busybee comics: Ascent

Waking up alone in a brightly-lit room is never any fun. It’s even less fun when you can’t remember who you are, or even what you are.

After taking a quick mental inventory and a look around, our protagonist was able to remember objects and things, but no events, but after paging the doctor (in a completely unfamiliar voice), we learn the name (Juni Melrose) and rank (Organeer, first class), and that there was some sort of incident which left Juni in this state of place and mind. However, before the doctor could explain things, Agent Sam Roarke stormed in, taking Juni away.

Juni soon learned many important facts: the setting (Unity, a large, cylindrical, artificial habitat, spinning through space to simulate gravity), the fact Sam was, in fact, a friend of some sort, and the fact that Juni was a neutrois — lacking in gender, or at least preferring to be referred without such. [Editor’s note: their native language, Hiero, has separate pronouns for non- and dual-gendered sapients; for the purpose of the English translation, however, Juni is referred to as “it.”]

Sam brought Juni home and left it alone for some time, to give it time to readjust. There was quite a bit to readjust to — it soon discovered that Sam was not just a friend, but its partner.

Juni took a nap, and soon awoke to find Sam next to it. They decided to go out for some dinner; they arrived either significantly earlier or significantly later than most diners, but either way, they were soon confronted by Kali Rosha, a reporter for the Southern Daily Axis. Given the stressful situation, Sam sent the chromamorphic busybody off under threat of violence.

Now alone in the restaurant, Sam explained some of their background to Juni; it is a rarity for a “spadetail” (a slang term for Juni’s species, more properly referred to as “Kayohash”) to be a “nullo,” and in fact this was at odds with its species' reputation, as it was implicated in some sort of sex scandal, which the press gave up on when they decided Juni’s asexuality was genuine. Meanwhile, Sam explained that he and Juni had known each other since adolescence (a fact which filled Juni with a memory of school, albeit set in an early-21st-century Earth building), and both being a bit strange in the gender department they hit it off well.

Soon after, Sam brought a rather drunk Juni home. Juni quickly fell to sleep, while Sam had a fairly ominous conversation.