Koira, 16 Shiaa, 4392, Orthodox calendar;
Wednesday, 21 May 2007, Native regional reckoning
New Orleans, Gamia Province, American sector
Symone was absolutely outrageous.
That was the entire problem he had with her, because she was just so damn likable.
It was both a part of her quirky charm and the manner in which she defused any kind of possible retaliation against Tim for him going out with a Faey. She was so bubbly and energetic, and when she was in public, she acted like an absolute airhead. She gave Tim vapid, adoring stares, and she actually debased herself a little bit by acting with a kind of effervescent silliness when she was around him which made everyone comfortable with her, whether they liked Faey or not. She was riotously funny, charmingly silly, deceptively vapid, and cunningly adorable.
She was absolutely impossible not to like.
The students reacted to her presence surprisingly well, Jason had to admit. She made it very clear from the outset that she was dating Tim—her big and hunky stud, as she called him—and the way she fawned all over him defused any kind of animosity that humans might have for her. She acted like a lovestruck ditz, and the students considered her to be harmless. In private, though, she showed both him and Tim that she was a very smart young lady, and that her affection for Tim was quite sincere.
In the face of Symone, his personal intent to not socialize with Faey was sorely put to the test.
She was just so fun. Tim managed to drag him with them after school on Monday night to go down to the quarter for some drinks, and it was just a matter of minutes before Symone had managed to insinuate herself right into their friendship. She was a fearless woman with a wicked sense of humor, and she was very funny when she got drunk. She'd shocked Patty O's at first, since it was the first time they'd ever seen a Faey out of armor, and one that had come in to drink, no less, but Symone had the entire piano bar eating out of her hand after about half an hour. She bantered with the waitress, she made jokes with the other patrons, and after they'd called Jason up to have him play the piano, she jumped up on the stage and sang for the spectators. Symone had a lovely voice, and she was surprisingly familiar with human songs.
By nine o'clock, curfew, she was roaring drunk, hanging on both of them as they caught a streetcar back to the dorm, and Jason had to keep reminding himself that she was a Faey, because she was a very funny drunk.
Last night, instead of going out and getting drunk, Tim brought her along as they studied in the common room. She showed no signs of her indisposition the night before, spending the time reading an old human romance novel. Jason was a bit surprised she could read English. After they got ready for their calculus test, she convinced them to bring in a DVD player and show her favorite human movie on the big TV in the common room, Braveheart.
"That movie's like ten years old," Tim told her in surprise. "How did you find out about it?"
"I saw a commercial with that lead actor, a clip from the movie, and I had to check it out. Men in skirts always get my attention," she winked.
"It's called a kilt or a plaid, not a skirt," Jason told her absently.
"So that's where the name you students gave the lab building came from."
"Yah," Tim told her.
"That Mal Gobson is cute."
"Mel Gibson."
"Whatever. Who cares about him now that I got my Tim-Tim?" she said, leaning over the table and giving him a passionate kiss.
"Tim-Tim?" Jason asked mildly, giving him a sly smile.
His expression was a bit pained. "So she has a pet name for me."
"Riiight," he drawled, glancing up from his panel.
"Don't make me come over there," he said with an evil smile.
"Bring a spatula," Jason remarked absently. "You'll need it to peel yourself off the floor."
"Talk Faey," Symone objected. "I'm not that good with English, and you need the practice, Tim. What is a spatula?"
Tim explained it to her, which made her laugh. "I remember that fight you had with my squad, Jason. You're teaching Tim how to do that?"
"Well, he might be able to do that in a couple of years," Jason told her. "He just started learning."
"Where did you learn it?"
"Well, when I was a kid, my father was stationed in Japan," he answered. "When he was there, he got totally fascinated with martial arts. Unarmed combat," he explained. "He used it to keep in shape, because pilots have to be in very good shape to handle the physical stresses of being a fighter pilot."
"My sister is in the pilot program," she nodded. "Her letters say she was shocked at how much they have to work out.
"What does she fly?" Tim asked.
"She flies exomechs," she answered him. "Those machines that looked like robots. Pilots have to fly exomechs for a year or so before they get rated for flying fighters."
"I've never seen one," Tim told her.
With a few keystrokes on his panel's holographic keyboard, he brought up a good picture of one, then turned the panel around so he could see it. "Exomech," Jason told him. Exomechs were large robotic fighting vehicles, about twelve feet tall, that moved just like a human or a Faey. He'd read about them on CivNet. They didn't really use them here because they didn't really need to, but he was sure they had some garrisoned somewhere on the planet, or in the starship that was parked in orbit over the planet to provide assistance, in case of some catastrophic accident or major insurrection. The information he'd gotten on them was surprisingly detailed. Faey had yet to develop a technology that allowed machines to interface with their telepathic powers, so all their devices were manually controlled. An exomech would certainly test a pilot's ability to handle multiple controls simultaneously. The arms were controlled with braces that attached to the pilot's arms, and the legs and the exomech's ability to walk or run were controlled braces that attached to the feet, and a pair of pedals on the floor. A combination of foot shifts and pushing the pedals, translated by the onboard computer, would give the exomech an utterly humanoid manner of moving. They were armed with very powerful weapons called MPACs, Metaphased Plasma Auto Cannons, a much more powerful version of the plasma rifles and pistols the Faey employed, which were housed in the forearms of the units. Exomechs were battlefield weapons, the ultimate expression of the powered personal combat armor Faey soldiers wore into combat, but unlike that powered armor, exomechs were equipped with spatial drives that allowed them to fly. The Faey's personal powered armor had magnetic induction units that let it ride on a planet's magnetic field. That allowed them to skim along the surface of the ground with extreme speed, and reach an altitude of nearly thirty meters.
"Holy shit," Tim breathed, staring at the picture.
"You keep thinking that what you see the Faey using here is all they have," Jason told him seriously. "What they use here is hundred year old surplus junk that they probably had to dust off."
Symone nodded. "Sure enough. The only current tech they let us use around here are our weapons, well, and the hovercars. They're pretty standard just about anywhere in the Imperium. They converted all our hot plasma and ion guns to metaphased twenty years ago."
"Why don't they give you the good stuff?"
"They don't need to," Symone told him honestly. "Our hundred-year old armor can stop the most powerful archaic powder gun you have. You can't organize because you have no defense against our telepathy, so that old armor is all we need." She snorted. "My House is cheap anyway," she complained. "We still have Polymerized Camonite armor when the Imperials have Neutronium. Trillane worries more about its purse than it does its defense," she said, then she made a face. "Why are we sitting here talking about this shit? Let's watch the movie!"
It was hard to say no to Symone, over just about anything. So, their studying turned into an extended screening of Braveheart, along with nearly the entire second and third floors of the dorm. Symone's bubbly, infectious nature had taken hold of everyone watching the movie, and got them all into it much more than they would have been had they been watching it alone. She had the entire room cheering during the battle scenes.
But she wasn't a friend. And Jason had to keep telling himself that about every ten minutes.
He caught her again in the morning, as she opened his door without knocking as he sat on his bed and prepared for the coming day with his thirty minutes of meditation, which preceded his morning workout. It didn't go very well, for he had another one of those annoying headaches that he'd been suffering from for the last couple of months. They were never too severe, a dull, aching throb inside his head that tended to come and go over the course of about an hour. He'd woke up with it, and it was just starting to ease. But it wasn't enough to prevent him from meditating; in fact, it was something of an exercise to ignore the pain and continue with his meditation despite it.
"Hello? Jason, are you in here—oh," she said in surprise, putting a hand to her chest when she saw him sitting on the bed.
"What?" he asked, his eyes opening and regarding her. She was wearing one of Tim's football jersey shirts, which hung down to her thighs. "You slept here last night?"
"I'm trying to get Tim to move in with me."
"You move fast."
"I know it's only been a few days, but I think I love him," she admitted, scratching her backside absently. "When he let me join our minds, what I found inside him was beautiful. I'm not letting him get away from me. He's too good a catch."
"I can't argue there."
"What were you doing?" she asked. "I couldn't even sense you in here. It was like you turned off your brain."
"Meditating," he answered. "A mental exercise that helps sharpen the mind."
"It was creepy," she told him. "I usually get a sense of something from you, even if I can't hear your thoughts. But it was like your brain wasn't there."
"I know. I've learned that meditation keeps Faey from finding me with their power. I've had occasion to hide from them here lately."
"Heh," she mused. "How do you do that, anyway? Hide your thoughts from me. I've never come across a human that can do that. It made me almost itch to try to probe you several times when you had me in that collar, but you said no using my talent, and I wasn't going to cheat."
"It's a mental exercise," he answered. "A false front that hides my thoughts. I've had a lot of practice perfecting it," he growled. "Faey seem to go nuts that they can't hear my thoughts, and they always probe me. I've even learned what it feels like when they're doing it."
"You can feel it?" she asked in surprise.
He nodded.
"Damn," she grunted. "I didn't think that was possible."
"What do you mean?"
"You shouldn't be able to feel us using our talent. No other humans do."
"They probably don't have the same training I do," he answered. "Part of what I learned from my father involves knowing your own mind. Since what Faey do is alien, something not part of my mind, I can sense it when they do it to me."
"Huh. Well, wonders never cease," she said. "What time is it?"
"Around five thirty."
"Fuck," she grunted sourly. "I have to be at the barracks by six. I need to get dressed and get my ass over there before I get busted."
"You're not supposed to be here?"
"They don't care where I am as long as I show up for duty on time," she told him. "I've got the campus in my duty rotation today, so I'll try to show up for lunch with you guys. But we're not friends," she said with a sly smile and a wink. "I'm going to be there to see Tim. If you're there, well, I'll just have to be nice to you. Semantics, you know. Sophistry. I don't want to ruin your hypocrisy."
Jason chuckled ruefully. "Bitch," he accused.
She winked again. "The bitchiest of all bitches," she said shamelessly. "Call me the Bitch Queen. And be sure to bow. The Bitch Queen gets bitchy when she doesn't get the respect she's due."
"Work. Go," he commanded.
"Yes, Master," she said breathlessly. She twirled towards the door, then pulled up her shirt to expose her bare buttocks, then slapped herself a couple of times on that rather attractive posterior in taunting reply to his command, then hurried out the door.
He peeked out of the room and saw her getting ready to go up the stairs. "Someday you're going to come into my room and manage to get out without showing me your ass," he called to her, loud enough to wake up a few people on his floor.
"Consider yourself lucky," she shouted in reply. "I don't show my ass to just any guy, you know!"
Several bleary heads poked out of opening doors as Jason chuckled. "What the hell are you shouting for at five thirty in the fucking morning?" the girl who lived in the room beside him asked crossly. Her name was Betty, and he didn't really like her all that much. She was a primadonna.
"Symone," he said, and that was all the explanation he needed.
She looked towards the stairwell at the end of the hall, then laughed. "Oh. Nevermind, then," she said, then closed her door.
Oh, yes, the whole dorm was familiar with Symone. In a way, she was the dorm mascot now.
The calculus test was surprisingly difficult, but he was pretty sure he managed to pass it with a high mark. There was a little excitement in the lab, when a PPG suffered a fatal breakdown and ejected its core, which caused the PPG's case to overheat and catch fire. Ailan had to douse the fire with an extinguisher, showing a calm reaction to an event that caused some of the students to scream and back away.
After lab was over, Ailan called him down to the table before he could leave. "I got a message from the Ministry, and they sent me the design specs for an ultrasonic device that they say you built," he said.
"She really did it," Jason said in surprise.
"What?"
"Lana, she said she took scans of something I built to piss off the Marines and sent it to the Ministry of Technology. I didn't think anything of it."
"Can I see this device you built?" he asked. "Exactly how does it work?"
"It's nothing but a supersonic emitter," he told him, digging into his pack, for they were still inside it. "I read about the metal the Faey use in their armor and found out it has an acoustic signature, so I built an emitter that used the armor as a speaker. I hooked it to a proximity sensor so the sound got stronger they closer they got to me." He handed the tiny device to Ailan.
Ailan was quiet a moment, turning the little black disc over in his supple, long-fingered hand, then he laughed. "It would feel like ants crawling all over them," he realized, then he grinned. "That's devious!"
"Lana thought so," Jason chuckled.
"May I keep this for a few days?"
"Sure," he agreed.
"I think I need to find more challenging projects for you, if you can build something this small," he said with a sly smile.
"The first thing the professor I had in Boston taught us was how to burn circuits in laminar board in Control Systems I," he answered, referring to the classes that taught moleculartronic theory and application. "She started with boardwork and worked up. Tim's in your class, and from what he told me, you seem to start with major components and work down."
"She taught you boardwork right off?" he asked in surprise.
He nodded. "She had a class of people who were in engineering before the subjugation," he explained. "Since we all had experience with electronic circuitry, she started us off on moleculartronic circuitry. She taught us so much that I tested out of Control II. It worked pretty well, actually. We all learned about trinary a lot faster since we started with how it operated on the board."
Moleculartronic technology was the technology they used for their computers and other sophisticated devices. It used polarity-phased plasma as a power source, like electricity, and behaved remarkably like electronics did. Molecuartronic circuits were built on boards of laminated titanium, and the alignment of the molucular structure of the board was what channeled plasma flow to the components which were annealed to it. Moleculartronic components were circuits built of silicon, germanium, titanium, and certain alloys of light metals and annealed to the board, again using the alignment of the molecular structure of the crystallized silicon and crystallized metals to serve as the digital circuit. It was sort of digital, actually, since they didn't use "on or off" binary logic like human electronic computers did. They had a trinary logic system, composed of positive, neutral, and negative, the three states in which a molecule could be aligned. Memory was a simple matter of setting aside a section of a chip for storing data, or chips that served solely as memory storage devices, where data existed within the molecular alignment of the matter of the device itself. Every single molecule in the internal structure of a moleculartronic component was a part of the chip's processing power or memory. With moleculartronics, a single chip had more processing power than a mainframe. A single moleculartronic circuit board had the power of a supercomputer. Jason's panel, a moleculartronic device, was like carrying around ten Cray supercomputers, and his panel was considered small. The microprocessor in the device in Ailan's hand had more computing power than the most sophisticated desktop personal computer any human ever built.
"I wondered why you weren't in a logic class this semester," he chuckled. "They don't teach Control III in the spring, so you had no place to go."
He nodded.
"Oh, I meant to ask, how did you do that melting the armor trick?" he asked.
"That was easy," he said with a scoff. "I had chemistry last sememster, Professor. Vandirium armor reacts with tetrasodium bisulfate and recombines to form gaseous sodium bivandirium sulfate and titanium bisodium oxide. I just made up a solution mixed in with a little something to make it revert to gas when it came into contact with nitrogen, and put it in a jar."
Ailan laughed. "How did you figure that out?"
"I didn't. My chemistry teacher last semester did that as an experiment. I just remembered how he did it, that's all."
Ailan gave him a sly look, then chuckled. "I heard that you made peace with the Marines. I heard that their post commandant personally ordered arbitration. You sorta won."
"Geez, where do you get all this, Professor?" he asked in surprise.
"My wife is a major in the Marines," he revealed. "She works in the commandant's office. From what I heard, Monday, after she heard about that Army unit that tried to put you in that dog collar, the order came down right of the commandant's office that it stops. They were going to send in the company commander, but the squad Lieutenant requested permission to do the negotiating."
He grunted. "Well, I had to give in on the date, but I got a guarantee that it stops afterward," he said. "I can live with that."
"What stops? You shouldn't close your mind on the idea of a Faey girlfriend, Jason. Our races are so similar we're virtually identical. We're not alien aliens," he said with a sly wink.
"You're right," Jason said evenly, hoisting his pack over his shoulder. "You're just conquerors."
Ailan said no more. There was nothing that he could say to that, and allowed Jason to leave unchallenged.