Mikali sh'Shar - Andorian Blues: The Cleanup
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David Adams
Feb 18, 2021, 7:15:19 AM2/18/21
to Gorkon
(( Outside Red Carrier Employee Domicile 14, Iana Station, Tyrellian System ))
Mikali sh'Shar had not been back to her quarters on Iana Station since her optical prosthetic had become infected.
It felt like a lifetime since she'd seen it, but in reality it was not so long ago. Still, she had checked with the computer: her quarters hadn't been moved. This was still, technically, her home. She had a work shift in two days, so getting herself settled back in again was important.
Mikali stared at the door, then cautiously moved up to it, almost expecting the machine to chirp mournfully and deny her access. Instead the doors parted.
And out came an absolute wall of the worst things she had ever smelled, and she'd smelled the inside of a sewer on Wheeler colony. She'd smelled dead bodies mummified in the desert sun. She'd smelled Wulfantine after his workouts. This was worse.
The inside of their quarters looked like a photon torpedo had struck it with a direct hit, exploding a special kind of charge that only targeted one's possessions, the explosion blowing Catscratch's clothes and possessions all around the floor. Not a single piece of deckspace could be seen anywhere. All of it was completely covered in replicated uniforms, themselves dirty and splattered with grime from work in the drydock. Clothes—primarily work uniforms but also civilian clothes—hung off everything. The lamp on their shared desk, the sides of their bunks, and even within the bathroom (the door was open) were layers of clothes. Just thrown everywhere.
Cupboard, apparently, was not a word in the Caitian language. Worse, here and there, scattered between clothes and underwear and uniforms were pieces of garbage. Wrappers from food, plastic sheets from gods knew what, work tools and grease-stained cloth, even the side of a PADD jutting out of the ground like a miniature grey iceberg in a sea of fabric.
Most offensive to her olfactory senses, though, was the huge pile of plates and cutlery on the floor in front of the replicator. Dirty and clearly having been used to hold food, and several stacks across, the tower was as tall as Mikali. The food on them was in various states of decay, the most recent ones barely rotten, the bottom plates leaking black ooze onto the deck, staining the clothes between them.
Mikali's hand clapped up to her nose, her antenna curling up like withered flowers.
sh'Shar: ::Distorted,:: Asiyen-va mok tel-ven midani! What in the name of...
Catscratch, either completely accustomed to the smell or oblivious to it, sat up in bed, her ears perking up on top of her head, the lithe Caitian beaming joyfully her way. Her bracelet, complete with Mikali's old prosthetic on it, jingled on her wrist.
Catscratch: Mikali! You're home!
Mikali's horrified gaze drifted around the room, moving from pile of disgusting filth to pile of disgusting filth, the stink of over a month of garbage.
Catscratch leapt down from the top bunk, landing on a pile of greasy uniforms with a wet squelch. She slid up to Mikali with palpable happiness, her tail lashing around in the air behind her, bracelet jingling as she moved, her paws wrapping around Mikali and giving her a warm squeeze around the middle.
Catscratch: I'm so happy to see you, love!
Mikali awkwardly kept her fingers pinched over her nose, squirming back, antenna jerking and twitching as she tried in vain to keep the horrible stench out.
sh'Shar: ::Distorted,:: What happened here?
Catscratch smiled broadly.
Catscratch: Do you like it?
sh'Shar: ::Distorted,:: Do I... ::She boggled, freshly replaced eye nearly popping out of her skull.:: aiya-chen, this is disgusting!
Catscratch's smile widened.
Catscratch: I know! But I pushed through. I was saving it all for you!
Mikali's head spun, and it wasn't just the horrible gasses escaping from the filth everywhere.
sh'Shar: Saving it...?
Catscratch: Yeah! You always do all the cleaning around here, putting stuff in the replicator, and you obviously like it so I thought... hey, why not give you a lovely welcome-home present of all this extra cleaning for you to do? So I saved everything!
sh'Shar groaned.
sh'Shar: Catscratch, these rooms are self-cleaning!
Catscratch waved a big paw dismissively, as though physically brushing Mikali's words out of the air.
Catscratch: Oh, I turned that off. It kept disintegrating my stuff.
Mikali just stared.
sh'Shar: I...
Catscratch's tail sank, her ears drooping on her head, features falling.
Catscratch: H-hey, c'mon. Don't be mad at me, Mikali. ::An edge of pleading crept into her voice.:: Please don't be mad.
Mikali certainly felt angry, frustrated, confused... but she inhaled (against her better judgement), took her hand off her nose, and nodded resolutely. There was no sense being furious. It would accomplish nothing.
sh'Shar: I'm not mad. Come on, let's clean this up together, okay?
Catscratch's smile returned, somewhat sheepish and muted, her tail swaying through the air behind her.
Catscratch: How about you clean, and I supervise?
Mikali, despite the terribly intrusive stench that burned her nostrils, managed a little tiny smile.
sh'Shar: We're going to clean together, okay?
And so they did. Although Catscratch didn't really help much, and it was mostly left to Mikali to chip away at the piles of plates, feeding them into the replicator and returning them to energy, followed by knives and forks and even more bizarre Caitian eating instruments. She then began picking up the clothes, scooping them up and similarly stuffing them back into the machine, occasionally wiping her hands on the cleanest thing she could find.
Catscratch, for her part, picked up uniforms with her feet and tossed them to her, although the Caitian's motivation conked out about half way through the process and she needed a "culturally critical cat nap". Which, apparently, consisted of laying on the top bunk making small talk as Mikali did the rest of the work.
It took hours, but finally, everything in front of the replicator was recycled, and everything on the floor was fed into the machine as well. There were several disgusting stains on the deck, but the drones would take care of them. Mikali made sure to turn them back on.
Catscratch: There, see? We did it.
Mikali, sweaty and gross, leaned up against their bunk, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, antenna twitching.
sh'Shar: Yeah. Sure. We did it.
Catscratch yawned and stretched, poking her head over the side of the bunk.
Catscratch: It's really good to have you back.
sh'Shar: Good to be back. Hopefully the room stays this clean from now on.
Catscratch smiled impishly.
Catscratch: That's kind of up to you, isn't it?
Mikali groaned and sank down into the lower bunk, running her grimey hands through her sweat-encrusted hair.
sh'Shar: I'm going for a shower. Try not to destroy the place while I'm gone. First, though... just going to lay down for a bit.
She fully intended to have a shower and recycle her clothes, but the moment her head hit the pillow, she was out like a light.
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