Visions of Iris

She could see everything she needed to from the secret shelf, and she felt confident that no one could see her. As a technomancer, it was important that she kept her operations occurring exclusively out of sight while maintaining visibility into other household affairs. From this vantage point, she could both monitor the hums and beeps and flashes of the scattered household devices, and rest assured that no one could observe her vigilance.

Even so, it was important to her that she regularly look the part, in case she ever had to descend into the chaos below. She must always be ready. Iris steadied herself on the limited surface of the secret shelf and began bathtime. She ensured that each ear, each whisker, and each of her six white chest hairs was in its most well-groomed shape. She was especially proud of her six white chest hairs, as these marked her as an unusually skilled technomancer. The other kittens were stuck with bland, base model character skins - but not Iris. She knew she was something special, and the six white chest hairs proved it.

She began today's inventory. Dad's two monitors, Mom's needle stabber, a phone on a desk, and the always-obedient defecation robot. The robot had been a particularly appropriate upgrade to her territory, and it had yet to disobey her, which was quite a record for household devices. Still, she regularly made sure to monitor its cleaning movements, just in case.

Iris verified that the room was empty before she leapt to the interim shelf, and then to the ground fortress with the rooftop bed lounge that her brother loved so much. (What a weirdo, there aren't even any shadows there, duh.) She slipped around the desks and into Mom's chair, next to the needle stabber, which gave her precisely the view she was looking for.

Iris had seen the smartphone many times before, usually in the hands of Mom or Dad. She hadn't gotten to see one up close like this before, and she thought it was well past time that she investigate. So, verifying once again that no one could see her, Iris the Great Technomancer leaned from the chair towards the needle stabber desk and tilted her ears towards the device.

There was little to be heard, save for its steady faint humming. She had heard the humming before, on this same phone, even. On Dad's phone, too, and on their various computers. Iris had heard it from all over the house, in fact, and had concluded that there was nothing useful to be done with it. But perhaps, if she could learn more about this source, she might be able to uncover some useful properties from it after all... she knew she had to get closer.

Iris gently stepped her two tiny front paws onto the desk, angling her nose just so, to get a sniff of the device. She let her nose sit with it for just a moment, letting the scent linger and take form. She was unsurprised, and only a little disappointed, to find that it mostly smelled like Mom. That was nothing new; that's what most of Mom's things smelled like. She retracted her nose and cocked her head, continuing to appraise the device. She tried sniffing at it again. It still smelled like Mom, and little else. It still hummed.

So then, she was going to have to investigate with an instrument of greater sensitivity, she reasoned. Very well; the costs of science are sometimes great, and to be a great technomancer, she knew she must sometimes pay them. She noted the steadiness of the humming and took one last cautious sniff, found Mom's scent to be consistent as well, and reached a tentative paw towards the phone.

Nothing yet. She reached closer. She could almost feel a tingle in the very tips of her paws, but she knew that that would not be enough to satisfy her ambitions. She reached closer, and closer, until she finally brushed a paw against the silky-smooth screen.

She retracted! Immediately, she had gleaned new information. She applied her sensitive nose to her newly exposed paw and found this time that Mom's scent had been diluted ever so slightly with the tang of metallics. Now that might be more promising. She could do some amazing things with metals. She reached her paw out again, this time with greater confidence, brushing the darkened screen for just a hair longer.

It lit up! Now this was discovery-making territory. Iris finished climbing onto the desk and stood over the device, two front paws to either side of it, her keenest sensory detectors aimed directly at the now illuminated screen.

A lock. Was she so easily foiled? After having come all this way, bathed for the occasion, down from the safety of her secret shelf? Absolutely not, she resolved. Iris pressed her paw against the screen once more, hoping for once that her mother had ignored her ongoing insistence on increasing the house's technical security. She could only yelp at Mom's feet about it so many times before she needed another nap.

Her efforts were rewarded, as it appeared that her mother had indeed let digital safety fall by the wayside. With just a sustained touch of the nose, Iris unlocked the phone.

She was unprepared for what she saw it proclaiming.

How could it possibly have a photo of her, of Iris the Great Technomancer?! Had she not banned all observations, both strict and casual, of her very presence? Did this device fail to respect her chosen dedication to the world of the shadows, by daring to capture Iris with light technologies?

This was unacceptable. No lights were meant to land on Iris the Great Technomancer. Steeling her resolve to fend off the uninvited observer, Iris loosened her tunneled focus just enough to see what else might be available on the screen.

There were many more buttons, with some kind of symbology on them, but none that she could readily decode. The rest of the screen appeared dark, beyond her brazenly stolen image and the buttons surrounding it. Why was one of those buttons set aside, at the top, away from all the rest?

Iris recognized the images on that one: she knew what technomancy symbols looked like. Those tell-tale little sparkles always surrounded technomancy sigils. Perhaps this would be how she would resolve this embarrassing exposure. Iris prepared to cast her spell.

She pressed the button. To her shock and horror, rather than eliminating the image as she had commanded it to do, the device dared to add even more lighting to this unholy depiction of her face! It added brightness to her eyes, and dampened the brightness of her six white chest hairs.

She hated it. This was decidedly not how Iris the Great Technomancer wished to perceived, should she even have to be perceived at all. And yet, if her likeness was trapped in this screen, and she had to submit herself to the indignity of being perceived in perpetuity, was she supposed to accept the mockery also of being perceived inaccurately?

Iris bit at the phone.

Nothing on its screen changed. She tried pressing the button with the sparkle symbols again, hoping that perhaps it had just misunderstood her spell casting.

It had not, it seemed. Or maybe it was misunderstanding on purpose. Instead of adding her cloak of shadows back into the photograph, the technomancy ritual lightened her velvet-soft, gray complexion even more. She was practically unrecognizable at this point; what an indignity to have her image out there, inaccurately, and out of her control. Her six white chest hairs had totally disappeared, and the pink in her nose was fading quickly to gray.

Iris bit at the phone again. Still, nothing changed. She tried pressing a pawprint directly into the center of the image; all that accomplished was highlighting the border of the photograph. This was useless to her as well. And she couldn't escape, now that her image was trapped here, dampened, lightened, and made so alienated from her actual self.

She screamed.

Mom returned from the other room - Iris froze - Mom lifted Iris off of the desk and reprimanded her. Iris mused that if anything, she should be the one reprimanding Mom, taking photos of Iris the Great Technomancer so freely, and allowing them to be perverted in such a way as to compromise her image. How incredibly disrespectful. But, at least Mom understood Iris's terror at the manipulated photo, even if what she did about it was dare to reprimand her. Iris retreated into the anonymity of her secret shelf, from where she could once again see the whole room without having to endure being seen herself.

"Ugh, there's nothing wrong with her," Mom cried out. "I'm getting rid of all these so-called 'enhancements'. Iris is perfect as she is," Mom narrated. "And, send to Dad." Mom put the phone back down.

Iris was able to see that her picture was there no longer. She indulged herself in a measured bit of reassurance; she knew that Dad's recognition of her power and skill was inviolable. Even if there did exist her image out there, somewhere, she knew it would at least be safe in Dad's care. And that he would be safe from having to bear witness to that awful, grotesquely in accurate version.

What a relief. No more manipulations, no more grotesque depictions of her singular gray-and-white greatness. No more visible perceptions of Iris the Great Technomancer lay before her. As a matter of fact, she thought, returning to a state of not being so obviously perceived was extremely comforting. Perhaps even enough so to warrant taking another nap.