busybee comics: Ascent

While mourning Tamu’s betrayal, Juni received a call, apparently from the autistic Corentin. This was a surprise to Juni, who called the functional one to try to find out what was going on. Juni had a notion that the Corentins needed its help, and decided to visit the Corentins with Sam, leaving Hira at home to sleep.

On their way, they bumped into Agent Harris, who briefly explained that she was merely following orders, which were specifically non-lethal. Sam wasn’t particularly enamored with this justification, but Tanya’s coolheadedness prevailed before any regrettable altercation occurred.

However, a couple of misplaced words got Sam upset at Juni, who was oblivious to having caused offense, being lost deep in thought about what it had learned from Captain Lombard. Sam decided to leave Juni behind and head back to his sister’s home, which prompted Juni to pursue Tanya and ask her about Sam. Tanya told Juni how much stress Sam had been under due to recent circumstances, and Juni felt terrible about the entire situation. Feeling sympathetic towards Tanya’s difficult situation, Juni resolved to do whatever it could to fix the failing society within Unity, which was perhaps what the purpose of its plan with Lombard was to begin with.

Arriving at the Corentins' residence (somewhat unexpectedly, and with the autistic one apparently asleep), Juni talked about its prior amnesia — which was the first the functional one had heard of it, which gave him concern about what information Tamu had been suppressing. The autistic one awoke, and Juni made an offhanded comment about feather-plucking, seeming to recall a time it saw it happen.

After a brief discussion of ancient human swear words, the functional one mentioned a meeting he had with Kali Rosha. This got the autistic one — whom the functional one let slip was Kandra (and thus he was Chandra) — riled up, and Chandra decided to bring Juni along to the meeting with Kali somewhat early. Kandra seemed to be rather angry about Chandra taking Juni away, but being unable to communicate very well, Juni and Chandra just took it as him having an “episode” and left him behind to cool off.

As Chandra and Juni left the Corentins' home, Kandra sat back down at the information repository — and was greeted by a residual fragment of Juni’s simulation.