Annie licked the lollipop in her mouth, looked at the great door of the bridge before her, and halted her steps.
"A lollipop's not a good look — better hide it first." Annie took out a candy-wrapper, wrapped the lollipop up in it, and tucked it into her pocket.
She'd just put out one foot when, the next moment, she froze.
She glanced round, found no one paying her any mind, and reached a hand into her pocket on reflex — but then something came to her, and she looked up at a mini camera hidden away in the ceiling.
She at once feigned a look of urgency, turned her head, and darted into a washroom around the corner.
Once inside the washroom, only then did Annie fish out a little box — inside it, black ink — and just as she made to smear a bit of it under her eyes—
She recalled the time the Commander had seen straight through her.
"This won't do." Annie shook her head, and put the little box away.
She took out a little spray-bottle, gave her hair a good round of spraying, and worked it into a state exactly like a chicken's nest.
Then she looked at herself in the electronic mirror-panel, and nodded, well satisfied.
Then, eyeing the clean clothes on her body, Annie was struck by a sudden thought; at once she dug that box of ink out of her pocket again, and rubbed it into every nook and corner of her clothes.
Annie in this state looked all the more like a chief engineer just come off a front-line work post.
Then Annie gave her own face a few pats.
When she walked out of the washroom, her stride wavered noticeably, and she wore the look of one whose body had been wrung dry.
Annie came to the bridge's great door; an electronic robot scanned her, and soon opened the light-gate.
Annie walked into the bridge, and the first thing she saw was Zhao Chen, seated in the captain's chair at the bridge's center, and Lilith beside him.
Huh—
How was her little sister Nana here too?
For some reason, Annie always had a jittery, uneasy feeling; she gulped, comforted herself that it was nothing, kept up her "performance," and walked slowly toward the Commander.
"My lord Commander, Annie reporting." Annie stood up straight, but her voice was terribly feeble.
"Annie, what's the matter with you? You look worn out," Lilith asked with concern.
Annie squeezed out a thread of a smile: "Sister Lilith, Annie's fine. It's only that the Owl Dragon Legion's starship build-plans are so heavy — but Annie knows how important this work is. So even on the last day of the year, Annie will make sure the projects are completed on time and to quota!"
Annie at this moment was, to the very life, a labor-model toiling dutifully for the Owl Dragon Legion.
"Sister Annie, are the build-plans really so heavy? Isn't everything running quite normally? And besides, Sister Annie, weren't you still throwing a party last night? I even saw you say you were going to eat something nice at noon today," Nana asked from the side, a face full of puzzlement.
"What eating something nice? I… I've been at my work post all day today, and what I ate was a work-lunch too!" Annie was a touch guilty, but still put on a calm front.
Yet the very next second, Annie gave a hiccup.
Hic~
Zhao Chen raised his head; he'd caught that heavy smell in the air, and he looked at Annie: "This work-lunch you ate at noon — was it beef-tallow hot-pot?"
Annie's body went stiff, her mind racing at top speed.
Both hands clasped behind her back, her fingers pinching one another without cease; the toe of her right foot hooked around behind her left, little fidgets one after another.
"This is… this was when I passed by the starship canteen — I just happened to catch Sis Niu eating beef-tallow hot-pot! Commander, you know how it is, Sis Niu's such a warm-hearted soul; she saw me passing and insisted I have a couple of bites. So I ate a couple of bites of fatty beef! Never thought the smell would cling so — still here even now."
Annie even breathed out a puff, sniffed it herself, and laughed a ha-ha laugh.
"And the party last night?" Zhao Chen narrowed his eyes at Annie.
"No party! Absolutely no such thing as a party!" Annie waved her hands over and over.
At just this moment, a voice rang out.
"Everybody sing along and dance along with me — let me see those little hands waving! I say Annie, you say Big Baby! Annie! (Big Baby!) Annie! (Big Baby!) Where's the applause — let's hear it louder — Big Baby Annie will give you all one more number, my signature Buster-style pole dance! (clap clap clap clap)"
Annie's whole expression went rigid; she tilted her head to look at the electronic window open before Nana beside her — and in that electronic window, a bit of footage was playing.
Zhao Chen looked over, and saw a "stubby little dumpling" circling a pole, doing who-knew-what.
The background looked to be a private room in a starship canteen, with lights of every color and music besides.
The camera angle, though, was most cunning: the only person it captured was Annie, alone.
"I didn't see wrong, then — Sister Annie, you even posted to your friend-feed last night." Nana blinked her guileless eyes and looked at Zhao Chen.
"Friend-feed?" Zhao Chen narrowed his eyes at Annie, who by now wished she could find a crack in the floor and burrow into it.
Annie hung her head, staring at the flat, smooth floor, and regretted bitterly within: when I was building this starship, why on earth didn't I dig a crack in the floor…
"Big Baby Annie, I'm on your friend-list too. How come I never saw the post you put up over here?" Zhao Chen used a level, unruffled voice — yet it gave Annie the feeling of a great hand pressing down on the top of her head.
Annie gulped, and, opening up her own Owl Dragon Legion internal comm-network, muttered: "Nearly forgot — yesterday on my day off, I did whoop it up a bit with everyone. How could the Commander not see my friend-feed — let me have a look… Oh dear, when did I go and block the Commander by mistake. Oh, right! It must've been last time when Sis Niu was flipping through my comm-network — you know how it is, Commander, Sis Niu isn't too handy with these things; she probably blocked you by accident."
As Annie spoke, the corner of her eye flicked toward her little sister beside her.
I blocked the Commander myself — how could I have forgotten to block this little thing too!
That people-skewering glare — there was no hiding it.
Once Annie had unblocked Zhao Chen, the notifications on his end about Annie's friend-feed posts turned, in a stroke, into 99+!
Bear in mind, this friend-feed system only flagged unread messages from within the past month.
Zhao Chen flipped through — this Annie character had put up four or five a day, and half the content was to do with food.
Annie, both hands behind her back, one foot scuffing circles on the floor, said in an aggrieved little voice: "Annie's just balancing work and rest a bit… look, I've toiled so hard for the work."
Seeing the piteous state Annie was in, anyone else would likely have been well and truly taken in by her.
"Annie — is the road from the hangar to my bridge a trek over mountains and across ridges, then? To have gotten your clothes and your hair in such a mess." Zhao Chen suddenly came out with a line.
Annie was baffled; she didn't grasp what the Commander meant, and raised her head to look at him.
She saw Zhao Chen open up a friend-feed window and turn it for her to see.
The sender was Nana.
The background was Annie in the far distance, dawdling her way down off the ship — and that Annie's body was spotlessly clean, her hair not the bird's-nest it was now.
Below it, words were captioned besides.
"Ran into Sister Annie — so happy!"
The corner of Annie's mouth twitched; ashen-faced, she looked over at the pure and innocent Nana beside her.
I don't want this little sister anymore — whoever wants her can have her!