Signal, ever so faint

I got a wave today from out of the blue.  Well, out of the Black, really.  While I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it means, I am quite sure of the source.  AuroraBlue.  The Tiny Dragon.  My littlest girl.  The message, such as it was, was little more than a series of faint clicks, but the pattern was familiar.  Not unlike Lily's, though the signature was quite distinctly not Lily's.

Tiny Dragon didn't reach out to me often and I had to wonder what prompted the message.  Was she in trouble of some kind on Al Raquis?  Possible, but my information network there hadn't reported anything overly concerning.  Not that it couldn't get past me.  My information nets, while growing tighter, were still growing and I was still learning to properly parse the huge amount of data that was coming in.

Did she know about Sabrina?  The message I'd received?  That I was, again, the Lonesome Ninja?  Entirely possible.  A large part of her genetics had been carefully engineered for a specific purpose.  While the exact purpose was still, annoyingly, unknown, it wouldn't surprise me to find that a touch of the Reader gene was in there somewhere.  Genes, really.  Plus structural changes and who, really, knew what else.  It was possible she knew at an intuitive level that I was alone again and was reaching out to give some small token of comfort.  It was also entirely possible that, assuming 'Brina's departure was the reason, she knew by entirely mundane means.  More likely, really, given her intimate association with the Blue Man AI.

For all I knew, the message could be nothing more than "The weather is beautiful, wish you were here."  But somehow that seemed a little too mundane.  The fact that she's sent an audible message was significant in of itself.

The logical step from here was to check with my contacts on Al Raquis directly then, if they had nothing, go there myself to see how Tiny Dragon was doing.  While I was following the developments with Lily and K2 and AuroraBlue, I'd been very hands off of late.  Perhaps it was time to change that, though my interventions in the past never seemed to do much.  Of course, it was hard to see any effect my actions would have in their situations.  I was too close to it in time and space.

I also wasn't prescient.

Though . . . was anyone?

I'd give it another day or so to check with my local contacts and see if I could figure out why AuroraBlue had contacted me.  If not, or if she didn't contact me again herself, I'd go to her.  Even if it turned out to be nothing more than a sympathy call, it would be good to see her again.

Tiny Dragon calls
A faint voice, unexpected
Welcome distraction