So, Inxusa, why did my last five purchases require your approval? 

“Tolo, back on Yeoville station, you gave Erika a two month supply of Paraponera clavata level impression credits for your first therapy session. Do you know how many Standard Sapiens that can kill?” 

Okay. I get that. Fair. 

“Metric tonne of bacon? Who are you trying to impress?”

I told you not to let me go by myself. They was all these cute little pale pink piggies. You know, like twenty thirty pounds. I was hungry, so I bought them all. I didn’t know I was coming home until. And ain’t nobody say nathan about the twenty tonne coffee subscription I bought. What?

“Tolo, one of the big chains is suing you for unfair trade practices. They say you’re giving it away and that’s causing them to lose business. They’re trying to make sharing taxable. Really? Two vintage handmade Tube Amplifiers? Tolo what is a THORENS TD 1601?”

For real? Can I afford to triple my order? A pound for everybody on my ring. Yeah! You’ve had that overpriced spaceport airpot crap. An old record player. I’m planning to collect vinyl when I get home.

“A dozen blue rose bushes for every living Plus Plushy Companion Figure model in the line? Okay that’s kind of sweet. No. Tolo, that’s really sweet.”

Inxusa, Donchu tell nobody I did that shit. 

“And, you’re spending the day with Honey, your furniture and the Gabonica Princess Bubblecups in the station resort? Yuk. And you’re giving her the hide from your molting. Yuk! I know what that means to chicks, but yuk.”

Yeah, well, I owe her a hand written apology for the whole E.M.E. Box thing. I don’t think she’d really appreciate me spending a hundred hours practicing my longhand, just to read seven copies of. 

I’m thinkin, I’ll just buy her a nice card, throw her some glitter, play some Tunk and enjoy some space coffee with my buddy.

Besides, after that mess with Meg at the station with Umma Heyboo and them. I know it ain’t as nice as Chaxiraxi, but she should see my places and stuff. I really don’t know who she think she pimpin’. She’s not selling sexual gratification. She’s selling my pedigree. I don’t care. I bust a nut, I paint some pictures while I get some good REM sleep. 

I want to feel some kind of way about the way Meesha told me that seventy percent of my earnings were going to the care of the children the Company says I’ve sired. I know two and their mothers hated me the moment they met me, but I was both of their last choice that ovucycle.

The only thing I have the freedom to negotiate is the price and availability of my art.

I would care about the money, but, 

with the purse from the first deep sleep painting this Fall, I bought a sapphire asteroid just so I can make some pigments. I’ll sell the surplus to the Company.  

“Tolo, you’re wealthy beyond most fem type’s imaginations. And most of them hate you because they have nothing to exchange for the things that you have and they want. The rest hate you because you have us between them and you. Out there in the cold, furniture is cheap. But you don’t have cheap furniture.

The ship’s Archivist is cheap, you just didn’t have a good reason to spend lots of money.

Which brings us to this latest splurge. A full set of your Pod’s scale model replicas for every child in that caravan. Okay.

And one for you. Hmm? Tolo.”

Yeah well and… 

…Inxusa, could you get the Company to impose somebody other than Meg on my dreams and the Umma Heyboo you’re hooking me up with? She’s more Zambia than Trulie. That’s a turn off. Maybe a Phoebe or a Whynter, I won’t feel remotely bad about forgetting them or wanting to step back to it.  

“That’s funny, especially since you’re going to be raising more than a dozen children together. 

Read the details in your next memo, but Meghan arranged for the three of you to co-parent Hush’s child. They have a new Sox9 variant. Meghan feels it will be good for you and your common niece, Sydney Seddit.”

Sydney Seddit is my pod’s favorite fan. All the sculptures and builders read her blog. Sydney and her little sister Emmę ya tolo are two of the brood of six I’m inheriting from my sister. Fuck her anyway. Meg’s adopting her too? Sydney is an unaugmented double exe standard sapien. I hope I can live up to her expectations. The rest of them are close enough to second rites that I can hope not to smash their heads with my Dory’s pincers to get their attention.

“Tolo, you never have anything good to say about your fellow drones.”

Inxusa, Drones, feed, fight, fuck, get fucked up and forget. Repeat. They have high enough self esteem where they don’t need any encouragement from my old ass. Okay, they’re handy when it’s time to go Jaglavak. And they’re bitch magnets. I wonder what a ton of Hydrated Stellar Mycelium is going for these days? I love the hues of purple patina it makes.

“Anyway Tolo, you’re dipping out of the stream for your next stop. We’ll have to talk on screen for the next week or two. I hope congratulations are in order for you.

Honey and Bubblecups. Yuk!”