"In The Company Of Myself" by NobodyAtAll

Pierre once again enters his office at FauCorp HQ, at the top floor of the whopping one hundred and twenty story Faucheuse Tower. Before sitting at his desk, his glowing blue eyes linger on a magnificent oil painting. It looks quite old, and is big enough that it almost covers the entire wall.

A tall, haughty man with long, messy, golden-blond hair, and, strangely, golden eyes, a beautiful woman, one head shorter than her husband, with light blonde hair and blue eyes that shimmer even on the canvas, and two blond little boys, who actually aren’t that little for their age. Both of the boys have deep blue eyes. Everyone is smiling.

Sighing, Pierre manages to tear himself away from the painting yet again, and after glancing out the window, at the majestic cityscape extending below him, he sits down and checks the notes.

The older enterprises are doing as well as always. Faucheuse Electronics just launched a new smartphone, and stores can’t stock them fast enough. Faucheuse Cosmetics’ new lipstick line is getting rave reviews. Faucheuse Pharmaceuticals is expanding its distribution of free HIV medication in Africa to three more countries.

Pierre can live with taking a loss like that, because Faucheuse Cosmetics alone more than makes up for it. Pierre Faucheuse strives to be a decent, morally upstanding man, but he feels no guilt when he’s parting vain fools with more dollars than brain cells and their money.

Pierre finally gets through the boring notes, and gets to the notes on his new passion.

That is, the fluffy-related enterprises.


Pierre, though having no hand in the creation of fluffies, was initially delighted and fascinated by the creatures, when his sources in Hasbio informed him of the project. Artificially created, genetically engineered, self-replicating biotoys! With near-human intelligence! Like nothing ever seen before! He decided to keep a close eye on the project.

It wasn’t long after PLASMA (People Liberating Animals and Stopping Mankind’s Abuse) broke into Hasbio’s laboratory that Pierre realized that humanity had reached a turning point. Almost overnight, the world changed. The fluffies liberated by those well-meaning morons at PLASMA escaped into the wild before Hasbio could perfect them, and began breeding en masse. It lead to the disbandment of PLASMA (and the arrest of its entire leadership), businesses catering to fluffies and their owners popping up like mushrooms, companies like Hasbio and Alenix pumping out shoddily-made merchandise (certainly shoddily-made by Pierre’s high standards), and, strangest of all, everyone just accepting this massive change to the status quo.

For some, it was because they thought that the new biotoys were just so cute. For others, it was because there was now a subclass of sapient beings who could be tortured in any number of ways with zero repercussions from the law.

For men of science like Pierre, it was an opportunity to study a brand-new lifeform.

And for men of business, also like Pierre, it was a vast, untapped market.

FauCorp was slow to enter the fluffy market, because Pierre wanted to do it right. But when he came, he came hard, and played to win.

Unlike those lesser men of science and business, who see only opportunities for fame and fortune, Pierre can see the bigger picture.

The fates of humankind and fluffykind are inextricably intertwined, now. The survival of one is the survival of the other. Pierre is working hard to ensure that humans and fluffies flourish together.

But there are those who, in their ignorance, in their malice, in their greed, may yet doom the entire world, and both species. Pierre is also working hard to prevent this, and he’s not fighting alone.


Someone serves Pierre a cup of tea.

“Ah, merci.” He takes a sip.

“Oh, silly me, talking to myself again.”

The person serving the tea is another Pierre Faucheuse.

A third Pierre is elegantly spreading Marmite on a hot buttered crumpet. A fourth and fifth, several floors down, are working in the laboratory.

Xavier Laine once asked Pierre how he manages to find the time, to run an international corporation and do his “science stuff”, Xavier’s exact words. This is how. He can literally be in multiple places at the same time.

Pierre calls them his Remote Bodies. Biomechanical in nature, controlled remotely via a cybernetic implant in his brain, one of many cybernetics he has installed in his body. Completely indistinguishable from his real body, which could be any one of the five mentioned so far. Or even none of them. This is very advanced, very expensive technology, the price tag being one of the many reasons it’s not yet available to the public.

His record is controlling ten bodies at once, and he’s working on a new implant that will hopefully double that. He could get so much more done.

There’s a ping. On the desk, a small screen lights up, showing the face of Xavier Laine, right outside the office.

“Pierre! Need you to look at the redesign for Dark Captain Fluffy. Just want to make sure you approve of it, so I can give Costumes and Merchandising the green light.”

The Pierre sitting at the desk doesn’t move, other than to push a hidden button on the desk. The oil painting slowly and silently swings open, revealing a hidden door. The other two Pierres silently pass through it.

After the portrait is closed with a soft click, the last Pierre left turns his gaze to the door, pushing the button to open it with one cybernetic hand, grabbing a crumpet with the other.

“Enter.”

8 Likes

Alright, show of hands, everyone.

How many of you had already figured out that Pierre is a cyborg? I’m curious.

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Clones can be the best or worst of gimmicks.
Given there isn’t a lazy twist, it could very well be the former.

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It’s not clones, exactly. It’s remote controlled robotic bodies. One mind, multiple bodies. Think Miss Level from Discworld.

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wait a sec… Didnt Jeff speak to these two in one of the interdimensional cafe eps??

I’m surprised he hasnt tried fucking himself yet. Maybe victor was wrong about him being Vanilla…

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Nope. He was talking to Moist von Lipwig and Adora Belle Dearheart from Discworld.

If you haven’t read Discworld, I strongly recommend it. It’s been one of the biggest influences on my writing.

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ohhhh that makes sence, i’ve never seen discoworld, and i dont know where to read it?

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I think you can find most of the books on Internet Archive. I’ve got a bunch of 'em on my phone.

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