing her sister's life. Helping to raise her children, play with her grandchildren, and serve as the kooky fun aunt everyone loved. She'd published books, sold paintings, and performed in orchestras. She needed only a cane to walk the wooded paths of her neighborhood, and all she met smiled and showed respect.

But it was still hard to push away a soft, sad, unsettling feeling… that her life was entirely behind her.

Her purse buzzed.

She ignored it.

It buzzed again, louder

Irksome.

The buzzing got so intense it was actually uncomfortable, and lights flashed bright enough for her whole purse to glow.

I might just have to chuck this stupid thing in the ocean.

Curious, Chibi Totoro poked at the purse over and over, letting out a little squeak. It would be impossible to ignore this now. The ancient little guy could be as persistent as Mei.

She dug around inside her purse for her myPhone 20, a gift from Satsuki's great grandson Engi. The needlessly complicated device usually went unnoticed… but right now it was very insistent. It buzzed far more loudly than it ever had before, rattling her keys, and the flashing seemed perfectly designed to drive her bonkers.

When she found the phone, the instant her fingers wrapped around it… the flashing and buzzing stopped.

Baffled, Mei pulled out the device and stared at the screen. A web browser opened on its own, logged into a premium news site she didn't even have an account for, and displayed live footage from Germany.

Huh… Alright. Not something I expected to hear about today.

Aliens. Invading. Probably.

At least there were a lot of them, and they hung in geosynchronous orbit a couple thousand kilometers over Germany, high above the Cologne Skyhook.

"Well well… this is certainly a sight…"

Massive silver ships. Impossible propulsion systems. They appeared so close to the sun, no one could guess how they snuck up on humanity. Quite a lot of people weren't handling it well…

Not too surprised. This is a tad bigger than a dumb political campaign or a celebrity divorce.

Part of Mei figured this was waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too big for little old her. She'd had her fun, and the world had moved on.

But Chibi Totoro lightly bapped her knee, insistent. And her phone inexplicably opened a new webpage. An ad for a senior athletics club with the tagline, "Don't let the whippersnappers have all the fun!"

Chibi Totoro squeaked, and Mei chuckled.

"Alright, alright. I get the message, even if I'm not certain who exactly it's from. This is just too fun to pass up." She turned from the shrine, striding purposefully toward home. She'd need more comfortable clothes, her best walking shoes, a backup battery, her pills, some snacks… and probably a few energy drinks. "Gather your friends, Chibi. And notify Catbus. We're going on an adventure!"