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Save Point: Green Like Sekhmet

In The Lower Arctic

Somewhere on the Trans-Siberian express-

"Oh, hey cats. You don't look well. In fact you look kind of - well, greenish, to be precise. Like that wall-painting of Sekhmet in the temple in Nubia."

"I'm not," mutters Cleo in an aggravated tone. "I ate the last one of some sort of greasy bird thing that was being offered by a guy with a tray two or three stops back. I honestly believe that if I was a human I'd probably already be dead. Even my integrated nanotech can't seem to do anything except stave off the symptoms."

"Well that's new. I hope it's not some sort of defect or problem. I've seen you scavenge carcasses."

"Yeah, don't talk to me about carcasses. So, how did things go up in the deep arctic?"

"I discovered my roommate had been sent there to kill me. Which was something of a surprise, since he seemed fairly decent overall. I was going through his luggage as a precautionary measure and found detailed documentation, a picture from one of your shows circled in red marker, and a carbon fiber handgun."

"So the question becomes, who sent him?"

"Don't look at me that way, I didn't make him talk. Like I said, he was a decent guy. So I stole the handgun and documentation, then grabbed all the better food out of his mini-fridge. That was what made me suspect him, by the way. Classy roast chicken, beautifully baked potatoes, in a place like that out in the middle of nowhere filled with former soviet scientists who forget to eat, or when they do they binge on chips and snacks and stalker brand energy drinks? The rest of them share a fridge full of stuff that resembles your greasy bird thing."

Cleo makes a noise like urrghh, puts her hand over her mouth and then recovers. "I'm going to go find a bathroom," she manages. "It's clearly not safe to leave this thing inside me any longer than is absolutely necessary."

Several other passengers have wandered back and forth during the conversation, and apparently are concerned by her appearance and the way she is huddling down the aisle. It makes him feel sympathetic, because Cleo despite all her vices hates to throw up, and hates even more to be seen throwing up. Her knack for eating almost anything has made it a point of pride to keep things down, more than anything else, and the nanotech has enabled her in her conviction that failure is not an option. At the point where trashy werewolfesses are barfing up raw alcohol into gutters, Cleo is quite proudly still metabolising it for energy and then pissing it openly up against a wall (she likes to mark her territory around the werewolf bars, for convenience's sake.)

Mentally he considers the problematic issue of who wants to kill him.

There's the IRS of course, but what they really want is money. He'd give them some but it'd only encourage them. They already have an elevated idea of their own worth.

Several secret societies dislike him because he predates them (both possible meanings) and he already knows the ancient secret stuff that they use as bait. In some cases he is the ancient secret stuff they use as bait, which means his actually showing up in person spoils their entire racket. Many of them are obsessed with poisoned needles. Maybe one of them has taken to cooking birds and adding a special garnish or two?

His contemplation is interrupted by Cleo's return, just as he considers the complexities of staging such a coincidental meeting and purchase (although it is known that Cleo likes the upper-crust local dish of pineapples and quail). She's looking better already, some colour starting to return to her muzzle, although she seems to be having trouble getting the nasty taste out of her mouth.

"It's always so damn annoying when someone is trying to kill us," she sighs.